"No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity." ( Julia Cameron)
I am no expert on teaching nor on creativity. But just over a year ago, in the midst of feeling jaded by life and feeling quite dark and alone despite being surrounded daily with the beautiful first grade children I was teaching, I opened an email which invited elementary teachers to apply to attend the first annual Arts Academy for Teachers at Brigham Young University. Immediately, I thought of all the very creative teachers I work with and thought that they should apply for this. If I were more creative, I would apply. Throughout the following week, thoughts of the Arts Academy wouldn't leave my mind. I finally convinced myself to fill out the application and send it in. I wasn't expecting to be accepted. By some miracle I was accepted into the program!
The first day we met, I realized I was in a room filled with music, visual arts and theater teachers and specialists. I was just a regular classroom teacher. I felt intimidated and a bit foolish for being there. But I soon learned that these wonderful people spoke a language that my heart understood. It was such a safe environment and the more I allowed myself to take creative risks the more I was tapping into something deep inside myself.
There is something about switching from the role of being teacher to one of student. In the Arts Academy program we were being asked to allow ourselves to let loose and be creative as we were comfortable in doing. We drew, painted, danced, played musical instruments, wrote and filmed our own short movies and did theater games. It was scary taking risks and letting go of worrying what I looked like. I found, though, when I did, there was an amazing energy, light, and total happiness that filled me! I would come back to work from going to my classes and tell my girlfriends that these classes were cathartic. It was like going to a retreat once a month and coming back filled with light and wonder and creative ideas that I couldn't wait to share with my own students.
When I began to see how much my heart had changed, how my outlook on life had improved from using my creativity, I needed to learn more. It was about that same time that I was told about the master's program of Integrating the Arts in Education at Lesley University in Boston. I knew that I must be a part of this program. I applied and was accepted within a couple of weeks. I was never so sure of something before.
I started my Master's program a year ago, and the time has literally flown by. I can't believe we will be done in January of 2009. I truly believe that teaching through the arts taps into a spiritual aspect of ones soul. I have witnessed it in myself and with my own students. I believe that this will be the next movement in education. As one of my favorite authors states "...as we are creative beings, our lives become our work of art." (Julia Cameron)
Creativity is our true nature, it is what is spiritual inside of us, and by using our creativity we are tapping into that which is divine and innate within us. (It is interesting to note the words creativity and Creator.) The possibilities are endless. Our biggest obstacles to overcome are to slow down, turn off the noise around us, shut off our minds and listen to our hearts, and allow the creativity to flow. I'll leave with a thought from Albert Einstein on this subject, "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
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