Learning Creativity by Ezra

Learning Creativity by Ezra - June 2018 Scholarship Essay

How could assignments like, “Light and Form Cast,” “Exploration of Negative Space,” or even something as strange as, “Epic Doodle” be considered helpful or even educational? This was the question I was continually asking myself as I sat on the hard stools in my high school art building. I was currently in an Early College Experience art elective class. The assignments I mentioned earlier were all a part of the syllabus our teacher prepared for us. While sitting on my stool thinking about anything and everything but art I was wrenched from my thoughts as my teacher threw his ruler down onto the table with a loud BANG! I just stared at him for a few seconds before, to my shock, he reached out picked up the ruler and again threw it hard against the table. The next time he reached out to pick up the ruler, he grabbed the end of it and started using it as a drumstick on the table, beating out a simple rhythm. He then began attempting to freestyle rap. Although calling what he did “rap” is generous.
After spending a few weeks in his class, I learned quickly that this was normal behavior. It was behavior that was also paired with many other strange habits, like challenging the students to arm wrestling matches or randomly breaking into song or dance. Our instructor was clearly unique, but not, as I also learned, in a frustrating or annoying way. He was just different. As the year went on, I grew more used to his oddities and the strange sounding activities he assigned us. I even began to enjoy some of them. I started relishing delving into the complex world of negative space in art or trying my hand at “epic doodling.” I also started realizing that it was getting easier and easier to accomplish these strange tasks. What started off as a painstaking process of taking a blank sheet of paper and turning it into some form of art soon became simpler, almost second nature, to me.
I did not realize the significance of this until I was in an English class, again looking at a blank sheet of paper. However, instead of an artistic goal set out in front of me, my teacher had laid out a writing prompt for an essay. My first instinct was panic. I had no idea how to take the prompt she had given me and use it to form an essay. But then, to my surprise, I began writing. I took the prompt and paper, and words started flowing through my mind out onto the page. I was shocked with how easily I could organize my thoughts into a cohesive and creative answer to the prompt given. It suddenly struck me that, somehow, my odd art teacher was responsible for this. As I sat in that art class again the following day, I realized what the connection between the two classes was: creativity. What drove my art teacher to attempt freestyle rapping every chance he got, what made the art class slowly get easier and more enjoyable, and what made my writing so much better was creativity.
The ability to visualize a problem, realize the solution, and actualize the final result is founded in a creative spirit. My art teacher was a genius who taught me, albeit through some unconventional means, the power of creativity. He laid the groundwork in his class with all his strange antics and assignments and then allowed me to discover its worth in my other courses. I started to relish my art teacher’s unique outbursts and strange assignments. To me, it was the proof that creativity flowed through him as he taught, dancing around the room, and as he created beautiful works of art. Art seems to do that for people. It opens parts of the mind impossible to reach with other subjects. I am convinced that the best ground for growing the seeds of creativity is in an art class with a strange teacher who cannot stop singing. Creativity not only helped me write an excellent essay, but it also taught how to problem solve which is essential for every person who seeks to enter a problem filled world. Everyone will experience problems in this world. It is the creative person however, who will be able to find solutions and answers to these problems. Learning creativity starts with your education, and more specifically, I believe creativity is taught best through art electives. To me this is more than enough reason to require everyone to take at least one art elective during their education.