Ok, last post from me for a few hours...I have work to do! LOL But this article captured my attention. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-unleash-your-creativity As an artist and writer, I agree with this statement...not so sure about the misfit comment, however! LOL: When children are very young, they all express creativity, but by the end of the first grade, very few do so. This is because of socialization. They learn in school to stay on task and to stop daydreaming and asking silly questions. As a result, the expression of new ideas is largely shut down. We end up leaving creative expression to the misfits—the people who can’t be socialized. It’s a tragedy. But I know that tapping my creativity has been a HUGE struggle for me, and it's refreshing to think that there are ways that, as a homeschooling family, we can encourage our boys to remain creative...and without making them misfits in the process! (BTW, when my dad found out I wanted a degree in art, he was like, "You know you're going to have to find something to fall back on, right?")
Hey, my dad said the same thing when I thought about majoring in archeology. LOL. I tend to agree with the article myself. I don't care for the term misfits...but if a misfit in today's society is a critically and creatively thinking person then I guess I am raising misfits! LOL. I do think a love for learning and creativity is often stomped out of kids early in their education. thanks for the article!
:lol: That just really cracked me up! My dh was c0-teaching a class and my boys were participating and the ps kids were being total losers and disrupting the class by asking stupid questions trying to get attention. So for that statement, ya-right!
Kari, have you ever read Tomi DePaola's book, "The Art Lesson"? If not, you should! It's a picture book. It addresses this very issue in a little kid way!
That is something great to know. I am going to email it to my "misfit" sister and her matching daughter. They will love it. I always wondered why we lost the creative parts of our personality. Its when we became robots in school.
I can remember a time in 2nd grade when we were given a page with pictures that were incomplete and we were to finish the drawings. One was of a boy where there was a shirt in the drawing, two little lines protruding from under the shorts at the sides, then the legs up to the mid thighs were showing with the middle part missing. I finished the drawing as if it was a somewhat anotomically correct boy wearing only a shirt. I had drawn a little elongated "U" to indicate a male member. I can still remember the teacher scolding me about what I drew. I can remember asking something like "if they wanted me to draw pants why didn't they put the waste band or part of the pants legs in the picture, and "why they had a belly button in the picture" Her answer was something like " if I see anything else like this I will tell your parents". Well this gets better... This conversation had taken place out loud in front of the other students. A couple of girl freinds I rode the same bus with and had known since Kindergarten were close enough to see the drawing as the teacher held it and questioned me about it. One informed me that my picture was wrong because it did not have "balls". There was then discussion amongst us as to how to drawn males etc etc etc. When were in the library at school a couple of days later, we were gathered around a table with encyclopeadias, books of renasainnce sculpture photographs, and other reference materials settling the issue of what looks like. As you might imagine, our academic research was cut short with more threats, once a horrified librarian saw what we were looking at. So much for getting information from reliable sources. So much for using the library in ones quest for knowledge. So much for creativity and thinking for ones self.
As a sculptor myself, I place a high value on imagination and creativity. My children all have VIVID imaginations. We read a lot and the tv shows we watch are usually on Animal Planet or Discovery or something. The kids spend almost all of their waking hours pretending. I want it to always be so, hence the discision to HS. I actually agree with the misfit thing...I have a tshirt that says, "You all laugh because I'm differant. I laugh because you're all the same." I think a big part of homeschooling is the intent to raise yound adults who can think for themselves, without consulting twenty peers to make sure it's cool. In that, they are misfits, because they are not following the crowd. I want my kids to be differant. I was at the salon yesterday, waiting for my turn in the stylists chair. Another stylist and her customer were discussing the their children, and how dence and unimaginative they are. I nearly cried. I though maybe thay should kick the kids outside to play more often. Frankly though, if the current standards are the norm, then I will take "misfit" anyday of the week. Trish
Someone asked if my dc were being socialized so I put that question back at them. What does socialization mean to you? People normally can't come up with an intelligent answer when you ask.
