Week Two: The Element

Creativity comes in many different facets. Creativity can be seen clearly in painting, writing, dancing, decorating; really anything that allows people to glimpse at a person in a different light. After watching the two TED talks on Education and Creativity and reading The Element I rewound through my own childhood and found many examples that tie into the points made by both of these sources. When I was younger I did it all; dance, choir, band, art elective, theater, and if you were to open one of my notebooks from any given subject my name would be written ten times in different fonts, colors, and boasting different designs. I loved creating something from nothing. Whether that be a dance when I was six or a competition routine for cheer at sixteen. My room is color coordinated with pictures and sayings written in loopy teenage handwriting. I love creating my environment. I cannot imagine being told to stop by my parents, who instead of denying creative energy, fostered it.

It scares me to think that as a whole our society is teaching students to only value the skills such as math and sciences. The TED talk made me extremely proud to go to a school like Gonzaga because even though I really hated Music 171, I took it and to my dismay I learned from it. When I was a junior in high school I opted to take a zero hour religion course so I could still include choir in my day. I knew I could not go through a whole day without some way to express what I was feeling though creative means. 

One of the points made in the talk was that creativity helps learning. In my Anatomy & Physiology course senior year I used to rewrite songs with the names of the skeletal system in place of Lady Gagas lyrics. I would trade A Fine Frenzys  words in for the different parts of the human heart. These little ways to learn were creative, they helped the information stick. When are people going to realize that creativity can lead to greater things, in some instances, than math?

In this video that I am using as my image for this week there are a couple numbers I want to highlight. Number 14 says never give up. People are not supposed to tell you that you should quit and I am lucky enough to have people in my life who would never dream of asking me to do that. So do not give in. Number 16 says make mistakes. Go ahead, you will learn from mistakes. Mistakes are a part of life and creativity. I try and do at least three of these things per day. I never want to lose my creative ability because then I would not be Caitlyn Rosellini. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1E4aeCTg7s