Welby Ings is an award winning designer, filmmaker and playwright, with his short film ‘Boy’ short listed for the 2006 Academy Awards. An elected Fellow of the British Royal Society of Arts and consultant to many international organisations on issues of creativity and learning, Welby is now a Professor in Design at Auckland University of Technology. Having taught at all levels of the New Zealand education system, he has remained an outspoken critic of dehumanised systems of learning. In 2001 he was awarded the Prime Minister’s inaugural Supreme Award for Tertiary Teaching Excellence.
Tag: creativity
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That strange quiet kid
But they do their work. They get on well enough with others. They coast through the year, and by the end of the following year you’ve already forgotten them.
This here is a story of what I would consider one of those kids. She even describes her highschool years as “very dedicated, very studious, very disciplined” but also “a bit insecure” as she told in an interview, “I used to get made fun of for being either too provocative or too eccentric, so I started to tone it down. I didn’t fit in, and I felt like a freak.”
Fast forward to 2016, and this eccentric, provocative, insecure girl has just performed the most loud, proud, and magnificent performance on a world stage.
As the 50th Super Bowl kicks off, the voice of Lady Gaga, accompanied beautifully by the soft chimes of a piano, rings out around Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara as she sings the National Anthem of her country. There is no bravado. No arrogance. No ego. No overperforming. No bizarre meat dress. Nothing weird. Just a simple, humble voice piercing the aura of the occasion, and reaching in and touching hearts around the stadium and the world.
[su_note note_color=”#f4f4f4″]Apologies, but the NFL has insisted that the content only be played on Youtube. Please click the video to watch it there.[/su_note]
As tears roll down her cheeks, you can see that this isn’t just about singing the National Anthem. This isn’t just the sense of occasion on the world’s biggest stage. This isn’t a show, or even a performance. This is much more than that. This is that small, quiet, insecure, weird kid in the class making it.
And making it big.
Not a single note falls out of place. Not a note out of time, or a word unfinished. Not a miscued start, not a preempted moment. She conducts herself, and works seamlessly with her accompaniment throughout the stops, pauses, pianissimo, forte, and crescendos. She softens her tone and draws everyone in, then belts out the strongest line flawlessly. She connects with everyone in the stadium. The players forget about singing, and even the reason they are there. Their coach’s hearts melted, and tears appear in the eyes of the toughest of men on the field.
As the middle of the anthem hits home, you get the feeling that the glamour and glitz of her career are now forgotten. The 28 million albums she has sold are incredibly insignificant, as are her 6 Grammy Awards.
No. This is Lady Gaga making it on the world stage.
So, I implore you, as a teacher; never ignore the weird kid. Never underestimate the quiet, insecure kid. Don’t quash the creative kid, just because they aren’t “academic”.
Here is a determined, powerful woman showing the world how it’s done. She has embraced her individuality, enhanced her creativity, mastered her skills, and blown the world away with her passion, her drive, her voice, and her ability to make the most of the once in a lifetime opportunity.
Hashtag: #Made_It.
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Excellence
“Why is it that we introduce painting and music to primary school students before they can read? The arts are a part of a universal human language, whether music, dance, drama or the physical fine arts.” (Education Horizons, p13)
A recent article, To create or not to create; is this really the question? in Education Horizons (Daniels, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2008, pp13-14) outlined the seemingly lack of importance placed in the arts in our education system. Mirrored by the lack of funding from the Ministry (MoE) and the attitudes displayed in the schools and in the curriculum, its importance is wavering; its relevance getting lost in the political agendas of various sectors of the educational system.
Often art (as in visual art) is ‘dumbed’ down as a subject. Its widely promoted as if anyone can take it at any time as a way to make up credits. Gone are the days where training to be an artist took years, even decades and the “fine art” has been lost with the dawn of modernism and mass production.
The article in question raises several valid points and speaks volumes as an argument for the importance of art, especially visual art, to be better recognized in the balance of the New Zealand education system. However it overlooks various parts of artistic practice which do align with other areas of the curriculum.“Strive for excellence all you want. The talented students will always succeed. All I ask is that you offer the rest of us the opportunity to shine by boosting funding to the arts faculties in schools so that we can help students increase their sense of self-worth and self-esteem. We all need to lose ourselves in imagination and dreams sometimes. As wonderful as out technological world is, without human imagination and creativity, life is stilted, one dimensional and deprived of soul.” (Daniels, p14)
What this is suggesting is exactly the point I raised before. It is promoting art as a subject for those of us who aren’t so-called “academic”. But why? Why place that stereotype on the arts and use it as an argument to validate its existence in the school environment? Why suggest that there are no “talented” students in the art department; that it’s purely made up of “the rest of us”? Whilst it is more than common that art students brains are more right sided and the “academics” in Mathematics or Science who are left sided, this does not mean that students who are more creative can’t achieve excellence in their given field. They can still strive for that excellence. Place a scientist in an art department, and that same level of excellence is unlikely to be reached, just as an art student could struggle to reach the same levels in science if the roles were to be reversed.
The reason this type of reasoning falls apart is because art is subjective, the work produced often is a result of a process that is explored, rather than a right or wrong answer at the end of the day. The science buff is able to complete an artwork, and although it may not be highly skilled or technically accurate, the process leads to a result that is considered as art, and the level of excellence is only relevant to that student.
In my opinion, and it is only that, is that there are students who achieve to a high degree of excellence in art. That does not mean they are mediocre students or that they aren’t talented. Students who take art are still able to succeed and produce excellent work, and can be “academics” in their own field. I think that the article itself seemed to be making an excuse for not reaching excellence, rather than outlining the fact that there is still excellence in every subject area, and art is no different.Daniels, R. (2008) To create or not to create; is this really the question? In Education Horizons; Journal of Excellence in Teaching, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2008.
‘Till next time…