Beginning the adventure

Hi, My name is September Buys.  I am a teacher in Greenville, Michigan. This is the very first post on my blog about a little experiment I'm conducting called "Creative Endeavors".  I've been meaning to set this up for some time now and now I've finally done it! I hope that people will share and comment on this project. Collaboration is vital to the success of this work.

The idea for the class started two springs ago. I was introduced to a book called "The Global Achievement Gap: Why even our best schools don't teach the new survival skills our children need - and what we can do about it" by Tony Wagner.

In it, he wrote about the seven skills schools need to be giving our kids in order to compete in our new creative economy.  I had heard our superintendent had given a copy of this very book to all of our building administrators. I began to think big (as I too often do, despite the self induced stress I cause when I do that) and I put together a little presentation to show the heads of our school.    I was proposing that we look at all of the research out there that is supporting these same ideas and make radical changes.  I was offering to serve as a "creativity coach" for the teachers in our district and help them learn how to teach creative problem solving skills. Here's a copy of my creative coach proposal.

Like a lot of my ideas, it was just too ambitious.  I received my figurative "pat on the head" and I returned to my art classroom.  It was about the same time that an "encore" or elective opening became available in our middle school. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I physically ran (ok, maybe quickly walked) down to my principal's office when she sent out an email asking for "suggestions on offerings for different kinds of classes".

I teach in a fairly large rural school district. When I started here in 2001, there were two art teaching positions for our 900+ 6th - 8th grade students.  Michigan, like many states, has had some economic struggles over the past decade and one of our art positions had been cut as a result.  As the only art teacher for some time, I found it frustrating that there were so many kids that wanted to have an art experience, but just couldn't fit it in their schedule.  I offered as much as I could, after school gifted programs, weekly art club meetings, private lessons, workshops for special populations (art therapy for the emotionally impaired, team teaching workshops for the cognitively impaired) during my lunch or planning time . But there was only one of me and over 900 of them.  What's an art teacher to do?

But now, there was an opening.  I knew asking for another art teacher wouldn't be enough.  My principal wanted "different" classes so that kids would have more options.  So, I thought, what if I focused on teaching creativity?  That can't be so hard, right?  I could use all of my research on creative education and experience teaching art to help me.  I could focus on idea development over skill development.  We could fill the position with a new art teacher to cover art history, art careers  and observational drawing. The proposal worked.

Welcome to my adventure.