When I was a Freshman in college, I was a journalism major. My parents owned the local newspaper (a small hometown weekly), and I had "big plans" to be a journalist of some kind. Obviously, those plans changed...and I'm glad they did...but that is a story for another time. One of the classes I took was a photography class. Back in the days before digital photography, taking a photography class meant that you not only learned about how to use a camera and tips on composition, etc.; you also had to learn how to work in the darkroom and develop your own prints. I thought this class would be easy, because I had been doing this work for years as a high school student. I had taken hundreds of photos for the newspaper and had spent countless hours in the darkroom developing film and printing pictures. What I thought was going to be an easy class, turned out to be more difficult than I thought. I learned that there was SO much more to the ART of photography and how creativity played such an important role in the process. Nobody wants to look at a boring photograph, so our professor encouraged us to use unleash our creativity and see what we could come up with. He was a bit of a perfectionist, and also a harsh critic...but as it turned out, we needed a bit of both of those in order for us to be successful.
The first few photographs that I turned in were ordinary. They were technically okay, but not all that interesting. One day, I got some of my prints back and the professor had written BORING....in large red pen on the grading page. For a few moments, my feelings were hurt. I thought...how dare he criticize my effort, I had completed the assignment as requested. I had put forth the effort and, after all, I wasn't really learning anything in this class. I could already operate a camera and develop photos better than any other student in the class.
Then it struck me...photography wasn't just about being proficient, it was about unleashing my inner creativity. I had to figure out a way to do something NEW and different. Once I realized this, everything changed for me from an artistic point of view. I began to see the world of photography from a new perspective. It also awakened a larger appreciation of art in me. The artwork we have in our home today, and that we have collected over the years is a direct result of that inspiration. Art is something that awakens our emotions...and the same is true for good teaching; because good teaching IS an art.
For us as educators, I think the implications for this are obvious. While we may be good at the mechanics of teaching, and while we may really understand our subject matter, sometimes those elements alone are just not good enough. In order to cross the boundary from a mediocre teacher to a great teacher, one has to reach down into themselves and find that creative spark. To find that spark, you have to be willing to take a risk, and possibly fail, before you get it right. You have to be willing to look at something from an entirely new perspective...do things that are bold and out of your comfort zone.
Remember, the people who make the biggest splash in the pond, threw the biggest rocks. Try something new...make some waves. Be creative...then sit back and see what happens. You might end up being surprised at what you can accomplish when you take the chains off of yourself and allow your own natural creativity to guide you.