And it seems like school does this all the time, especially when it comes to arts education. They focus on one thing, one thing thats really one one-millionth of the subject as a whole, until you almost forget whatever God given talent you had to begin with. They focus on the tiny little technical aspects until the only good thing left in your writing is your ability to place commas.
While schools won't ever be able to "teach" talent per-say, they're doing a really sucky job at letting their students know the importance of following your gut. Not only have they mixed in the talentless with the prodigies, but they've failed at letting the prodigies know that it's okay to go with your intuition sometimes when you really think it's going to work. School's just mixed everyone into a big melting pot of prison food. I would like no more, sir.
That's one of the best things about Reed's workshop. He's not pretending that he can teach you how to write. He knows that writing well is something that comes from within. He teaches you ways to work on letting yourself get to the point where your writing becomes you. (Or where you become your writing.) He gives time and prompts to work on becoming creatively free, and he gives you critiques to let you know when you've just gotten a bit too creative. It's that delicate balance that makes for a good workshop.
Again, a good post from you.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree.
An eye opening moment for me happened last year, with Kadambari Suri. It was the first few days of STAC, and I gave some assignment, and kids were asking a lot of questions, especially newbies. And Kadambari asked something, I forgot what, and my reply was along the lines of, "well, you'll just have to figure that out yourself. If you feel it's right, then it's right. Just trust yourself a bit. I'm sure what you do will be right." Later that night I received an email from her. She had said in all her time in the school system, no one ever told her anything like that, to trust herself.
To me, this was a stunning thing to hear, because it seems to be essential to the work of the artist and the growth of an individual into an adult.
I've kept this in mind since then, and it has colored the way I approach education immensely. Where teaching gets hard for me is striking the balance between how much do I show and tell, and how much do I let you all flounder and wander.
We're in the flounder and wander stage of things now.
I think I'm going to make this a blog post.
Luke