To improve the element of teaching, I recently read the book “The Wild Card” by Hope and Wade King, the book discusses 7 steps to a creative breakthrough for teachers and classrooms. This book affirmed somethings I was doing well and some things I realize was redundant to my students and struggled to find another way, hence the idea of a breakthrough to creatively add more to my teaching and classes.
I’m not artistically creative as I would like to be, though I do enjoy making things with my husband, and learning new things all the time, such as this website, www.Theteachelement.com is a new venture project I web design and I can say it’s looking good, being that I do have a lot of support from www.Teacherspayteachers.com masterclass resources, (A new term I have seen only recently), and some support from family members who do web design and SEO, anyways on with the book.
The book first wants you to analyze the question of WHY? Why are you in the teaching field? Why do you choose the subjects you teach, most of all, why are you there? Both authors also add their input to their childhood through professional backgrounds. The issue in this book is creativity, so there are important benchmarks that need to be understood on the issue of creativity.
Creativity is a personal brand, you can observe a teacher and use certain ideas that teacher used, but if you try to copy it 100%, it's not you and it’s not authentic, it seems redundant. Furthermore, when a resource is copied as a script it becomes a barrier to creativity. It’s like presenting to an audience by reading an essay for the first time. A brand is what you design in your teaching platform, using resources to incorporate in your own platform. Such as, your facial expressions, additional hand gestures, body language/movements for emphasis and specific inflections. For example, I personally sometimes add rhythmic sign/body movements in my ASL, to add some fun to the key points of the lesson. Rhythmic movements in ASL is a research proven method for early childhood language acquisition.
For the idea of teaching with creativity, it’s important that teachers incorporate themselves and their teaching brands. To prevent barriers to creativity the book states, it’s important that you don’t listen to the joker, within yourself. It might feel funny at first, but it’s you developing your brand. (remember my rhythmic movements, looks great in an early childhood classroom, but it works well in elementary content subjects too, it came naturally, it felt great, and there was no joker.) Do what you need to, change the dialogue, if it didn’t work well the first time, try again, creativity drives engagement, but it takes the discovery of the teacher in you, to find your brand.
Creativity is a mindset; you need to practice growth mindset with your teaching. Say I’ll try instead of, simply I can’t, what am I doing right? How can I fix this to make the lesson better? Being reflective to your own teaching should take place every day. For things you felt great about and things that you feel not so skilled. Reflection on your own teaching will help you build your brand and improve your creativity in the classroom. With reflection, you are allowing progress, experience and your own personality incorporated in your teaching growth. It will also lead you in a direction that you want with your creativity skills.
On my next blog I will discuss resources that work with creative breakthroughs while teaching.