Unlocking Creativity in the Classroom: Reflections from an Artist-in-Residence
TRANSCRIPT
My name's Talia Randall, and last summer, I started a sort of pilot artist in residency program with Theatre Centre at Addy and Stanhope School in South London. If you listen closely, you can probably hear my dog, Stevie in the background, vying for my attention, but I think she can let me go for a few minutes, so I can tell you a little bit about the project.
When I say pilot project, it really was a pilot project. We went into the school without really knowing too much about what we wanted to do. We just know that it could be interesting to put an artist in a school for a few sessions and explore, kind of well, we didn't. My background is in writing, performance and, more recently, audio producing.
So we knew we had that in the background, but we thought the first thing we should do would be to find a suitable department for me to sort of snoop around. We decided to go with the science department, and as someone who didn't do too well in science and didn't enjoy it that much at school, I was really, really excited, because I thought this would be a great opportunity for me to learn about an area that I don't really know much about, even though I've worked with schools for more than 15 years, it's mostly been in the sort of arts, humanities, extracurricular intervention type spaces. The main thing we wanted to do was to explore what is creativity and where can we find it. And when you think about science, the essence of that subject really is creativity. But I really wanted to see if the students felt this way and if the teachers felt this way.
Usually, when I go into a school, I have a project plan, an outcome planned. I kind of know exactly what I want to achieve. But this was really different, as I said before, pilot project, so it took us a while to figure out what I might do. It was an interesting way for me to work, and I think an unusual way for a school to work, which, because they're under so much pressure, the timetable is quite regimented. There's just so much to do. So I decided to record a couple of focus groups with teachers and students. I really wanted to find out, like I said, what they think about creativity? Does science feel like a creative subject? Where do you find creativity in a school? And also, is creativity actually important for them? I obviously think it is. It's a huge part of my life, and I think it's the kind of key to everything. But I couldn't assume that other people felt this way.
As the project developed, I had quite grand plans to do some quite grand projects. I wanted to do a big kind of interactive graffiti wall. I wanted to do lots of site specific recordings in the school. I also wanted to do a sort of headphone verbatim theatre piece based on some of the recordings I did, so that teachers could embody the words of students, and students can embody the words of teachers, but my brain can sometimes fly off in a million different directions and not really appreciate time scales, external pressures and what other people have in mind. So I ended up creating a sort of evaluative, kind of almost like a kind of private podcast based on some of the focus group recordings that I did, so that teachers and students can listen to that in the school and kind of get those impressions.
The main thing that I really felt was that sometimes, when you're in a school as a student, which I think most of us can remember, or as a teacher or someone that works with young people, sometimes it can feel like your aims are at odds with each other. It can be frustrating as a student, I certainly remember this in science, to meet certain goals and learn certain things. And I know it can be frustrating for a teacher to just achieve all those things, but the main thing that I found was that the feelings, the frustrations, the ambitions of the students and the staff were really aligned, and they all wanted to have more space for creativity in the classroom, to recognise it in themselves, to recognise it in others, and I hope that in them, listening to what I've made for them, they'll be able to kind of feel a bit more part of the same team. Because, you know, when you're a teenager, sometimes it can feel like no one is so I hope that, that that becomes a useful resource for the school
In terms of bigger personal reflections that I made, I think that schools and that all places where young people are or where people are really there is a bubbling creativity under the surface, but many people don't know how to unlock that, and it can is something that can and should be taught, but there are so many external factors that can dampen that, so it's kind of a continued part of my mission, I guess, or big part of my practice, is to help people see that in themselves, see that in the communities that they're in. It's not something that you necessarily need a lot of fancy resources to activate, just the main thing is time, really time and making sure that everyone's basic needs are met first, which, as we all know, in this current climate, can be a bit of a challenge.
My own feelings are also that we can't separate schools from wider social economic issues and creativity isn't always something that is respected, and I think that top down cultural shift needs to happen, as Well as those bottom up grassroots activations in order for children and for people in schools to flourish more than they already are, because we have this assumption that creativity is something that might be fluffy and nice and extra, but actually it's essential part of everything. Something that was great was how much the young people were recognising that you need creativity, for maths, for re, for PE, for science. It exists on the playground, in English, in history, in all of the different subjects we we decided that we could find something. It's just that it needed a bit more unearthing. I don't think that's to do with how the teachers are teaching in the school. I think they're doing a really great job. I think that's to do with societal attitudes to creativity as something extra, instead of it being a core component of our survival, basically. But, you know, that's just me.
Like I said, That's my dog, you know, in the background, wanting me to take her on a walk, so I better go.
Thanks for listening.
