Kind of a sore point with me. Circa 1960 I was in the sixth grade ( I remember the teacher ) and we were given an in-class “art” assignment to create an imaginative creature. It seems to me that we used cut out construction paper, because I remember my creation as composed of a rectangular body, a semi-circular head, and short strips for antenna-like ears and four legs. I called it the “hiccupper” and drew little footprints for its tracks as it hiccupped its way along.
The teacher reviewed our creations, and cited several of them for exceptional creativity, not including mine. I confronted her, and demanded to know in what ways my creation was deficient in creativity, as I was quite taken with it myself. She was not hesitant to explain. The main thing I remember is that she pointed out that it had four legs, which was not creative. My thought was, “What do you want?” but I withdrew in submission.
To this day, I refuse to relinquish the conviction that I am a creative soul.
I actually was a child prodigy and excelled at art ...however when I hit 7th grade a biology teacher held up my drawing of cells or pigs guts or whatever and said offhand to the class “this student will never be an artist”
The kids that knew me and remembered my child prodigy phase all laughed
Im still involved in the art world
“To this day, I refuse to relinquish the conviction that I am a creative soul.”
Boy do I empathize with you. I was in the 4th grade in 1960 and I well remember the Art teacher, Mrs. Walshinak, who never considered any of my art work worthy of hanging up in the showcase. To this day, and I am edging towards 58 years old, I have never forgotten how awful I felt since I considered myself creative and imaginative. lol.. oh well. I think every kid should have a chance of having their art work displayed, particularly if you worked hard on it. But creativity being on the decline has more to do with lack of interest I think, on the part of the student, and probably a sense of panic since public school is mostly standardized testing which does not encourage thinking for oneself.
When I was in about third grade, I made a turkey out of colored construction paper. Noticing that it was unstable on its two rolled-up paper legs, I added a third.
It caused me to wonder why Mother Nature didn’t see it that way.
...oy vey.
That’s like saying that a story isn’t creative because it uses the Hero’s Journey.