Brinkman. David J.

(2010) Teaching creatively and teaching for creativity,

Taylor and Francis Group, 48-50
This article was about what made a good teacher. Brinkman says that a good
teacher is someone that can combine musical artistry, and the art of teaching, with
creativity. However there are two different kinds of creativity, big C and little c. Big C
is normally associated with Beethoven, or Stravinsky, or other big composers. This
intimidates most students from doing anything creative. However, with little c
creativity, most people do it every day without really thinking about it because its
every day creativity. Its possible to structure education or work so that they
include opportunities, motivations, and rewards for creative success. (Brinkman.
2010) (p. 48) This quote is saying that its very important for people with more
power to create places where creativity is encouraged. Some places, such as
theory, jazz ensemble, and composition class, are much easier to encourage a
creative environment. In other places, such as in ensembles, teachers want
everyone to be the same. This is the complete opposite of what creativity is,
because its how everyone is different than each other. For example, teachers
usually describe staccatos with adjectives that mean the same thing, such as
punch, stab, etc. This shows creativity because as similar as all the answers are,
they give slightly different ways to play the same thing. Brinkman goes on to talk
about how teachers should be able to think creatively so that they can teach their
students how to think creatively. If thinking creatively doesnt get taught, music in
school is going to die out because music is not music without creativity.
I agreed with so much of this article, because most of the courses in school
teach you how to memorize things, and then regurgitate it when asked. Life doesnt
work like that, and nothing in life is going to be in a perfect cookie cutter form. I
especially liked the part that was talking about standardized testing, because those
dont teach anything other than how to memorize. No one is going to remember the
literacy test, or how it was beneficial to us (on second thought it really wasnt, the
teachers that came in to talk about it actually said try to use words that are easy to
spell, instead of promoting showing off your spelling capabilities.) I really like the
idea of encouraging creative thinking in students because there will be tons of ways
to solve the same problems.