It's easy for you. You're creative: The six words of chapter 4 in Teach Like a Pirate

Have you ever heard those words? It's easy for you. You're creative. How do you respond and do you agree? Chapter 4 is Ask and Analyze. We all are creative, we just have to ask the right questions and analyze ourselves and our lessons.

People have this false idea that either you are creative or you are not. They put people into these two categories. What they fail to see that being creative takes work. We are not born creative. We work towards this.

As the great Michelangelo has said:

"If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my master, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all"

 

Michelangelo

When you are on the outside looking at the finished product, it is easy to say wow, they are so creative and assume that it comes natural. Those looking in from the outside do not see all of the hard work that goes into our "creativity".

Asking the right question will assist with your creativity. Analyzing our lessons will also assist. It is important that we look back on what we have done and look to see what worked and didn't work. I always stress to the teachers that I have mentored or to my student teachers that self reflection is vital for the success in our classroom. It is through self reflection that we grow as an educator!

Then we look at our failures. It is ok to fail. We all do. We then take these opportunities and use the feedback and create better activities, make us a better educator.

We must remember that it is ok to have a life outside of the classroom. Taking our experiences and weaving them into our classroom will increase our passion and enthusiasm.