Is a dung sculpted by child creativity? Protagonist mural.

Long time ago when I held a respectable job different from the collection of cushions, I found on the  Purchasing Director´s desk, properly dressed in our dull dark suit and white shirt ... a brown dung made of clay.

Purchasing Director: "Yes, It is Art. My child is very creative, isn´t he?  He is just 24 months old ... "
Me: For myself, "yeah the same creativity as daddy."
(Five years later)
Me: "Honey, this thing that our son has brought from the nursery is not dung?” My darling, "Yes, but it is not brown ... at least it's purple."

These children are around two years old. This means that the people responsible for this "creativity" might be their long-suffering teachers. Maybe they are sending an encoded message: "Here you have your S manufacturer, all for you alone. That's basically what they generate when you moms go away released: to generate S. “


Creativity consists on problem solving in an innovative way, I mean, providing a new value. Sincerely, preschooler dugs are a great effort for manual motor skills development which will help to graph writing, but please "No more workshops called Creative that just generates brown dung ...  And it is not a criticism to the fantastic nurseries like David´s, that are leading a true educational revolution from the base, but the centers that believe that with some clay, some watercolors and a good mop, the creativity workshop is ready.

Life in general and professional adult life in particular is full of problems that are not well defined and that have not a unique solution. For example: "Choosing who to spend Christmas Eve with, political or apolitical family, skiing in the Alps.”Instead, school's problems are well defined and usually have only one answer e.g. 2 +2 = 4.

For what kind of life are they teaching us?

A good creativity can bring a reasonable and quick solution to real problems. This leads to success in different areas of life, and provides happiness as opposed to boredom and monotony.

Children are terribly creative, but with the great effort of parents, grandparents, friends and teachers, they are plundered of this gift, around six years old. "Luisito do not get out of the picture", "Manolito play properly with the truck on the ground", "Not that way, watch and learn ..." and then they become serious Purchasing Managers dressed on boring suits with a dung of clay at their desks.

Creativity is not an innate gift. You learn creative thinking skills with different methodologies. We will see them later.

A few months ago, Dani who was three years old, became the lucky star of the class of tailors. We had to make a mural with the long and exciting story of his life. The correct answer was one or more cards with more or less blurry pictures and some stickers of Disney characters. I wanted him to realize that there are more ways than the supposed ones and that only who take risks, can succeed or fail. But failure is not a tragedy; it is a step towards success. This theory is ok, but no one enjoys seeing his kid flooded of tears with his protagonist mural given back in his hand and sheltered by the ridiculous, getting out of a new school where he feels alien, because his mother has decided to teach him creativity. .. So we looked at the Wikipedia the definition of “mural”: "image which is used as a wall or wall support." We made a stand with a hanger to focus on tailors theme." Each image is attached to with different systems: buttons, Velcro, hooks, loops and the name "Dani" on the hanger, is composed of magnet letters that can be removed. Then we tried to solve the problem of hanging it on a ceramic wall, not to complicate the existence to his nice teacher, Maria. This was his tailor mural.