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Teachers' Writing Corner

Keeping Creativity Alive

Ms. Chan Mei Po and Ms. Lee Kit Tung

All children are born naturally with creativity. They are curious and they
want to know how and why things work the way they do. When we go to
school, the teacher tells us that this is the answer and there's no other answer,
so we are forced to focus on ways to achieve the perfect scores. However,
we gradually close our minds to any other possibilities. Here is an interesting
story we read on the internet named “The Little Boy” by Helen E. Buckley. As
teachers, we really find the story inspiring because it explains how creativity
can be lost. You may find the original story through the reference link below.

In short, the story was about a little boy who went to a big school and had
an art class. The teacher, in the story, told the students that they were going
to draw a picture and this excited the boy as he liked to draw. He was full of
interesting ideas and ready to draw a picture of animals. The teacher said, “Wait,
we are drawing pictures of flowers.” So he began to draw a picture of a colorful
flower, but the teacher said, “STOP! I will show you how to draw the flower.”
The teacher drew a red flower with a green stem, boring to the boy. Then the
teacher said, “Now you may begin.” So the boy did, but he was not happy
because the flower he saw, in his mind, was much more beautiful. Well this
happened in every art class, painting and pottery. The boy soon learnt to wait
for the teacher to tell him how it “should be done.” But as things happened, the
boy’s family moved to a new district, and he went to a bigger school.

In the bigger school, there was a different teacher. She asked the students
to make a picture on the first day of school. Unlike how excited the little boy
was in his first art lesson ever, now he just sat there and waited for the teacher
to tell him what to do. However, the teacher didn’t say anything, so the little
boy was confused and he didn’t know what to do. The teacher told him to
draw anything he wanted. In the end, he drew a red flower with a green stem.
(Buckley, n.d.)

It is a beautiful story about how a narrow-minded person suppressed and
destroyed the creativity of a young child. The story has a sad and provoking
ending, which inspires us to think deeply about teaching and learning. This is
very important for teachers and parents to think what we should or should not
do if we do not want our children ending up like the boy in the story.
Reference:
Buckley, H. E. (n.d.). THE LITTLE BOY By Helen E. Buckley. Retrieved November 01, 2018, from http://www.
ndlcpreschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/THE-LITTLE-BOY.pdf

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