I was thinking about how to help students to approach the mysteries of creativity in an experimental and "learn by doing" fashion - not in an attitude of unwillingness to share knowledge or to pedantically mystify a student.
I think that some teachers are so eager to show what they know, and so determined to help students avoid problems that they undermine the necessary struggle for mastery required for real learning. Kind of like helping a butterfly to escape it's cocoon. Deadly for the bug!
Then there is the old saw about feeding a man a fish versus teaching a man how to fish. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The Socratic method comes to mind as well.
I liked what one student in my "how not to suck as a teacher class" said about the teacher that didn't know how to make the subject interesting for her. And how that lead to her own self discovery. When I saw my first marker rendering of a car done by my Industrial Design professor - my heart leaped at the mystery of it.
How did he do it? Can I do it? Can he teach me how to do it?
The answer to all of those questions...before I was able to do it was "Yes". But the mystery remained and took many more years to understand. And it is still with me...the mystery of a blank piece of paper and what will the combination of muscles, neural synapse, eye and hand coordination, imagination and vision reveal on this blank page.
That's the mystery I refer to...and that can't be taught. The techniques can be shared, the step by step process as well. But the mystery can only be experienced by the seeker on the path.
I've been approached many times by people who say, "I've always wanted to do______" fill in the blanks...automotive design, sci-fi illustration, films, animation, 3d whatever. I ask them - "Well, why haven't you?" Always some lame excuse but ultimately it gets down to fear. They're afraid to try because they are afraid to fail...afraid to take a leap into the unknown...into the mystery.
This is a paradox because failure as a result of venturing into the unknown is the only way to learn. As a teacher, all I can actually do is create a safe container for failure and success alike. And safe containers are not easily created or maintained - it's hard work and the realm of the magician, king, warrior and lover.
That's what I mean by mystery.
I am also very weary of interviewing the "technicians" who have been vomited out from the institutes of higher learning who profess to be manufacturing product for our industry. Give me a mad scientist - willing to experiment and leap into the unknown any day over someone who knows how to navigate the GUI and press the buttons but lacks the taste and tolerance for the unknown.
D_
