Lesson 2: Arts and Creative Literacy

Teachers need to be creative by all means because teaching entails critical thinking
and creativity not only in presenting lessons but perhaps in all facets of instructional
endeavor. Therefore, students’ creativity potential should be honed through various
pedagogic techniques, classroom activities and student engagement. Teachers have to
understand creative literacy deeply to guide them in assessing their own creativity and that
of their students.
Arts and Creative Literacy
Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value. Moreover,
creativity is the ability to see the world in new ways. Therefore, creative individuals exhibit
the ability to switch between different modes of thinking and shift their mental focus that
suggests a connection between creativity and dynamic interactions of brain networks (Sun,
et. al, 2019).
Likewise, creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality.
Henceforth,, it is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find
hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to
generate solutions. It involves two processes: thinking, then producing (Naiman, 2011).
As such, creativity is a combinatorial force: the ability to tap into ones ‘inner’ pool
of resources, such as knowledge, insight, information, inspiration; and the fragments in the
mind to combine them in extraordinary new ways (Popova, n.d. in Naiman, 2011). It is
also the process of bringing something new into being that requires passion and
commitment.
Creativity begins with a foundation of knowledge, learning a discipline, and
mastering a way of thinking. It can be learned by experimenting, exploring, questioning
assumptions, using imagination and synthesizing information.
The ability to generate creative and innovative ideas is not merely a function of the
mind, but also a function of five key behaviors that optimize brain for discovery: (1)
associating or drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated
fields; (2) questioning or posing queries that challenge common wisdom; (3) observing or
scrutinizing the behavior of others to identify new ways of doing things; (4) networking or
meeting people with different ideas and perspectives; and (5) experimenting or constructing
interactive experiences and provoking responses to see what insights emerge
(htps://www.creativityatwork.com/2014/02/17/what-is-creativity/).
Developing literacies of the arts and creativity involves design of physical learning
environment, the emotional environment, scheduling. organization and implementation of
curriculum and instruction and attention to the body and the brain. Therefore, teachers
should be empowered in developing these literacies among students with the support of the
administrators, parent, and other stakeholders.
Seven Habits of Highly Creative People
Naiman (2014) opened that if a person makes a habit of the seven practices, he she
will be highly creative in his/ her field. Thus, these would help teachers attain highest
possible level of creativity.
1. Prepare the ground. Creativity requires an absorbed mind, a relaxed state of
focus and attention by giving the self sufficient time and space needed while letting the
desire to create from the pleasure of creative expression and inspiration
2. Plant seeds for creativity. It is important to put attention on what you want to
create, not on complaints and set an intention to produce the desired results.
3. Live in the question. Ask questions, instead of trying to find immediate answers
and pay attention to questions that other people ask.
4. Feed your brain. Get interested in something that later can provide you wisdom
and ideas if you learn to make connections between people, places and things that are not
usually connected.
5. Experiment and explore. Follow your curiosity, experiment with ideas, and
learn from your mistakes therefore, the quality of your creativity will improve.
6. Replenish your creative stock. You must learn to be self-nourishing and
translate hobbies, talents and skills into wonderful potentials.
7. Liberate your creativity. Your child's play provides the clue to your creativity,
potentials and passion.
In general, creativity takes on many forms in business, art, design, education and
science. When you express your creativity in these domains, you have the ability to make
life indeed a work of art (Naiman, 2011).
Eye-Hand Coordination
In most of our creative activities and endeavors, we integrate eye and coordination
as we inhibit our usual body functioning.
Eye-hand coordination (also known as hand-eye coordination) is the coordinated
control of eye movement with hand movement and the processing of visual input to guide
reaching and grasping along with the use of proprioception of hands to guide the eyes. Eye-
hand coordination can be observed in diverse activities, such as the movement of objects,
handwriting, catching a ball, sports, performance, music, reading, computer gaming, typing
and others. In short, it becomes part of the mechanisms of performing everyday tasks.
Without it, people would be unable to carry out even the simplest actions in daily life.
 Eye-hand coordination, therefore, is the ability of the vision system to coordinate
the information received through the eyes to control, guide, and direct the hands in the
accomplishment of a given task. It is also a complex cognitive ability as it unites visual and
motor skills, allowing the hand to be guided by the visual stimulation that the eyes receive.
It is the ability to do activities that require simultaneous use of hands and eyes, like an
activity that uses the information that eyes perceive (visual spatial perception) to guide the
hands in carrying out a movement.
Hand-eye coordination is important for child development and academic success,
which is equally important among adults to use in countless activities on a daily basis. Most
activities in day-to-day life use some degree of eye-hand coordination, the reason why it is
really important to develop it as possible. Obviously, visual information is used to correct
an inappropriate behavior in a situation.
We use our eyes to direct attention to a stimulus and help the brain understand
where the body is located in space (self-perception). Reciprocally, we use our hands to
simultaneously carry out a determined task based on the visual information that our eyes
receive.
Examples of eye-hand coordination
1. In Writing. When making lines, the eyes send visual information to the brain to
tell where the hand is placed and if handwriting is legible.
2. Typing on a Keyboard. Although the types of movement are different, but visual
information is used to tell the brain how to guide the hand or if a mistake needs to be
corrected.
3. When driving. It uses visual information to move the hands on the wheel,
keeping the car in the middle of the lane and avoiding accidents.
4. In sports. In any sports, the eye usually coordinate with the movement of some
parts of the body called “motor coordination”. Depending on the sport, either hand-eye
coordination (basketball, tennis, football, etc.) or foot-eye coordination (soccer, track, etc.)
will be more dominant.
Problems and disorders related to poor eye-hand coordination. Hand-eye
coordination can also work poorly even if the person’s eyes and vision are not affected and
if their motor control skills work properly. It is possible for someone with a perfect vision
to have hand-eye coordination problems that will only manifest when they use both the
visual and motor systems together.
Any alteration to the visual or motor systems can significantly affect hand-eye
coordination, like visual or muscular problems, such as strabismus (crossed eyes),
amblyopia, muscle hypotonia, balance, problems, or crossed laterality. Brain damage to
the perceptive areas may also cause eye-hand coordination problems.
 Poor hand-eye coordination can affect activities that may lead to developmental
disorders, learning disorders (related to reading, writing and playing sports), in academics
(making mistakes when they take notes, poor hand-writing, poor attention), professional
areas (in typing or assembling objects), and problems with daily activities.
Hence, poor hand-eye coordination can have variety of causes, but the following
are two main conditions for inadequate hand-eye coordination.
1. Vision impairment. It is a. loss of vision that makes it hard or impossible to
perform daily tasks without specialized adaptations caused by loss of visual acuity, in
which the eye does not see objects as clearly as usual.
2. Movement disorders. These are characterized by impaired body movements
caused by variety of causes, such as ataxia, which is characterized by lack of coordination
while performing voluntary movements; and hypertonia, a condition marked by an
abnormal increase in muscle tension and a reduced ability or a muscle to stretch.
(https:/www.cognifit.com/science/cognitive-skileye-hand-coordination)
Hand-eye coordination development stages. Hand-eye coordination development
milestones are as follows:
Between birth and three years
1. Between birth and three years of age, infants can accomplish the following skills
and can:
1.1 start to develop vision that allows them to follow slowly moving objects
with their eyes
1.2 begin to develop basic hand-eye skills, such as reaching, grasping
objects, feeding, dressing:
1.3 begin to recognize concepts of place and direction, such as up, down,
in; and
1.4 develop the ability to manipulate objects with fine motor skills. Between
three and five years
2. Between three and five years of age, little children can:
2.1 Continue to develop hand-eye coordination skills and a preference for
left or right handedness;
2.2 continue to understand and use concepts of place and direction, Such as
up, down, under, beside
2.3 develop the ability to climb, balance, run, gallop, jump, push and pull,
and take stairs one at a time; and
2.4 develop eye/hand/body coordination, eye teaming. and depth perception
Five to seven years
3. Children between five and seven years old can
3.1 improve fine motor skills, such as handling writing tools using scissors,
etc.
3.2 continue to develop climbing, balancing, running, galloping and
jumping abilities,
3.3 continue to improve hand-eye C0ordination and handedness preference,
and
3.4 learn to focus vision on school work for hours every day.
(http:/www.healthofchildren.com/G-H/Hand-Eye-Coordination.htmit#ikzz5xFoArsqG)

Visual Literacy
In the advent of the Internet, students must develop the necessary visual literacy
skills to navigate the image-intense world.
Therefore, visual literacy refers to interpreting and creating visual images and
usually about communication and interaction.
Visual literacy is the ability to read, write and create visual images. It is a concept
that relates to art and design and has much wider applications. It is about language,
communication and interaction. Visual media is a linguistic tool, with which we
communicate, exchange ideas and navigate our highly visual digital world.
The term was first coined in 1969 by John Debes, who was the founder of the
International Visual Literacy Association Debes explains: “Visual literacy refers to a
group of vision-competencies a human being can develop by seeing, having and integrating
other sensory experiences.”
According to Oxford Research Encyclopedia, visual literacy is the ability to
interpret, negotiate and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image,
extending the meaning of literacy, which commonly signifies interpretation of a written or
printed text. It is therefore, based on the idea that pictures can be read, and the meaning
can be through a process of reading.
Serafini (2017) asserted that visual literacy is a set of visual competencies or
cognitive skills and strategies one needs to make sense of visual images. These visual
competencies were seen as universal cognitive abilities that were used for understanding
visual images regardless of the contexts of production, reception, and dissemination. More
contemporary definitions stress that visual literacy is a contextualized, social practice as
much as an individualized, cognitively based set of competencies. It is also a process of
generating meanings in transaction with multimodal ensembles that include written text,
visual images, and design elements from a variety of perspectives to meet the requirements
of particular social contexts.
 Theories of visual literacy can be integrated across disciplines. Therefore, visual
literacy now incorporates sociocultural, semiotic, critical, and multimodal perspectives to
understand the meaning that are potential of the visual and verbal ensembles encountered
in social environments (Serafini, 2017). Digital technology has greatly impacted our
understanding of visual literacy as we now see children growing up with tablets and
computers and what appears to be highly developed visual literacy instincts.
(https://visualliteracytoday.org/what-is-visual-iteracy/).
Verbal Creativity
In view of the rapidly increasing complexity of the world, creativity is more
important now than ever before and is even considered as a useful and effective response
to evolutionary changes, since it allows the individual to flexibly respond to the
continuously changing conditions around (Runco, 2004 in Fink, et. al., 2015). Torrance,
(1969) in Hasan (2017) recognized creativity as important for the development of a fully
functioning, mentally healthy, well-educated and vocationally successful individual. It is
because of growing recognition of the importance of creative functioning and there is
sufficient evidence of the universality of creativity.
Scot, et. al (2004) cited that creativity-related skills can be improved by providing
specific rules, techniques or strategies to develop appropriate cognitive skills for the
domain at hand. This could be realized through creative ideation trainings or divergent
thinking exercises (Coskun, 2005; Benedek, et. al, 2006), which aim at stimulating
effective search, retrieval, and integration/combination of remote associations related to a
given stimulus word. Divergent thinking is a useful concept for identifying, supporting and
measuring creativity as a process to actualize one's self, manipulate internal and external
symbols as creation of illustrative ideas based on his/ her knowledge senses regarding
people and objects to produce on (Hasan, 2017).
The four major components of divergent thinking are fluency, flexibility,
originality and elaboration, which are very useful for an operational concept. Fluency refers
to the total number of ideas, options and solutions generated for an open-ended problem;
flexibility is the number of conceptual categories; originality is the aspect of created or
invented works and is about statistical infrequency of responses related to the task
compared with original ideas; and elaboration is the ability to expand on an idea with
details and the ability to create an intricate plan.
Fink, et. al (2012) explained that cognitive stimulation through common or
moderately creative ideas was effective in improving verbal creativity, and most
importantly, stimulation effects were also apparent at the level of the brain. As such, a
widespread creativity-related neural network includes left middle and superior temporal
gyri along with right parietal cortex being sensitive to cognitive stimulation.
Aesthetics
 Britanica defines aesthetics, also spelled esthetics, as the philosophical study of
beauty and taste. It is closely related to the philosophy concerned with the nature of art and
the concepts of which individual works of art are interpreted and evaluated.
In perspective, it is an interesting and puzzling realm of experience: the realm of
the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime and the elegant; of taste, criticism and fine art, and of
contemplation, sensuous enjoyment and charm. In all these phenomena, similar principles
operate, and similar interests are engaged.
The nature and scope of Aesthetics. Aesthetics deals not only with the nature and
value of arts but also with those responses to natural objects that find expression in the
language of the beautiful and the ugly. The terms beautiful and ugly are too vague in
application and too subjective in meaning. Everything on earth may be perceived as
beautiful by someone from his/her point of view while different people may use the word
differently that often may have little or nothing in common, but all are simply based on
judgment. It may also be that the term beautiful has no sense except as the expression of
an attitude, which in turn, people may associate it to different matters.
Moreover, in spite of the emphasis of philosophers on the terms beautiful and ugly,
aesthetics becomes an insignificant issue for discussion in the description of what appeals
in nature. Just like when appreciating a poem, it can be described as ironic, moving,
expressive, balanced and harmonious. Likewise, in characterizing a favorite stretch of
countryside, it can be noted as peaceful, soft atmospheric, harsh, and evocative, rather than
beautiful.
Three Approaches to Aesthetics
Britanica laid down three approaches to aesthetics as follows:
1. It is the study of aesthetic concepts or the analysis of "language of criticism," in
which particular judgments are singled out and their logic and justification are presented.
2. It is a philosophical study of certain states of mind. responses, attitudes and
emotions that are involved in aesthetic experience.
3. It is the philosophical study of the aesthetic object that reflects the view that
problems of aesthetics exist because the world contains special objects toward which
people react selectively as described in aesthetic terms. (https://www.britannica.com/
topic/aesthetics)
Integrating Arts and Creativity Literacy into the Curriculum
The following are strategies and initiatives in embedding arts and creative literacy
in the curriculum.
1. Physical environment- Design a physical environment to support creativity, such
as castle-designed school building, well-architecturally designed edifice, roofs and
ceilings, creative murals, beautiful garden landscape, colorful blocks and benches in the
math and science garden, structured music and arts studio, an atelier, student lounge,
amphitheater, etc.
2. Emotional environment- Take time to create and maintain a climate of respect,
caring and support to someone when making mistakes.
3. Project-based learning (PBL)- Provide students time, space and opportunity to
express themselves - their ideas, emotions and insights through arts. Design and plan any
projects that are relevant, rigorous and real-world to attain motivation, engagement and
learning.
4. Teach Creative thinking skills- Teach students about "metacognition” or
“thinking about their thinking” even to the little ones through the process of brainstorming,
reasoning, comparing and contrasting, problem-solving. concept mapping, analyzing,
evaluating and more.
5. Alternative assessments- Instead of just a worksheet or an assignment, provide
different authentic assessment like performance, systems design, product/output making,
visual arts creation, task-based, project-based, portfolio and others provided with rubrics
and other forms of metrics.
6. Scheduling- Project-based curriculum and performance- based assessment need
ample time and proper scheduling in either structured or unstructured manner.
7. Student-centered and personalized learning- Provide students freedom to choose
on what they will learn, how they will learn it and how they will demonstrate what they
have learned.
8. Incorporate arts- Integrate seamlessly music, art, drama and dance into the
curriculum to develop creativity.
9. Integration of technologies- Encourage students to create and utilize blogs and
websites, Glogster, VoiceThread, student publishing, video game design, coding.
filmmaking, photography, global collaborative classroom projects using Google Hangouts,
etc.
10. Preparing the body and brain for creativity- Create activities that induce body-
mind integration, such as yoga, ballet, jazz, zumba, calisthenics, etc.