Kim Frencken: Do we encourage or stifle creativity?

It's a wonder I ever taught ELA (aka English, Communication Arts, Spelling, Writing,...). My years in elementary and middle school did more to make me dislike ELA than they did to nurture a love for writing.

Oh, I loved spelling and vocabulary. Words fascinated me. But spending countless hours diagramming sentences nearly killed me. Figuratively. All those red marks covering a story I had written in creative writing brought me shame. Literally.

For years, I hid. In other professions. Teaching other subjects. And then I had a principal that hated diagramming as much as I did and said that they couldn't see the merit of placing the words of a sentence on random lines. Things started to turn around. 

Then I taught Social Studies and incorporated literature and plays. And I began to come out of hiding. I began to find my own place. My own style. And that was okay.

I'm not here to argue that kids need to learn the difference between a noun and a verb. Or where to put commas. Or how to begin a sentence. There are some things that kids do need to learn in order to be good communicators. But shouldn't we spend more time focusing on what is right and how to improve sentences, rather than leaving a trail of red?

A good friend encouraged me tremendously. He told me to just write. When I was expressing myself creatively I could make my own rules ( up to a point- as a journalist, I'm sure he has his limits with my grammar). So I did. I just starting writing. And free from the fear, I found fun. 

Once I became free to express myself I became more aware of grammatical rules and more aware of the ones that I was breaking. I learned more from my mistakes and felt brave for breaking some rules intentionally.

Yes, there are times when I more carefully consider my sentence construction- my resources, for example. I edit and edit and edit. I'm not perfect. I've caught a mistake a time or two or three (after it was published) and corrected it (immediately). I've had students point out mistakes (I love that they 'catch' me) and I correct the errors. But isn't that the point. Life is all about learning. We can all be learning together. Or we can weld our red pens like a scepter and replace the joy of learning with fear.

(For more of Kim Frencken's writing, check out her blog, Chocolate For the Teacher.)