Creativity Killer 10B

I have a really bad memory and I don’t remember much, but I do remember the first time my creative spark was killed.  In the summer before second grade, my mom signed me up for an arts and crafts camp for a week during vacation.  I was so excited to go.  The first day, the activity was to modge podge a flowerpot and paint it.  I picked out a purple and a pink to paint the pot and just started doing what the instructions were.   After I was done painting, I showed the instructor and she handed me a plain flowerpot and she said, “start over.” I didn’t understand so I asked why and she said because my colors didn’t match.  At the time, it really hurt my feelings.  This was the first time I had been creative and someone shot my creativity down.  I remember telling my mom and she said she just didn’t understand how to appreciate different kinds of art. 

In my mind, it was just the girly colors to choose.  I didn’t think it was the greatest idea, I just thought it looked pretty.  In my seven year old mind, it made sense as to why I would choose those colors, however, to the instructor she had this idea of what “good” was and wasn’t very good at giving contrastive criticism.  At the time, I was mortified that she would say something like that, but now, I know that she didn’t know what creativity meant.  Because of that embarrassing moment, my mom was able to teach me the lesson that the creative things are things that don’t match and things that just express your thoughts and feelings.  The thing that made my work stupid was the fact that this certain instructor wasn’t able to see what I had in mind.  Instead of making me feel as though what I did was different, she made me feel less than everyone. 

That instructor killed the creativity in me.  I never wanted to stand out or be different because she called me out on it.  For such a long time I would never say my opinion because I was afraid to be shut down.  Creativity is something that has to be embraced rather then shut down.