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21.
June
2017.
Happy National Writing Day - why ideas need space in schools to grow

Happy National Writing Day! #TellYourStory

 

"Ideas aren't magic fairies that some of us can see and others can't. We need to stop hoping that somehow kids will start to develop those big idea-generating muscles on their own. The problem is, we are not giving them room, in our current curriculum to try. And nothing kills big ideas like spelling and grammar." - Christian Darkin, author and father

 

To celebrate National Writing Day, author and father of two Christian Darkin, has written the following piece about his life as a writer and his involvement in the Shoutsouth event as part of the National Writing Day campaign. Copies of Christian's Act Normal children's book series (for 6-11 year olds) and press information can be requested atinfo@literallypr.com. Christian Darkin is available for editorial commissions and interviews. This article is available for reproduction in full or as extracts.

 

Where do you get your ideas?

 

If you're a writer, it's a question you get asked all the time. Literally every time I enter a classroom, the first hand that reaches for the ceiling will have that question attached to it.

 

And that's odd, because in 30 years working in the creative industries, writing, illustration, animation, theatre, TV and film, I've found primary school children (and their teachers) to be absolutely the most creative people I have ever met. I should really be asking them how they get theirs - and I do. It's my stock answer.

 

It's not limited to schools. In fact, I'm likely to fall head over heels for the first woman who doesn't ask the question on our first date.

 

We are all taught that ideas are a kind of magic - that they're floating around like fairies and some magic people can see and catch them, and the rest can't. But worse than that, we're taught that the route to "good" writing or art is through mastery of the technical disciplines - drawing, grammar, spelling.

 

But it's not like that. Creativity is a set of muscles - absolutely vital in every area of life even if you never want to compose a story, or draw a picture. By not recognising it as such, we fail to train and exercise those muscles, and they waste away until we struggle to remember where it is ideas come from.

 

This week I took part in CWISL's Shoutsouth workshop as part of National Writing Day (http://www.cwisl.org.uk/shoutsouth-2017/4593844242) - two days of intensive creative writing and story making for children from south London schools, in which none of the 16 writers and illustrators and eight teachers involved ever mentioned spelling, or punctuation or tried to tell a child how to make a drawing look neat.

 

Why? Because there are two types of creativity. There's the creative use of technical skills - the construction of sentences, the drawing of shapes and shades, the clever solving of the hundred problems that every attempt at communication throws up. This is the creativity we all understand, and we all get taught in school and beyond. It's the creativity of the builder. Vital, practical and sharp, and it depends on your ability to work with your technical tools.

And then there's the other kind. The big stuff. The creativity of the architect - who sits and stares at an empty sheet and asks, "What do I want to achieve, and why?" The feelings, and the philosophies, the abstract notions, and motivations and concrete realities that swirl and crash together to form the underlying structure of (and I do not exaggerate here) every decision in your, my, and everyone else's life.

 

And this is the muscle we don't train in school, because these connections are fragile and personal, and if you don't learn to solidify them properly, they don't survive first contact with paper or screen. They're easy to spot, but almost impossible to mark, so we generally just sit back and hope that somehow kids will start to develop those muscles on their own. The problem is, we are not giving them room, in our current curriculum to try. And nothing kills big ideas like spelling and grammar.

 

Concentrating on the technicality of your work focuses you away from the ideas, and into the execution of them. We all instinctively know when someone is using technical small scale creativity, but isn't doing the bigger thinking behind it. I'll bet you read stuff like that every day - or watch it on TV, or hear it spoken by a manager.

 

All too often, that's what we train ourselves and our children to do. A badly executed brilliant idea is still a brilliant idea. Whereas a technically perfect nothing is still nothing.

 

We need to train people to have ideas. Forget art and literature. Big ideas drive everything we do, feel and think, even if we pretend that they don't, and if we treat them as magic fairies that only the creatives can see, then we abdicate responsibility for the choices that drive our own lives.

 

But we can do it. We can get rid of the "where do you get your ideas?" question. I know we can, because, at the workshop on Monday, once our group of children had abandoned spelling, and torn out that first scary blank page of their exercise books, it took about 15 minutes before those magic fairies started settling.

 

And we could all see them.

 

 

This article is available for use across print and online media. We ask that you please let us know if you use it so we can share it with the author and with our own social network (20,000+). Christian is available for interview and editorial commissions (he is a journalist and professional writer for television including CBeebies). Copies of his books are available upon request for review.

 

For more information about Christian Darkin, please visit the online press folder:http://bit.ly/2qfltHm.

 

Media enquiries to Helen or Dianaatinfo@literallypr.com.