what to be when I grow up?

Last summer, I separated my life into boxes; some labeled Seattle, some labeled Home and others labeled Boots (boots, I would come to find out, are not entirely necessary in Seattle... much like winter coats). And then I headed home to upstate New York.

When parents would explain to their friends and our family what I was going to Seattle for, my mom would say either education or museum education (she actually pulled up the museology program website once to show someone and it wasn't even a program I had applied to). On the other hand, my dad would laugh and say to join a cult (unless, of course he had one too many manhattans, at which point he would sit me down at the kitchen counter and very seriously - without any laughter - tell me not to join a cult).

When I was asked what I was going for, I also didn't quite know how to answer, even now it's difficult. Maybe this is a good place to attempt to explain my studies and research.

program : Learning Sciences, an interdisciplinary field of Educational Psychology - basically neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, museum educators, school educators, researchers, behaviorists, cupcake lovers, children, people who don't know what else to do with their life, etc, get together to try to figure out how people learn and what that means on a variety of different planes

To make some money I'm nannying a 14 month old 5 days/week and on our walk today I overheard a little boy saying to his mom "I did good coloring so I always get a new coloring book. I didn't have any white and I didn't scribble." This is the basis of much of my research: what makes children's art 'good'? Do we let children just go about their merry way and produce whatever it is that they would like? Or do we push them to try harder, to do better? Does pushing them kill their creativity? What happens when we kill creativity?

Our culture has defined creativity (+ imagination for that matter) as a trait only a select few carry. In companies there are whole teams and departments set aside for the 'creative' folk. It is a socially acceptable practice to say 'I'm not creative', but what does this say about our culture? Surely this is not a healthy practice.

Art and innovation are namely appreciated through artist appreciation, in doing so, we ignore the concept of creativity as a social practice, a trait that we nurture and grow together, through our experiences and interactions.

What am I trying to say here? I'm super new to this, but here are my theories:

• creativity is a social practice, not an individual practice (although, individual practice and nurture surely help the production of creativity output)
• creativity is not just for the arts! it is an intellectual capacity that we can use whenever we are engaged
• imagination is the ability to think of what could be, creativity is the guts + space to try it out and innovation is the product of a creative endeavor that changes a context in a significant way

And how does this relate to art museums? Art education programs are being cut across the board, research right now is brilliant, but policy isn't matching. Art museums are unique in that they have a choice: hang art on the wall or be a significant part of community development + enhancement. I would never work in a museum that practiced the first. Public engagement and social interaction set the museum as a stage to open debate to some tough questions, but more importantly, and perhaps inadvertently, to the acceptance and value of mistakes - without mistakes, there is no creativity and without creativity, there is no innovation and so on and so forth.

This, sadly, was probably a terribly boring post, but I suppose background into my research is helpful (and now my mom no longer has to show the museology website, she can just pull this up!)

So what do I want to be when I grow up? Right now, I want to be a museum educator, but research and theory are extremely important parts for me, so don't be shocked if in a year from now I tell you I'm going for my PhD instead. Until then, I'll just be a nanny, out for adventures.

xx.