Journal #8

This past week in class we mainly talked about the final project for this class as well as dealing a lot with creativity. I think that this music project although incorporates a great deal of information is a way to increase our ability to be creative. This is because we have to chose a culture to talk about, the exciting part is that it doesn't have to be a culture that you relate to just one that you are interested in. We also completed an assignment on the use of musical instruments to help student's creativity.
I think that it is very important for students to be creative because that is something that will greatly help them in every aspect of their life and in any career that they chose. For example if they want to become teachers then they need to understand that sometimes a lesson might not go as planned or that a child is not understanding the material in the way that it is being presented and therefore they have to use their creativity to work with the challenges they are given. Or for instance if they want to become a doctor they might be faced with a power outage in the middle of surgery and need to be creative to keep their patient alive.
Creativity is something that increases the brains capacity to be able to understand information. It also helps students create connections between what they are learning in school to their real lives so that they can better retain that information. We learned in chapter 5, the different ways that instruments can be used to increase the student's creativity. Through instruments such as the piano, guitar, claves, melody bells, etc. students can learn about pitch, melody and harmonies. I believe that it is extremely important for students to expand their creativity as early as possible because they will be able to better express themselves later on in life and realize the person that they really are.
As for my cultural project I have decided to study the Israeli Culture. I feel that it is close to my heart because my entire family is Jewish and many of them come from Israel. I hope to learn a lot about the culture and customs to better understand where I cam from.