Applied creativity and the arts

In the province of Quebec (Canada), for example, the Québec Education Program (QEP) dedicates Chapter 8 of its curricular document to Arts Education where the overarching goal of arts education (i.e. drama, dance, music and visual art) is for “ … these subjects (to) enable students to express their own reality and vision of the world and (to) help them to communicate their inner images through the creation and interpretation of artistic productions” (Le MEES 2001, p. 206). The creation of a classroom environment where students are able to take the necessary risks needed to create art, is arguably one of the greatest tensions for the trend of subsuming creativity for economic advantage as a stand alone skill that is “divorced from art’s specificity” (Kalin 2016, p.39). Some of the “serious consequences for art educators who are latching onto the ‘creative’ bandwagon to justify their existence for teaching art in today’s global designer economy” (Jagodzinski 2015, p. 57) shifts the focus of art for arts sake to “mediocre art” (Gielen 2013, p. 80). [...]a range of new approaches, including examples such as the Gradual Immersion Method (GIM), are being designed to enhance collaborative creativity using interactive devices and augmented reality (AR), to support creativity-based learning, such as in the integrated study of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) (Sanabria & Aramburo-Lizarraga 2017).