What were creative writing lessons at school supposed to do? If the answer was to enable me to write adequate fiction, and to gain enjoyment from doing so, then such classes were a complete failure.
> There's nothing creative about being given an assignment and jumping straight to topics you're familiar with.
I am not necessarily familiar with all the topics mentioned... ;-) Nevetheless, the reasoning given at the time was not yours, but simply that these topics don't constitute proper literature and are therefore not valid topics for creative writing assignments. I have no memory of ever hearing anything along the lines of what you have said above.
Come to think of it, the music and art lessons weren't very good either. Any success I have had along those lines (music) has been since leaving school and not involving anything I learned there.