Creating a Case for Creativity Shawna longo Durban Avenue School shawnalongo@gmail.com
Have you been noticing a change in the mindset within your school or district? There is a shift away from a testfocused classroom toward a more creative, student-centered classroom occurring in education. In some places, it’s happening more quickly than others, but it’s all still moving in the same direction. In the past, school was thought of as a place of certainty. As Seth Godin discusses in his book, The Icarus Deception - “the Industrial Age taught us that there are answers and that you need the answers in order to succeed” (2012, p58). The current shift is empowering teachers to create a classroom climate that supports students searching for QUESTIONS, not answers. The search for questions sparks creativity and a deepened level of inquiry. At the heart of this movement is creativity. And, we all know that the arts go hand in hand with creativity!
ity and comfort with our creative self becomes less and less frequent. Shauna Niequist writes in her book, Present Over Perfect, “creativity, of course, is so easy and natural for children, and most adults struggle to recover that wild courage to make and imagine and play” (2016, p168). Sunni Brown agrees in her book, The Doodle Revolution, “The capacity to innovate is undoubtedly available to all of us, but creative thinking is like a muscle, and there are people who’ve been exercising that muscle more purposefully and more often than others have” (2013, p184).
The Arts = Play As Albert Einstein said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun!” Many people equate the arts with play. This gets some people all up in arms! But, I tend to focus on the positive. Let’s face it, the arts are typically an elective course and if the students aren’t engaged then they aren’t going to enjoy themselves. The arts are the catalyst for creativity in our schools, but creativity should not just be limited to the arts classrooms. Sir Ken Robinson states in his book, Out of Our Minds, “creativity is possible in any activity that engages our intelligence” (2017, p3). We all know that when students are involved in creative activities, their brains (intelligence) are engaged, and they are most likely having fun in the process!
Teaching Through or For Creativity Creativity doesn’t necessarily just happen in a classroom. Creativity must be fostered and encouraged through a supportive environment where risks are encouraged and praised. Ken Robinson writes, “There is a difference between teaching ‘through’ creativity and teaching ‘for’ creativity. Good teachers know that their role is to engage and inspire their students. This is a creative task in itself. Teaching ‘for’ creativity is about facilitating other people’s creative work. It involves: • Asking open-ended questions where there may be multiple solutions • Working in groups on collaborative projects • Using imagination to explore possibilities • Making connections between different ways of seeing • Exploring the ambiguities and tensions that may lie between them” (2017, p227-228).
What happens to creativity? Young children love to be creative – when they are playing with blocks, building with Legos or Magnatiles, coloring, drawing, dancing around the room, acting and role-playing with their friends, singing, or playing instruments - the list of examples is endless. But, as time passes, that innate abil-
Sir Ken Robinson also states that, “teaching for creativity involves teaching creatively” (2017, p228). In order to facilitate a student-centered, creativity-focused classroom, teachers’ need to: • Encourage students to ask questions. • Encourage students to believe in their creative abili-
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