Journal #3 - Creativity

What it means to be an effective teacher.

 

            The idea of fostering creativity in the classroom was something that at the beginning of my post-secondary education I would have argued wasn’t an important part of helping students learn; I’m glad to say that my opinion on this topic has changed dramatically since then.

            I was never a very “creative” student throughout my secondary education.  I was a student who liked writing essays, reading textbooks, and watching documentaries made in the 1970’s, but that was how I learnt best.  Although I was never an artist, I played the piano for eight years before entering high school.  I always had a fascination with reading music and the feeling of contentment that I had when I would play.  However, once I got to high school I noticed that being creative wasn’t necessarily something that was a “good thing” as far as assessment and assignment purposes went.  But creativity isn’t just “the arts”; creativity is a state of mind and a process.   I think that author and educator Sir Ken Robinson did a great job in one of his TED lectures in 2006 of highlighting not only the importance of creativity in the learning process, but also of how the current education system doesn’t foster the creativity of students as individuals or as a whole, and how this can be detrimental to some student’s learning processes.

Sir Ken Robinson's lecture: "Do Schools Kill Creativity?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

            This journal entry is somewhat related to my last entry on accommodation; teachers need to be able to individualize learning in order to fit the needs of each student, including fostering creativity.  A definition offered by Berk (2005) of creativity is that it is the ability to produce work that is original, but sill appropriate and useful.  Although when many people think of creativity they think specifically of music and art, it’s important to understand that any subject can be approached in a creative manner.  Being creative simply means coming up with new, relevant ideas or ways to solve problems! 

            Being able to foster creativity in a classroom setting may mean a variety of things for teachers; for me, it simply means creating an environment where students feel free and safe in order to produce something that might be “wrong” or “different”.  There is a part in Sir Ken Robinson’s lecture where he states that: “if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original” (2006).  To me, this is exactly why creating a safe environment for students to share their ideas is critical in helping to foster creativity in the learning process.  By enabling to students to be creative in their thinking processes, you can encourage ideas that may not be conventional or typical, but may enable the students to learn and think in a way that works best for them as individuals.

            Fostering creativity in the classroom can be done in a variety of ways: allowing students to brainstorm without judgment, working in groups settings, allowing students to have more say in how they complete assignments, encouraging “wild” ideas.  By encouraging creativity in the classroom rather than crushing it, I think that we can help all students have a better understanding of not only the class material, but allowing them to become more involved in their own learning process.

References:

Berk, L.E. (2005). Infants, children, and adolescents (5^th ed.).Boston, MA: ALlyn & Bacon.

Woolfolk, A.N., Winne, P.H., & Perry, N.E. (2011). Educational psychology (5^thed.). Toronto, ON: Pearson Canada.