CREATIVITY FOR MORE ABLE STUDENTS

 

By Brin Best (www.brinbest.com)

 

 

MOST PEOPLE WOULD agree that the ability to be creative is one of the most significant attributes that has allowed mankind to thrive in a rapidly changing world. Human history is replete with examples of how creativity has enabled people to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges. So why do we still not fully value creativity in our schools and why are we not equipping our students with the skills to be creative throughout their lives?

 

In this article I will explore creativity and its key relevance to the education of more able students. I will outline why I believe creativity has not been formally embraced by many schools, and I will suggest how you can take practical steps in your own school to promote creative teaching and learning. Though the context for this article is the education of your most able students, creativity is, of course, important to all those you teach.

 

Defining creativity

In the past creativity has often been viewed as something mystical – a concept that is hard to put into words. People were considered either to be creative or not and the notion that creativity could be actively taught was dismissed as fanciful.

 

Later, creativity was appreciated through the work of artists, composers and dancers, and society came to recognise what is now called the ‘creative arts’. Unfortunately, this label only served to pigeon-hole creativity as the preserve of a few narrow fields of endeavour, so that within our schools creativity across the curriculum was rarely recognised.

 

In order to fully appreciate the relevance of creativity across all areas of human achievement, consider the following, more holistic definition:

 

 

The fact that previous educationalists have been reluctant to define what they mean by creativity has, in my view, only exacerbated schools’ misunderstanding of it. The result was that when teachers got the ‘creative box’ out of the cupboard – the one containing bits of coloured paper, fabric, glue-sticks and scissors – they sometimes  patted themselves on the back for encouraging their students to ‘express their creativity’. The truth was that while some children were being creative with these tools, many were just doing what they had always done with them – not very creatively!

 

The work of American educational giant Robert Sternberg has thankfully helped to bring creativity into much sharper focus in the last few years. His seminal Handbook of Creativity is the first serious attempt to bring together, in a scientifically rigorous way, what is known about creativity from research studies. Sternberg’s conclusion is clear: creativity is a legitimate topic of educational research because it is possible to actively teach the skills to be creative.

 

My view, based on the study of many research papers and from my 15 years of experience working in education, is that everyone has the ability to become more creative. Though some people do seem instinctively to have the facility to be creative – sometimes effortlessly so – we should not let this lead us to think that creativity is purely in your genes. I feel passionately that what we need to do in our schools is to equip all learners with the attributes and skills that enable them to use their innate creativity and develop this capacity – whatever their starting point.

 

The work of Sternberg and others has also helped to establish that there is cycle to creativity. It begins with the creative thought and ends with its acceptance by society of a creative act. Within this cycle we can pick out the key process of idea selection (where various possible approaches are refined before one is adopted). Also of vital importance is the commitment of the individual to making their idea ‘work’ and accepted as novel and appropriate. Walt Disney, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and James Dyson are all examples of people who sweated blood and tears to get their ideas accepted, and Thomas Edison (inventor and pioneer of lighting) immortalised his own struggle in the phrase ‘Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration’.

 

Barriers to creativity in our schools

So why, if creativity is so important, is it not cherished in our schools by all subject teachers and by leadership teams and governors?

 

I believe that several factors – both within schools and external to them – have combined to create the conditions whereby creativity is not sufficiently valued, or actively developed, in many schools. Taken alone none of these challenges is probably enough to stifle creativity across the curriculum in our schools. But the combined effect means that few schools are able to say honestly that creativity forms a central core to all teaching and learning. The result is that during my visits to schools across the country in my capacity as an education consultant, I do not encounter the word ‘creativity’ in many schools’ mission statements. And even in most of the schools where creative endeavours are valued, these tend to be in the traditional areas of the arts outlined above.

 

Making a difference in your own school

If you share my passion for the need for creativity in our schools, then you will want to do something about it in your classroom and school. I would argue that there are few more important battles to fight seven years into the twenty first century, even though it can sometimes seem that the government has every lesson already sketched out for you. The good news is that there is plenty you can do to infuse creativity into your teaching. But the starting point is to be clear that this is a key priority you are willing to fight for – often in the face of challenges circumstances, and seemingly without the luxury of time to reflect along the way.

 

One of the key changes that will need to take place is that you must strive to create the conditions for your learners to display and develop their creativity at every opportunity. Your goal will not be achieved just by introducing more imaginative activities, such as role plays, decision-making exercises or debates, into lessons. It occurs most frequently when you’re prepared to hand over learning to your students, allowing them to develop new and appropriate ways of thinking and doing. Note here that I am not advocating a ‘free for all’ in your classroom where anything goes: the conditions for success need to be introduced gradually and with the realisation that things will not necessarily go smoothly the first time. Teachers committed to the importance of creativity are beginning to discover that by scaffolding the decision-making processes which learners need to model, slowly learning can be become owned by learners. We might even use the word ‘personalised’ were it not for the government’s hi-jacking of that term as part of its Every Child Matters agenda.

 

Any attempt to champion the cause of creativity is likely to divide your teaching colleagues. Some will share your passion; others may have different agendas and priorities. The key is to build a group of like-minded professionals – a creativity hub – in your school from which new work can be nurtured and spread more widely. In this way, the external pressures can be more easily resisted as you stand up for what is important in education. Over time, by showing what is possible when you teach for and using creativity, you may even begin to convince others within school to overcome the internal challenges and join your mission.

 

Training will be key, and this is where success in individual classrooms can be harnessed, by illustrating what is possible. Soon your creativity hub will be forming links with many other aspects of life within school and beyond it, and you may feel ready to commit to paper some of the successful ideas in your own customised creativity handbook, to be shared with all staff. This will no doubt also benefit from the external input of specialist training providers and authors on creativity in education. Many of the techniques for creative thinking are well documented and there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

 

Is there room for creativity in the curriculum?

One of the more interesting events at the 2006 Education Show was a debate bearing the headline-friendly title ‘Curriculum or creativity’. On one side of the podium perched former chief inspector of schools Chris Woodhead; on the other sat Sir Ken Robinson, the person who prepared the influential government report on creativity, All Our Futures: creativity, culture and education. Their speeches, and the responses to the questions from the audience, in the main followed a predictable pattern of polarisation. But what shone through for me after listening to the discussion was the realisation that we cannot, of course, have creativity in our schools without a curriculum. If creativity is about finding new ways of thinking and doing, then we must have a subject area or domain in which this can be expressed. The challenge, it seems to me, is how we can create a curriculum of creativity in our schools. One that respects the need to equip citizens with knowledge about their world and essential skills with which to communicate and make sense of things, but which seeks to develop learners’ creative potential at each step of the learning journey. Some ideas to get you started are given below.

 

 

The relevance of creativity to more able learners

It should now be clear that to single out creativity as the preserve of one group of students would be divisive and would deny others access to one of the keys to unlock their inner world. There are, however, a number of specific issues to bear in mind about more able learners that mean that creativity is especially relevant to them.

 

More able learners may have more time to be creative

One of the characteristics of more able learners is that in the subjects in which they excel, they are not bogged down with the basics that enable them to grasp what the teacher is talking about. As such, they perhaps have a little more mental freedom to explore the deeper questions underpinning a subject – to probe the topic with unconventional approaches and allow themselves personal mental flights of fancy. It is during these moments that powerful acts of creativity are most likely to occur. It is vital to harness this potential and set more able learners activities which allow them to use their creative thinking skills.

 

More able learners should value ambiguity and uncertainty

As we teach more able learners we should strive to help them to see that education is often not about finding the right answers, rather it is about asking the appropriate questions. People who are highly creative thrive on ambiguity and uncertainty; indeed this is often where they get their inspiration from. Most great discoveries came from finding a question – usually following lengthy periods of taxing thought – that allowed a brain to see a problem in a new light. The darkness of the unknown can be lit up by a new way of thinking and this produces wisdom. As such, creativity has special relevance in the classroom, as it encourages learners to find new paths for thinking. Encourage your more able learners to see ambiguity and uncertainty as their friends, even if at first their thirst for correct answers seems hard to quench.

 

More able students are likely to form the key decision-makers of tomorrow

We have a special duty to prepare more able students for the future, because it will be on their shoulders that some of the key challenges facing humanity will rest. By nurturing their creativity, and showing them ways to think more creatively, we are equipping them with valuable lifelong skills. There are some inspiring examples of what young people today are capable of (see box). These help to remind us that creativity is important to our students not just because it will help them to be successful at school, but because it may enable them to think in new ways and do things that might just change the world forever.

 

 

Further reading

Best, B. and Thomas, W. (2007) The Creative Teaching & Learning Toolkit. Continuum International Publishing.

 

Claxton, G. and Lucas, B. (2004) Be Creative: essential steps to revitalise your work and life. BBC Books.

 

De Bono, E. (1970) Lateral Thinking. Penguin.

 

Sternberg, R. (ed). 1999. The Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge University Press.

 

 

This is an expanded version of an article that was first published in Gifted & Talented Update, the newsletter for the Gifted & Talented Coordinator (published by Optimus Publishing) – for details of this and other education newsletters from Optimus Professional Learning visit www.teachingexpertise.com.

 

Copyright of Brin Best