Creativity can be Nurtured in the Classroom.
Creativity, like complex organisms resides in an ecosystem. Rhodes (1961) developed his 4P model to help us understand the factors he understood to make up the creative system. This is that creativity involves People (person), Places (press), Process (thinking and believing) and Products (outcome). There have been many iterations of the systems model. Simonton added a fifth P, persuasion (Davis , 2004), and Seelig put together a variation she called the Innovation Engine (2012).
The systems structure of Creativity allows us to identify the areas that we can have an impact to support or initiate change to enhance creativity. In the classroom, “teachers may play a significant role in fostering the development of creative abilities in all students through their philosophical outlook and attitudes, the learning environment they provide, the instructional approaches they implement, and their relationship and behavioral interaction with students“ (Esquivel, 1995, p. 198). Lin (2011) developed a Creative pedagogy model consisting of a triangulation of approaches each touching on elements identified in the systems model.
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One part of the triangulation of creativity in the classroom involves teaching deliberate skills and processes (PROCESS) is considered teaching for creativity or deliberate creativity. To do this a teacher would look to the works of Alex Osborne and his CPS framework, Edward deBono’s and his Lateral Thinking and Six hats thinking concepts and Puccio et al’s. Thinking Skills Model to name a few. Amabile states ”…creativity skills can be increased by the learning and practice of techniques to improve cognitive flexibility and intellectual independence (1997, p. 43). These processes involve familiarizing students with such things as divergent and convergent thinking, allowing for incubation time, making forced connections and using other strategies sometimes in a systematic way. Additionally a teacher might refer to Paul Torrance’s 18 identified skills that they can be practiced to encourage creativity. She could employ the TIM (Torrance Incubation Model) teaching model that embeds a creativity skill into an instructional framework that supports deep, meaningful and engaging instruction. The most powerful practice I have learned to date is reframing problems as challenges. Learning the: How to, in what ways, what might be all the ways? sentence starters to reframe situations has been life changing and something all people need to know how to do.
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”…creativity skills can be increased by the learning and practice of techniques to improve cognitive flexibility and intellectual independence." T. Amabile
The second part of the Lin’s model addresses the way that teachers can promote creativity by modeling it themselves and using their own creativity in the classroom. This is considered teaching creatively. Does the teacher model open-mindedness? Flexibility? Curiosity? Does he value these approaches in their classroom? Does learning allow for many possible approaches? Does she use judgment carefully, at the right time and in the right way? Is the teacher imaginative, dynamic and innovative in his approach? I was impressed to learn that “mounting evidence suggests that creative personal characteristics are developmental in nature, with the potential for the greatest change occurring during adolescence and young adulthood (Pluker & Makel, 2010 p.56), and this combined with the finding from Lin (2011) that students attitudes about creativity mirror the attitudes of their teachers in later adolescence offers the evidence we need to get creativity into our classrooms and schools.
Are the students creative people? Students approaching their learning creatively is part innate, part learned and part supported by the environment in which they are working.t is impossible to consider teaching for creativity, teaching creatively and learning creatively in isolation from the physical and emotional space that these take place in. The systems model refers to this as the Press. Teachers can make changes to the environment to improve both the physical and emotional climate for creativity. Researchers such as Ekvall with his SOC measure and Amabile with her KEYS measure have identified specific dimensions that influence and support creativity in teams. Aspects like safety, allowing for time and acceptance of risk all have an effect on creative output. The final component of the model has to do with creative learning. The way the student approaches the learning. Are they learning because they have to? Or are they engaged in the material. Do they ask questions? Children who learn creatively would question, manipulate, play, search and experiment.
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Places like the D-school at Stanford, have written about the physical set up of spaces, the type of furniture and attributes creative spaces should have to promote creativity and collaboration.There are many things that teachers can do to encourage and foster creativity. This would lead to helping students to self actualize and in tern use creativity more ethically. All of the elements that can be used in the classroom to teach and model creatively and formally can also be scaled to work in the home, by oneself or in workplaces. When I consider all of the ways that creativity can be supported and I hold this up in comparison to what is currently happening, I recognize there is so much more we can do to maximize creative potential in our lives. “Many children are not in touch with their inner creativity or have had it drained out of them” (Kaufman & Beghetto. 2011, p.162). This is not good enough. Just as one needs to be intentional in their decision to be creative, it is time for us to be intentional in making it a focus in our educational system. It is through a responsible and deliberate effort to encourage all people to be more creative that I think will lead us to more collaboration, ethical and meaningful creations and a healthier and happier society.