How do you Teach Creativity?

Friday, July 23rd 2010 by Katie StansberrycloseAuthor: Katie Stansberry Name: Katie Stansberry
Email: katie@isteconnects.org
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“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”

-       Linus Pauling

Linus Pauling, a native of Portland, Oregon, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1954 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is one of only two people awarded two Nobel Prizes in different fields, and the only person awarded two unshared prizes. He was also a product of the United States public school system. He attended Washington High School in Portland and later graduated with a degree in chemical engineering. He was a successful chemist, peace activist, author and educator – a 20^th century renaissance man – and he did it all because he was able to think outside the box.

According to a recent Newsweek article, the creative thinking skills of American students have steadily declined over the last decade, even as genera intelligence tests show consistent gains. So, we have a generation of smarter kids who lack imagination.

The first standard in NETS for Students is Creativity and Innovation. Specifically, this aspect of the international education standards requires students to:

a.             apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes.

b.             create original works as a means of personal or group expression.

c.             use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues.

d.             identify trends and forecast possibilities.

But how exactly do you teach creativity? The NETS provide some direction, but this is a quiestion without an easy answer. It’s one thing to hand kids a pack of crayons and tell them to go crazy, but that’s like sitting your average Joe or Jane in the cockpit of a 747 and telling them to go nuts. They can fiddle around and may even fly, but they won’t accomplish nearly as much as they would with proper training and practice.

I think there is an assumption that some kids are just born creative so there’s not need to nurture creative development. It’s like having brown eyes or blue – you’ve either got it or you don’t. Mozart was rumored to compose his symphonies in one sitting with nary a revision. There is a myth that genius just pours from these creative types without preparation. Beethoven filled hundreds of notebooks with musical pieces that were discarded, adjusted, or otherwise redeveloped. One of Benjamin Franklin’s most famous quotes is “I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 different ways to do it wrong.”

There is no shame in failure. The process of learning is one of continual production, discarding, revision and reworking. Yet our grading and evaluation systems punish failure rather than reward experimentation.  Also, we seem to think that art and music have some sort of special monopoly over creative learning. While I certainly support the arts in schools, creative learning can and should be integrated into all aspects of education.

The Newsweek piece suggests several techniques to boost the creative process. Here are the suggestions, along with my comments on how they can be applied to education.

• Don’t tell someone to “be creative.” – Kids need some direction to get the creative juices flowing. So, instead of telling students to make something creative, give them a problem and tell them to come up with a solution that their friends would never think of.
• Reduce screen time – I’m going to change this one to “reduce passive media consumption.” Encourage creativity, undirected fantasy play, and artistic expression. Technology can be a part of this.
• Get moving – The physically fit experience a boost in cognition after 30 minutes of exercise. It’s not only important to encourage movement in kids, but important to teach kids to maintain at least a moderate level of physical fitness to ensure high-level cognitive function.
• Follow a passion – Encourage children to find what interests them and pursue it. Kids are at their best when they identify deeply with a field. Superficial well-roundedness can actually cause young people to lose motivation. Instead, expose students to a wide range of ideas, but encourage them to work in groups and differentiate tasks based on skill sets and interests.
• Ditch the suggestion box – Even kids need to feel that their ideas are actually put into practice. A classroom should be a space for learning, but that doesn’t just mean for the students. Turn the tables and make students the teachers for certain subjects. New technologies can be a great area for students to teach each other or even to teach the instructor.
• Take a break – If kids are struggling with a task or idea, have them step away from the project for awhile. Forcing students to work on a single subject for a set amount of time can create stagnation if they get stuck or find themselves in a mental block. Also, it’s easy for students to be frustrated if they are engaged in a task then forced to switch gears in the middle of a brainstorm.
• Explore other cultures – Adam Galinsky, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, found that people who lived abroad outperformed people without international experience on creativity tests. His work also indicates that just studying other cultures can boost creativity scores. So, expand creativity by opening your classroom to the world. By exposing students to other countries and a variety of cultures you expand their view of what is possible.

How do you implement NETS for Students by teaching students to think creatively?

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