Teaching FOR Creativity

Teaching “for” creativity means that we want activities in the classroom to be designed in such a way that student’s creative thinking is encouraged and that the skills of creative thinking are involved in as many activities as possible. This means that the teacher, in designing the lessons or activities as and the students, in completing the activities or lessons, must have creativity “in mind”.

In order to encourage creativity, the environment in the classroom must be one of acceptance. Students must be able to practice their creativity, to be able to think “outside the box” without fear of rejection or reprisal either from the other students or from the teacher him/herself.  Dr. Alane Starko outlines that there are four cardinal rules regarding brainstorming or productive thinking in the classroom:

1. Criticism is ruled out. No person is to evaluate any idea until all ideas have been produced.
2. Freewheeling is welcomed. In brainstorming, way-out notions are seen as stepping stones to creative ideas. Suggestions that appear to be farfetched can open a new point of view that may lead to a workable idea.
3. Quantity is wanted. Quantity is not desired for its own sake but because a large number of ideas seems more likely than a small number to yield a good idea.
4. Combination and improvement are sought. This rule is sometimes described as hitchhiking.  It suggests that many good ideas can be found by building on or combining previous ideas. Such elaboration is to be encouraged (Starko, 1995).

In addition, teachers must design lessons that provide students an opportunity to practice their creative thinking in ALL the disciplines. This means students need to be encouraged to:

1. Solicit many diverse thoughts about issues or ideas
2. Explore diverse points of view to reframe ideas.
3. Develop and elaborate on their ideas.
4. Demonstrate open mindedness and tolerance of imaginative, sometimes playful solutions to problems.