This is not to say knowledge is not important. On the contrary, one cannot think creatively with knowledge unless one has the knowl- edge with which to think creatively. Examples are legion.
If one is studying history, one might take the opportunity to think creatively about how can we learn from the mistakes of the past to do better in the future.
Or one might think cre- atively about what would have happened had a certain historical event not come to pass e. In literature, one can imagine alternative endings to stories, or what the stories would be like if they took place in a different era. In mathematics, students can invent and think with novel number systems.
In foreign language, stu- dents can invent dialogues with people from other cultures. Increasingly, essay tests can be and are scored by machine. Often, human raters of essays provide ratings that correlate more highly with machine-grading than with the grading of other humans. The more the essay conforms to one or more prototypes, the higher the grade.
Machines can detect conformity to prototypes better than humans, so essay graders of the kind being used today succeed in a limited form of essay evaluation. Thus, the essays that students are being given often do not encourage creativity—rather they discourage creativity in favor of model answers that conform to one or more prototypes.
But proponents of this notion of accountability often make it sound as though those who oppose them oppose any accountabil- ity, whereas, in fact, they instead may oppose only the narrow form of accountability conventional tests generate.
But they are treated as though they assess broader ranges of skills than they actually do assess. Curiously, governments may have a stake in such narrow, but not broad, forms accountability.
Governments often wish to encourage conformity—after all, they see themselves as promoting order, usually order with respect to themselves—and so they inadvertently may prefer an educational agenda that promotes a model of an educated person that minimizes or excludes creative i.
Their goal is not necessarily to punish creativity, but rather to ensure their own stability and longevity. The punishment and extinction of creativity is merely a byproduct. Thus, they may promote education, but not a kind of education that fosters creative thinking. They may also fail to promote active critical thinking, which also potentially puts their longevity at risk. Sometimes, they will allow creative or critical thinking, so long as it is not applied to their own policies.
Inert knowledge is much safer to stability, because it gives the appearance of education without most of the substance. Governments sometimes go the other way. In order to enhance economic competitiveness a program is initiated to encourage creativ- ity in citizens.
Did this initiative, however, result in sharp increases in creativity? It is doubtful. Because it is one thing for an authority to encourage creativity, and quite another to get people to believe that enhancing creativity will lead to better outcomes in school or in life.
So is conformity. If peo- ple have been socialized over the years to think in conforming ways, and if they have been rewarded for conforming, no single governmental initiative is likely to change the way people think and act.
Whereas creativity is seen as departure from a mean, conformity is seen as adherence to that mean. People in such societies will be so afraid of departure from the mean that the will be unwilling to be creative, whatever their creative abilities might be. Why is creativity even important? It is important because the world is changing at a far greater pace than it ever has before, and people need constantly to cope with novel kinds of tasks and situations.
Learning in this era must be life-long, and people constantly need to be think- ing in new ways. The technologies, social customs, and tools available to us in our lives are replaced almost as quickly as they are introduced.
We need to think creatively to thrive, and, at times, even to survive. But this often is not how we are teaching children to think—quite the contrary. In a recent bestseller, a man decided to become the smartest person in the world by reading an encyclopedia cover to cover. The fact that the book sold so well is a testament to how skewed our conception has become of what it means to be smart.
Someone could memorize that or any other encyclope- dia, but not be able to solve even the smallest novel problem in his or her life. If we want to encourage creativity, we need to promote the creativity habit.
That means we have to stop treating it as a bad habit. We have to resist efforts to promote a conception of accountability that encourages children to accumulate inert knowledge with which they learn to think neither creatively nor critically. Consider 12 keys for developing the creativity habit in children.
Many times in life individuals have a problem and they just do not see how to solve it. They are stuck in a box. This process is the synthetic part of creative thinking. Adults can encourage creative thinking by having children choose their own topics for papers or presentations, choose their own ways of solving problems, and sometimes having them choose again if they discover that their selection was a mistake.
Approval ensures that the topic is relevant to the lesson and has a chance of leading to a successful project. Adults cannot always offer children choices, but giving choices is the only way for children to learn how to choose. Giving children latitude in making choices helps them to develop taste and good judgment, both of which are essential elements of creativity.
At some point everyone makes a mistake in choosing a project or in the method they select to complete it. Question and Analyze Assumptions Everyone has assumptions. Often one does not know he or she has these assumptions because they are widely shared. Ques- tioning assumptions is part of the analytical thinking involved in cre- ativity.
When Copernicus suggested that Earth revolves around the sun, the suggestion was viewed as preposterous because everyone could see that the sun revolves around Earth. The impetus of those who question assumptions allows for cultural, technological, and other forms of advancement. Teachers can be role models for questioning assumptions by show- ing children that what they assume they know, they really do not know.
Of course, children should not question every assumption. There are times to question and try to reshape the environment, and there are times to adapt to it. Some creative people question so many things so often that others stop taking them seriously. Teachers and parents can help children develop this talent by mak- ing questioning a part of the daily exchange.
It is more important for children to learn what questions to ask—and how to ask them—than to learn the answers. Adults can help children evaluate their questions by discouraging the idea that the adults ask questions and children simply answer them.
This can help children learn, how to formulate good questions and how to answer questions. Society tends to make a pedagogical mistake by emphasizing the answering and not the asking of questions.
The good student is per- ceived as the one who rapidly furnishes the right answers. As John Dewey recognized, how one thinks is often more important than what one thinks. On the contrary, creative ideas are usually viewed with suspicion and distrust. Moreover, those who propose such ideas may be viewed with suspicion and distrust as well.
Thus, children need to learn how to persuade other people of the value of their ideas. This selling is part of the practical aspect of creative thinking. If children do a science project, it is a good idea for them to present it and demonstrate why it makes an important contribution.
If they create a piece of artwork, they should be prepared to describe why they think it has value. If they develop a plan for a new form of government, they should explain why it is better than the existing form of government. They should prepare their children for the same kind of experience. The environment for gener- ating ideas can be constructively critical, but it must not be harshly or destructively critical. Children need to acknowledge that some ideas are better than others. Adults and children should collaborate to identify and encourage any creative aspects of ideas that are presented.
When suggested ideas do not seem to have much value, teachers should not just criticize. Children should be praised for generating ideas, regardless of whether some are silly or unrelated, while being encouraged to identify and develop their best ideas into high-quality projects. Quite simply, one cannot go beyond the existing state of knowledge, if one does not know what that state is. At the same time, those who have an expert level of knowledge can experience tunnel vision, narrow thinking, and entrenchment.
Experts can become so stuck in a way of thinking that they become unable to extricate themselves from it. When a person believes that he or she knows everything there is to know, he or she is unlikely to ever show truly meaningful creativity again. The upshot of this is that I tell my students and my own children that the teaching-learning process is a two-way process.
I have as much to learn from my students and my children as they have to learn from me. Encourage Children to Identify and Surmount Obstacles Buying low and selling high means defying the crowd. And people who defy the crowd—people who think creatively—almost inevitably encounter resistance. The question is not whether one will encounter obstacles; that obstacles will be encountered as a fact.
The question is whether the creative thinker has the fortitude to persevere. I think, I know at least one reason why: Sooner or later, they decide that being creative is not worth the resistance and punishment. The truly creative thinkers pay the short-term price, because they recognize that they can make a difference in the long term. But often it is a long while before the value of creative ideas is recognized and appreciated.
Teachers should include stories about people who were not supportive, about bad grades for unwelcome ideas, and about frosty receptions to what they may have thought were their best ideas. To help children deal with obstacles, teachers can remind them of the many creative people whose ideas were initially shunned and help them to develop an inner sense of awe of the creative act. Suggesting that children reduce their concern over what others think is also valuable.
When children attempt to surmount an obstacle, they should be praised for the effort, whether or not they were entirely successful. Having the class brainstorm about ways to confront a given obstacle can get them thinking about the many strategies people can use to confront problems. Some obstacles are within oneself, such as performance anxiety. Read more Reviews User-contributed reviews Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers.
Be the first. Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers. Tags Add tags for "Creativity : a handbook for teachers". Similar Items Related Subjects: 3 Creative ability. Creative thinking.
User lists with this item 7 Puccio, Gerard J. All rights reserved. Please sign in to WorldCat Don't have an account? Remember me on this computer. Cancel Forgot your password? Ai-Girl Tan. Print book : English View all editions and formats. Creativity: A Handbook for Teachers covers topics related to creativity research, development, theories and practices.
Creative ability. User lists Similar Items. Livne, Oren E. Livne, Charles A. Home About Help Search. It is not a book to be read from cover to cover, it is a handbook to be dipped into by those who wish to read and understand contemporary views concerning a very wide range of important issues concerning creativity such as new concepts, theories, models, frameworks, research and teaching experiences.
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