How could creativity potentially impact on Primary Education?

How could creativity potentially impact on Primary Education?

Creativity has an important hold on education, without it lessons and classroom activities would become dull and uninspiring for learners. As suggested by Sharp (2004) many theorists have different views in what creativity is, but most agree that it includes; imagination, originality, productivity, problem solving and producing an outcome of value or worth. These attributes are important for a teacher when wanting to make a creative impact on Primary Education. As a teacher one should have the ability to produce new and unusual lesson plans that can grasp the attention and imaginations of the learner. This is important as a teacher to include creativity within education, as this gives them the opportunity to assert creative pedagogies that involve imaginative and innovative arrangements of the curriculum and teaching strategies within the classroom (Craft et al., 2014) this can stimulate the development of a child’s creativity and make them more involved within their education.

The traditional view of creativity is associated with the divine creation and an emphasis on bringing something new into existence (Fleming, 2012) through these traditional notions of creativity there is the ability to relate this to education. By ‘bringing something new into existence’ the teacher can create new and inventive lesson plans and activities to aid in the development of a child’s education, imagination and creativity that they can take on and apply during future tasks and events. Creativity then started to develop and expand as the world changed; after the Second World War, creativity began to be used widely and not strictly linked to the notion of creation. Without this progressive way of thinking teachers would still be teaching children without emotions and invention (Freire, 1985) this could cause children to become distant and uninterested with their education due to the lack of imagination, originality and stimulation in the classroom.

It is crucial that when a teacher is creative in the classroom that they understand what is required of them. Being creative in the classroom should not be limited to the arts and should be a cross-curriculum responsibility of the teacher to ensure that all children become creative and they are able to develop, extend and apply them across the curriculum and into other subject areas (Duffy, 2006 and Donaldson, 2015). By merging creativity through the curriculum, the teacher is given the opportunity to inspire and spark a child’s imagination; it also gives the teacher the opportunity to interest the learners in their education and being able to make it more than just teaching children to read and write and should be an artistic event (Freire, 1985). It is essential in the classroom that creativity should not be limited to the gifted few (Duffy, 2006), creativity and imagination should be an opportunity give to all children no matter what their abilities both in and outside the classroom; this also means that creativity should not be limited to producing an idea e.g. a drawing or painting (Duffy, 2006), creativity can be sparked through role play, having a creative thought process or being able to ‘think outside of the box’ when having a discussion as a whole class.

To inspire creativity within the classroom the teachers should be able to regard ‘possibility thinking’ as being one of the key principles of creative teaching and the core areas can be defined as: Posing Questions, with the teacher playing the ‘devil’s advocate’ this can produce a different way of thinking about certain topics within the classroom including a more innovative perspective of situations. Another core area is Encouraging and Exploring Emotional Responses, it is important as a teacher to understand that children are individuals with emotions of their own that they have not fully grasped yet and through creativity children can produce pieces of work that express these emotions, by doing so the teacher is able to create more imaginative lessons that can become inclusive to all children. (Craft, 2001).

Creativity has created an impact on Primary Education and has produced a new way of thinking and developing the classroom curriculum. By incorporating creativity within the classroom, teachers can create a new and inventive strategy in the development of a child’s education. Creativity gives the opportunity for all children to think differently or being able to ‘think outside of the box’ in an attempt to produce more thought provoking and emotional responses from learners that they are then able to use and expand upon in the future. It is important that creativity should never be limited to just the creative few, and that all learners are given the opportunity to be creative and develop themselves and their learning styles. 

References:

Craft, A (2001) ‘Little c creativity’ in Craft, A. Jeffrey, B & Leibling, M (eds.) Creativity in education.  London: Continuum, pp.45-61.

Craft, A et al. (2014). ‘Creative Primary Schools: developing and maintaining pedagogy for creativity’, Ethnography and Education, 9:1, pp. 16-34, DOI: 10.108/17457823.2013.828474

Donaldson, G. (2015). Successful Futures: Independent Review of Curriculum and Assessment Arrangements in Wales. Welsh Assembly Government. Crown

Duffy, B (2006) Supporting creativity and imagination in the early years. 2^nd Edn. Berkshire: Open University Press.

Freire, Paulo. (1996). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin. London. Freire and Macedo (1987). Reading the Word and the World. Routledge. London.

Sharp, C. (2004). Developing young children’s creativity: what can we learn from research?, Topic (32) pp.5-12