“We’ve come to a point in our history in which continuing to do what we’ve always done is no longer an option. We must do better. It begins, as it always does with each of us taking a stand. Imagine if . . . “
Kate Robinson
“Ready or not. Here I come!” The pandemic disruption for education arrived riding on a whirlwind of global chaos. Who could imagine, in this day and age, a disruptor of this magnitude? Ramifications were immediate, some profound and others irritatingly annoying. Within a short period of time, all educators realized how impacting and long-lasting this “ride” was going to be.
At the peak of the crisis, UNESCO data showed over 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries out of school. Over 100 million teachers and school personnel were impacted by the sudden closures of learning institutions. The structured settings for learning had been turned upside down. Bringing traditional teaching and learning to a screeching halt. We can only imagine the personal turmoil (for all educators) ensuing since the beginnings of the pandemic.
Call for Change
Disruption, on this level, over the last two years, was on a cataclysmic level. If there was ever a time to rethink schools, the time is now. So with that in mind, let’s take a moment and reflect on the future of education. Could this be the Tipping Point to instigate radical changes in public education? A new era? One that leads to innovative products and services. Quite possibly. For quite some time educators and world leaders have been discussing the need to rethink how we educate and prepare future generations. Two recent publications offer some compelling research and “food for thought.”
The late Sir Ken Robinson solidified the need for creativity in education with his creativity crisis 2006 TedTalk Do Schools Kill Creativity? Now viewed by over seventy two million. This month, March 2022, his daughter, Kate, posthumously released a compendium of his vision for education. Imagine If . . . Creating a Future for us All. In this text, Sir Ken identified 8 Core Competencies that should be “interwoven from the beginning of a student’s education journey and nurtured throughout.” Here are some of his Creativity Core Competency beliefs.
As the challenges facing young people proliferate, it is essential to help them develop their unique creative capacities.
Creativity is possible in all areas of human life. It can be cultivated and refined, which involves and increasing mastery of skills, knowledge, and ideas.
Zhao and McDiarmid’s 2022 release,Learning for Uncertainty, provides an intense compilation of present day driving forces behind needed changes in education.
We can imagine a personalized curriculum built on each student’s strengths and designed to support and guide the development of the student’s interests and talents. This could be in addition to the mandatory curriculum, or some of the required curriculum could be part of the personalized learning experience . . . the big message is that schooling can no longer continue as it has been.
McDiarmid and Zhao
Transformations
This pandemic crisis, for the most part, transformed the role of the teacher into the role of the student. Teachers had expertise in their craft, but now found themselves spending a great deal of time intensely wondering about how to persevere in a virtual learning environment. Facing challenges on every level to learn “how to” do it differently. Teachers were forced into adopting new instructional technology and accompanying pedagogies. Students, even though they mostly knew the technology, had to adapt to unfamiliar ways of interacting and learning in a virtual environment. In other words – a challenging mess. A conundrum.
Conundrum – a confusing or difficult problem. The problem is often difficult to analyze or resolve.
This is exactly where it began for all teachers and students. Together – facing the conundrum of the pandemic. Teachers did what they do best. They started problem solving. As life-long learners, they turned to resources and colleagues to collaboratively figure out a different way of navigating daily life as an educator. Approaching each day with the “heart of a teacher” – uppermost in their minds the well-being of their students.
Promising Possibilities
There are some very positive take-aways from this upending experience. It “naturally” forced all educators into further exploring some of the more promising practices. One’s that support a more student-centered learning experience.
Flipped, hybrid, blended classrooms. Naturally creating a self-paced learning environment for students.
Differentiation and individual pacing. Time for remediation, acceleration, and enrichment.
Numerous recorded teaching sessions. Students can REWIND and REPEAT and PAUSE! A great space for remediation and acceleration.
The pandemic left educators with a bevy of new resources created out of the chaos of instant virtual classrooms. At the top of this list is all the teacher-created recorded lessons. The next step is figuring out the “how to” of moving back into the classroom and finding purposeful ways to use “all the lessons learned” without further frustration and exhaustion. Fortunately, there are educational leaders already taking up this charge. Innovating education. Here are two impacting resources created in response to the growing need for virtual learning environments:
Kareem Farah’s Modern Classroom Project – cohorts of educators world-wide implementing blended, self-paced, mastery-based instruction. This includes workshops to help educators build lessons for their classrooms.
Keep Indiana Learning – supports educators everywhere with instructional resources, professional development opportunities, and other best practices. This includes on-demand workshops for educators, as well as live coaching.
New Beginnings
The conundrums of life are ever present. For our students to thrive in this new world, they will need the skills of creativity: critical thinking, creative thinking, communication, and collaboration. The very ones that served all educators well over the past two years of the pandemic. The very ones that enhance student involvement in future-ready programs and prepare them for the unknown challenging futures they will face. Perhaps this pandemic experience will result in a renewed belief and confidence in adopting innovative policies and practices.
“Usually, the main problem with life conundrums is that we don’t bring to them enough imagination.”
Thomas Moore
Imagine if . . . one day, we can look back on these past two years as the Tipping Point. One that rocketed education into a new era. A place where both teachers and students find personal and professional happiness and success. Here’s your chance. Now’s the time. Take a stand.
The structured settings for learning had been turned upside down. Bringing traditional teaching and learning to a screeching halt.
Teachers did what they do best. They started problem solving. As life-long learners, they turned to resources and colleagues to collaboratively figure out a different way of navigating daily life as an educator.
For quite some time educators and world leaders have been discussing the need to rethink how we educate and prepare future generations.
What if educators join together to look at the disruption caused by the pandemic as the opportunity to do school very differently – the way many of us have been dreaming of for some time?
Bodacious. Now there’s a word fun to say! And to think about. To be bold or gutsy. Showing a readiness to take risks. Strikingly different or unconventional. Arresting or provocative. Courageous, adventurous, fearless, or daring. Seems pretty close to describing a student “caught” in the act of being creative.
So here’s the dilemma. How can we get students to take more intellectual and emotional risks? Bodacious in their creative thoughts. For most students, keeping their creative thoughts hidden deep inside is a comfortable default mode. They have complete “freedom of thought.” No one can criticize, no one can argue, no one can reject, and it costs nothing emotionally. But it’s only “real” in their imagination! We must see or hear students’ thinking to be able to understand and support their creativity. So how do we get what’s on the inside . . . outside?
Judgement
Watching a child tearing off wrapping paper, ripping open the box, and diving into a mound of Legos instantly reminds us of what it means to play creatively. The pile of unsorted blocks quickly become spaceships, superheroes, giant spiders, and on and on. Kids just play without interference of forethoughts or afterthoughts. “Did I get this right?” They do so quite naturally. No expectation or pressure of some kind of preconceived product, outcome, or ranking. Playing with things, ideas, or creative thoughts in the classroom have the same basic environmental needs. No external or internal forms of judgement required.
External Judgement
When students share a creative idea or thought, they run the risk of rejection, being laughed at, ridiculed, or even worse. Their idea may be misunderstood and quickly dismissed. If this happens in classrooms, students soon learn to keep their creative ideas and wonderings to themselves. It is easier and less painful.
Internal Judgement
One difficult part of the creative process for many students is being in a state of ambiguity or uncertainty. They may experience a great deal of anxiety, tension, nervousness, and even physical discomfort. Wondering “Is this right?” “Will this work?” “Is this the correct way?” They are now officially out of their comfort zones! This engagement level is where all creative ideas originate. And a place where many are stymied.
F.O.L.F.
The Fear Of Looking Foolish. You and your students can have fun playing with this acronym. Rick coined this term when he was conducting Humor in Education professional learning sessions with teachers. Students will have to come to terms with F.O.L.F. in their own minds and on their own time. Some will blossom early on, and for others it will take more time and practice to break through this psychological barrier. Practicing thinking creatively in an intellectually and emotionally safe classroom environment builds security and trust. Freeing minds from the fear of possible embarrassment or judgement.
So how can we create classrooms where students feel free to explore and expose their creativity?
Intellectual and Emotional Safety Zones
You may be wondering how you can teach without judgement. There’s a whole lot of necessary grading and directions going on in any learning environment. But less can be more. To make our classrooms intellectually and emotionally safe places for students to grow the mindsets and skillsets of creativity requires that we:
provide feedback more formatively
include more open-ended learning opportunities
establish norms to protect and promote creative expression
Formative feedback and open-ended learning are part of “what we do” as educators. We’re guessing establishing norms to protect creative expression may feel a bit daunting. Something that definitely wasn’t in the “playbook” of your teacher education program. Fortunately, Alex Osborn coined the term brainstorming, creating four rules that are just what’s needed to get started on designing a safe, supportive creative learning environment.
Rules of Brainstorming
Many Ideas – lots and lots – the “more the merrier”
Free-Wheel – go “wild and crazy” – get “out of the box”
Piggyback – feel free to connect to someone else’s idea
No Judgement – in any form – what they say and what they do
Many Ideas and No Judgement seem pretty familiar and straight forward. Be forewarned and on the “lookout” for the many forms of judgement. They can sneak into the classroom wearing many disguises: looks, sounds, actions, and expressions. And the most subtle, but equally harmful . . . body language. Have fun asking your students to show all these forms of judgement to make them realize their impact.
When we are asked, “How will I know when I’ve got it right?” we share two strong indicators we observed in our classrooms.
When you overhear one student saying to another student,
“Whoa, you are breaking one of our rules of brainstorming.”
The best “sign” is when you hear a student express a very unusual idea and you hear and/or “see” their classmates saying “WOW!” instead of “WHAT?”
Risk Taking
Sir James Dyson is a great example of someone who has taken numerous creative emotional and intellectual risks and asked many “What if” questions. For example, he thought, “What if we made a wheelbarrow without a wheel?” “I know, let’s make a fan without any blades.” And perhaps his most famous bodacious creative thought: “How about we design and create a vacuum cleaner without a bag!”
James Dyson has asserted the importance of failure in one’s life. “I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum cleaner before I got it right. That meant 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure. I’ve always thought that schoolchildren should be marked by the number of failures they’ve had. The child who tries strange things and experiences lots of failures to get there is probably more creative.”
Help students to understand that once they have a creative idea, the next step is to transform it into another state. Draw it. Write it. Sing it. Play with it. Build it. And when it’s time – share it. One of the greatest gifts you can give to your students is the belief and the ability to pursue a creative idea without fear of feeling different. Total creative “freedom of thought.”
“Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.”
James Conan Bryant
Creativity fuels the meaning of life. It artistically fuels the soul. It emotionally fuels the heart. It’s the fresh and the new! It’s the unique and the different! It’s connecting the dots not previously connected! But creativity always involves change. Every original creative act someone undertakes opens a doorway for change. Help your students embrace change by becoming emotional and intellectual creative risk-takers. Encourage more guessing, taking chances, trying it out, and more playing.
The more students practice these creative behaviors, the more they will begin to stretch out of their comfort zones. Eventually becoming their new default thinking and learning style. Their self-confidence will grow along with their self-esteem when it comes to approaching creative challenges.
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Anais Nin
FOR YOUR CLASSROOM
If you want to help your students enhance and embolden their creative thinking, you can begin by “remodeling” your classroom.
Make your students more aware that your classroom is a safe place to take risks, ask questions, guess, fail, and make mistakes.
Provide more time for student thinking, reflecting, revising, tinkering, reviewing, redoing, pondering, and practicing.
Model the behaviors you want to see in your students.
Push yourself beyond the feeling of responsibility for all phases of teaching and learning. Allow students to go in different directions. Let stuff happen.
Use supportive phrases and questions that encourage creative thinking. Ask questions with thinking stems: What if? How might we? How could?
Establish the Rules of Brainstorming as classroom norms.
Frequently ask students to “Tell me your thinking.”
LET’S REFLECT & REMEMBER . . .
Bodacious Creativity (bold, gutsy, unconventional, provocative, courageous) involves both emotional and intellectual risk taking. Seems pretty close to describing a student “caught” in the act of being creative. Strive to make your classroom an intellectually and emotionally safe place for students to grow the mindsets and skillsets of creativity.
Creativity fuels the meaning of life. It artistically fuels the soul. It emotionally fuels the heart. Creativity opens the doorway for change. Help your students embrace it. Expand their intellectual and emotional comfort zones. We must see or hear students’ thinking to be able to understand and support their creativity.
Help students to understand that once they have a creative idea, the next step is to transform it into another state. Draw it. Write it. Play with it. And when it’s time – share it. One of the greatest gifts you can give to your students is the belief and the ability to pursue a creative idea without fear of feeling different.
Initial emotional reactions to any unexpected display of creativity may bring feelings of surprise, amazement, delight, or perhaps even our favorite British expression – gobsmacked! Imagine turning a corner in the grocery story and being presented with a “smiling” wall of peppers. Stopping you in your tracks. Making you smile. Causing you to exclaim “Cool!” “Awesome!” All these reactions, quickly followed by a laugh, create a happy moment squeezed into a mission of grocery shopping.
Being Open
Creativity is all around us! Perhaps you feel challenged or unsure of its place and purpose in your classroom. Wouldn’t it be interesting to bring those accompanying feelings of surprise to learning environments? The first step is to help students be more open to new encounters and perspectives. Making them aware of things that may have previously gone unnoticed. For instance, you could have walked up to the “smiling” vegetable display and thought, “Oh, I see the one I want – the yellow one. It’s on the middle ‘shelf’.” Having a conversation about this photo of “smiling” vegetables might be a fun place to start.
“Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.”
~ Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
Wonder Walks
Learning and honing the skill of being more observant is the second step. Encourage students to go on Wonder Walks on their way to school, at the mall, around their neighborhood, in the science museum, or in the heart of a big city. A fun one to do is a Wonder Walk of their favorite color. Here’s one we did of everything yellow on our way to and through Denver Botanic Gardens.
Challenge your students to continue to seek and find example after example of creativity everywhere – using their open, unboxed imaginations. Start building a Wonder Wall (sketches, photos, and ideas) to capture their observations and insights. A great place for students to visit for future inspirations as they design and create their own products
After the initial burst of emotions (following creative encounters), students’ curiosity and wonderment immediately take over. Spurring questions. “Why did they do that?” “How did they come up with that idea?” And as in the case of the “smiling” peppers, “I wonder who actually stacked the peppers that way?” “Are there any other creative displays in the store?” I wonder conversations are great places to jump start students’ imaginations and to create a buzz of engagement.
Dendrites in High Gear
Creativity throws our dendrites into high gear! You see, the brain craves novelty! Just the stimulus to inspire students to want to know (and do) more. They might begin to think of other ways they could display merchandise. Cans could be stacked to create a flag around the 4th of July. Cereal boxes could be arranged to form a Christmas tree. All these experiences prepare their minds for the type of thinking needed to creatively solve problems and design projects. Making them future-ready thinkers!
Mind Jumping
It continues to get more exciting as students mind-jump from one idea to another in response to a simple photo or display. They quite naturally make connections to past creative encounters, such as a halftime college football show of bands making elaborate kaleidoscopic human formations (like the pepper display). And the best part . . . at this juncture . . . students begin to ponder, “Hmmmmmm, I could do something like this in my work.”
Now that students have had a bit of practice recognizing creativity, ask them to share the most fascinating creative encounter they’ve had so far. Celebrate! Congratulations are in order! They observed it. Discovered it. Spun off new thoughts and ideas! Grab on to their emotions and celebrate the moments together. Have them focus on the creative wealth brought into their lives! Reminding them creativity once discovered will be there again tomorrow, And forever. They just have to seek it out! And don’t we all feel a bit of excitement and appreciation caught up in the sharing of creative endeavors? Hope it was an AWESOME feeling!
“Creativity is contagious – pass it on.”
~ Albert Einstein
FOR YOUR CLASSROOM
It may be useful to examine photos of classic works (art, music, architecture) to encourage and inspire students to 1) observe more closely, 2) think more critically, and 3) make new connections. During the activity, students freely share different observations, perspectives, and viewpoints.
A second activity is to take students on a group Wonder Walk around your school building or outdoor areas. Give students a blank sheet of paper. Ask students to jot down or sketch their creative observations. What is something they never noticed before? What is something they now think of as creative? When finished, return as a group to reflect and discuss. Build an on-going Wonder Wall of sketches and ideas to use as springboards for future creative projects.
LET’S REFLECT & REMEMBER . . .
Future-ready educators look for creativity in all content areas and find ways for students to explore and express their creativity – maximizing student engagement.
First recognizing and appreciating creativity helps students practice being open to new experiences. Honing the skill of observation is the next step.
Creativity throws our dendrites into high gear! You see, the brain craves novelty!
There’s nothing more rewarding than working with a group of educators excited and motivated to bring creativity into the lives of their students. When we returned from our second session with Atlanta Public Schools Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) elementary teachers, we were amazed to see what they had accomplished in just two short months since our first training.
We held a “Share Fair” during lunch so teachers could display and discuss the products and strategies they used to help students learn using creative strategies and tools.
“I started with Think Tanks templates. My students loved it!”
“Every day in my classroom now begins with a creative brain exercise.”
“It was so easy to start implementing the Curiosita strategies.”
The Idea Generating Power of SCAMPER
We challenged the teachers to use S.C.A.M.P.E.R. to create a classroom of their dreams. In 14 minutes they shared 137 ideas for improving the design of classrooms! Here are some of the unique ideas generated by a group of 75 enthusiastic teachers:
Substitute knee desks, wobble chairs, or treadmill desks for student desks.
Combine computers with student desks and have popup computers on desktops.
Adapt all bulletin boards to be digital to display student work products.
Magnify the size and function of interactive white board. Make them wall size and use them flexibly as Lego walls, touch screens, and virtual reality screens.
Put the closets in classroom to another use, such as making it a recording studio.
Eliminate all outlets and create virtual power pads on each student desk.
Reverse ceiling tiles to be drop-downs that become interactive learning stations at the touch of a button.
S.C.A.M.P.E.R. is a powerful checklist tool created by Bob Eberle. You can use this tool with students to extend the number and types of ideas generated from any brainstorming session. The letterprompts can be used for any problem-solving situation:
Improving a relationship
Designing a new product
Creating a better organization
Decorating a room
Fixing something broken
For Your Classroom
We love it when teachers use their creativity in our session feedback forms. Here are a few of our favorite “Kreative Komments” from Atlanta.
Drawing and sketching thoughts and ideas is also a fun way to get your students inspired to share more creatively with you and their peers. Drawings could capture their day, thoughts about events or happenings, or even . . . content reflections!
Let’s Reflect and Remember . . .
Using tools improves creative output.
S.C.A.M.P.E.R extends and enhances thinking.
Creative teaching energizes, engages, and excites educators.
There are many easy ways to “dip your toe” into teaching with and for creativity.
“The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.”
In Curiosita Creativity-Based Learning we talk about making creativity tangible and teachable. It begins with new mindset interactions. Listening and looking at things differently. When you ask your students to talk about creativity, do they get stuck in conversations involving drawing, dancing, or performing? Do they see the creative cool things around them everywhere? Do they recognize the creativity behind all the big innovations? Do they believe they are creative? Do they think of creativity as something fun to do after all the learning?
Do you believe you can make a difference in how your students understand creativity?
What we are talking about here is shifting students’ mindsets. Shaping students’ mental and emotional internal environments, as well as their physical external environments, to foster creativity. Sounds a bit daunting when we put it that way. Right?
For Your Classroom
Here’s a simple and fun place to start working on creativity mindsets. Designate a bulletin board for the display titled Creative Inspirations and Explorations. Begin by asking students to find interesting photos. Ones that “speak to them” about creativity. Tell them to think of this as building a creativity wall collage together. One that can go on and on and on! Emphasize they are searching for images that excite them, or as we like to say, “Knock My Socks Off (K.M.S.O.).”
You will notice the lines begin to blur between environments as you design your classroom (external environment) in fun, funky, and flexible ways to get brains (internal environment) churning with ideas and possibilities.
Five Mindset Conversation Starters:
What is Creativity: Have students share their thoughts about their favorite photo. Why is it creative?
Ideas, Designs & Stories: Encourage everyone to go to the Creative Inspirations and Explorations bulletin board when looking for fodder for an idea, design, or story they are pondering.
Arts & Sciences: Designate themes: science, space, general creativity, music, etc. Challenge students to recognize creativity in both Arts & Sciences.
Creativity in Everyday Life: Select a photo and have students write for one minute using a creative comment stem like: How might we? What if? I wonder . . . as journal prompts?
K.M.S.O. Creativity: Have students randomly select a letter of the alphabet and search for something creative that begins with that letter. Encourage them to find ones that K.M.S.O. to share!
Plan for frequent meetings at the Creative Inspirations & Explorations wall collage to chat about creativity! Be sure to share some of your favorites!
Let’s Reflect and Remember . . .
Creativity is tangible and teachable!
Creative, cool things are all around you.
You can help shape your students external and internal environments.
