Creativity In The Classroom

Creativity in the Classroom

Are our schools killing the creativity minds in our students?  I think that the answer is partially yes and partially no.  The way our schools are designed and the way that a lot of instruction takes place is still in the mindset of why our current educational system was designed; to prepare our students for the industrial age.  (Robinson, 2006).  Robinson states that our system is designed so that the most useful subjects needed for work are at the top of the educational hierarchy and that academic ability is crucial as that is how we view intelligence.  (Robinson, 2006).  Until many of the teachers, guidance counselors, principals and other administrators who truly believe that that is what is important in the world today change their mindsets, yes, we are going to squander creativity in our students and not give them the opportunity to express themselves, or take chances and think outside of the box.  In many aspects, our educational system is broke and we cannot teach our students the way that we as educators were taught when we were in public schools.  If we continue to do so, we take the chance of producing students who are not competitive in a world that is constantly in flux.

However, for those teachers who do not totally believe that any more – the ones that foster creativity and allow their students to think outside of the box or come up with something new and original or who are open to alternative answers – then in those cases, we are not killing the creativity in our students.  As educational training progresses and changes at the collegiate level and existing educators see that bucking the trends of the past are the right way to educate our students then the amount of creativity we see in our students is going to increase dramatically.  As Robinson concludes in his video speech is that education needs to change, “And the only way we’ll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are and seeing our children for the hope that they are.  And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future.” (Robinson, 2006)  The educators that continue down this path will produce students who have been very creative in the classroom.  These are the kinds of teachers that use group activities, collaborate, address Gardner’s five minds and also utilize high level thinking skills as well as integrate highly engaging Web 2.0 activities into their teachings.

So how can one use digital media to spark creativity in the classroom?  So many of the Web 2.0 technologies as well as other digital medias that are available today (and I’m sure to come down the road) have flexibility built into them.  Students can create a project, presentation, etc. online and while they may all successfully get from point A to point B, they will do it differently and thus creatively.  They will be able to think outside of the box and come up with multiple solutions to the same problem or even create a solution that wasn’t even though of as being possible or accepted previously.  They will be able to use their imaginations – just as we did with our Prezi assignment as well as with how we determine is the solution for answering a question in one of our blogs or by our upcoming use of Glogster.  Or, if they were using the digital media outlet of Animoto and making their own videos to present a project - imaging the multiple ways that one of those could be created!  These solutions foster creativity in our students quite extensively.  Digital medias just open up opportunities for our students to explore unknown possibilities that you would never see if he/she were in a traditional classroom where it was the sage on the stage type of atmosphere.  As Robinson states in his talk, we need to “start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity.  Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity.  And for the future, it won’t serve us.”  (Robinson, 2006)  Using digital media will accomplish this with our students and we need to start literally as soon as yesterday (if we could) to make the use of digital media a necessity in the classroom to continue to foster creativity in our students and prepare them for their futures.

Gardner, H. (2006). Five Minds for the Future. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Massachusetts.

Robinson, K. 2006. Do schools kill creativity. Retrieved November 13, 2012 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY.