Creativity in Education

What comes to mind when you think of creativity? Imaginative, challenging, inventive and original and the value other people produce? Or do you think one can be creative only if person is artistic?

A good starting point for defining creativity is by bringing ‘Creativity in Education' as stated by Sir Ken Robinson . This article is an attempt to take the message that we all are, or can be, creative if we are given the right opportunity. Creativity should be treated with the same dignity as arts or science. One Scottish journal says;

“Although creativity is not amenable to being described neatly, it does have a number of important facets or characteristics:

1. it is always about originality, the forming or making of something new
2. it involves purposeful application of knowledge and skills
3. it includes various ways of thinking, doing and communicating
4. it is evident in the thinking and actions of individuals and communities and finally
5. it is not of itself a good thing - it must be values driven.

Debating the characteristics highlighted by this definition can be a helpful starting point for agreeing what your school actually means by creativity.”

So coming back to the definition given by Sir Ken Robinson” Creativity is an process of generating original ideas which has value”.

It is a big task for teachers as they would reshape the curriculum at all stages in order to better enable young people to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors.

There is an increasing recognition that creativity improves the self-esteem, motivation and achievement of learners. Pupils should be encouraged to think creatively because then they would be more interested in discovering things for themselves, open to new ideas and challenges, able to solve problems, able to work well with others, effective learners and greater ownership over their learning.

Young people who have the opportunity to develop their creative skills will be better prepared for life after school. In this rapidly changing world, it is almost certain that most people will have to adapt to several careers in the course of a lifetime. In the times to come most employers would want to recruit people who see connections, have bright ideas, are innovative, communicate and work well with others, and are able to solve problems. Confident, creative individuals will always be in demand.