From the Principal
Reva Gluck-Schneider, Principal
Six Myths About Creativity
(Originally titled "Why Creativity Now? A Conversation with Sir Ken
Robinson")
"A big part of being creative is looking for new ways of
doing things within whatever activity you're involved in," says
British creativity expert Ken Robinson in this Educational
Leadership interview by Amy Azzam. "...A creative process may
begin with a flash of a new idea or with a hunch. It may just
start as noodling around with a problem, getting some
fresh ideas along the way. It's a process, not a single
event..."
Robinson believes that six
misconceptions get in the way of teaching creativity effectively,
and that as a result, "we're systematically educating it out of
our kids."
* That creativity is possessed by
only a gifted few. Not true, says Robinson. "Everybody has
tremendous creative capacities."
* That creativity is limited to a few
special activities - the arts, for example. Nonsense, says
Robinson. "You can be creative in math, science, music, dance,
cuisine, teaching, running a family, or engineering."
* That creativity is "letting
yourself go, kind of running around the room and going a bit
crazy." Robinson disagrees. "Really, creativity is a disciplined
process that requires skill, knowledge, and control," he says.
"Obviously, it also requires imagination and inspiration. But it's
not simply a question of venting: It's a disciplined path of
daily education."
* That creativity is a solitary
process. On the contrary, "Most original thinking comes
through collaboration and through the > stimulation of other
people's ideas," says Robinson. "... The great scientific
breakthroughs have almost always come through some form of fierce
collaboration among people with common interests but very
different ways of thinking. This is one of the great skills we
have to promote and teach - collaborating and benefiting from
diversity rather than promoting homogeneity." Robinson worries
that standardized tests promote a narrow view of intelligence and
narrow the curriculum.
* That people who aren't creative
can't teach creativity. There's a distinction between teaching
creatively and teaching for creativity, says Robinson. In the
latter, the pedagogy is designed to encourage innovation, not give
away the answers, and ask for divergent thinking, analogies,
metaphors, and visual thinking. It's especially helpful to connect
students to a medium that excites them, whether it's music,
gymnastics, science, playing pool.
* That creativity can't be assessed.
Indeed it can, says Robinson, if you observe students in a
situation in which they've been asked to look for new ways of
solving problems. Should students be graded for creativity?
"Certainly giving people credit for originality, encouraging it,
and giving kids some way of reflecting on whether these new ideas
are more effective than existing ideas is a powerful part of
pedagogy," he says. "But you can't reduce everything to a
number in the end, and I don't think we should."
"Why Creativity Now? A Conversation
with Sir Ken Robinson" in Educational Leadership, September 2009
(Vol. 67, #1, p. 22-26)
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership.aspx
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership.aspx
Robinson's website is at
http://www.sirkenrobinson.com
www.sirkenrobinson.com
