( 25 WAYS TO ) cultivate creativity every day
1. Become an expert at designing ‘what can be’, rather than thinking about ‘what is’.
2. Give students extended, unhurried time to explore and do their best work.
3. Create a classroom climate where students feel mistakes are acceptable and risk taking is encouraged; where appropriate noise, mess and autonomy are accepted.
4. Design lessons as experiences: help students to process their perceptions, consolidate what they’ve learned, and build on each experience.
5. Turn the tables – have your students teach you.
6. Provide an abundant supply of interesting and useful materials and resources.
7. Laugh: play interactive games, encourage jokes, storytelling, and play-acting.
8. Ask open-ended questions such as ‘What if…?’ and ‘How might you…?’ to encourage answers from different perspectives.
9. Focus efforts to build a society that respects its teachers and principals, pays them well, and grants them the autonomy to do their work as creative individuals.
10. Focus school curriculum to value questions above answers, creativity above fact regurgitation, individuality above uniformity and excellence above standardized performance.
11. Encourage, recognize and reward pupils’ creativity – for instance, ask teachers to nominate examples of creativity and celebrate these at a school assembly.
12. Involve young people in the creation of a stimulating learning environment and neighborhood -- for example, they could help to redesign the playground, improve the school’s natural spaces, or solve a problem in their community.
13. Lead a staff meeting on creativity and how to promote it.
14. Make creativity part of the staff development program and include it in everyone’s performance targets.
15. Include goals for creativity in long-range and district-wide planning and create measurement tools.
16. Learn from the best! Many P-20 schools throughout the country have conducted research and instituted successful programs and services that can be replicated in our schools.
17. Include creativity programs in standards and frameworks, and ensure that creativity is incorporated into the curriculum at local, regional and state levels.
18. Use the bully pulpit: the more parents, business leaders, school administrators, and teachers discuss creativity with policy makers, the more they will be willing to investigate and invest in its potential.
19. Establish closer ties with schools of education and P-20 classrooms.
20. Advocate for and invest in quality teacher education and provide support for innovation in the development of school curriculum, especially those that teach creativity.
21. Think broadly about “education,” not merely “schooling.”
22. Strengthen links between out-of-school programs for young people and community members to complement creative opportunities in the school day.
23. Make an effort to graduate more qualified teachers by providing teacher candidates multiple opportunities to observe, tutor, and teach in P-12 classrooms.
24. Diversify the available pool of education professionals by encouraging young people, creative professionals, and individuals from communities of color to become teachers.
25. Encourage dual-degree programs to link teaching skills with specific knowledge, and cross-pollinate between disciplines.
Links
This is just the beginning. Please check back for more.
American Council on Education
American Creativity Association
Character Education Partnership
Edutopia
International Center for Studies in Creativity
National Commission on Teaching and America's Future
National Curriculum In Action, UK
The Council of the Great City Schools
"What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future"