The Importance Of Creativity In Education

Creativity is defined as the ability to produce new and unique ideas that diverge from established customs and norms. Over the years, however, it has diminished greatly in today’s society. From a young age, schools as well as some business force people to learn certain skills in order to please others. For quite some time, colleges based a student’s intelligence on their GPA rather than creative abilities. Those who are creative are restricted in their abilities; it is acceptable for a mathematically inclined person to lack artistic skills, but heaven forbid a creative student find a science based class challenging. Currently, Academy School District 20 has not implemented a creative thinking class in Liberty High School. I believe we should include such a program, seeing that creativity in students continues to weaken nationwide. By requiring students to think creatively, we can encourage students to innovate, grow, and learn.

The creative curriculum classroom is a community. In the creative curriculum classroom, instruction is based on observing and developing what the children say and do. Based on Vygotsky's term zone of proximal development (ZPD), creative curriculum teachers provide learning experiences that are challenging enough to move children to a higher level of learning, not so challenging as to frustrate them. Creative curriculum teachers facilitate growth and development of all children in the class and create a classroom environment in which their own effectiveness can be affirmed.(Colker)

The beauty of creativity is that it is abstract, yet ubiquitous: in art, music or how one decides to compose an essay. However, creativity has recently been declining among the human population. According to an article, named, “The Creativity Crisis,” by Newsweek.com in July 2010, authors, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, state, “the Torrance Test … indicates that the public’s “creativity quotient” has steadily crept downward since 1990” (Prompt 1). Bronson and Merryman report that the test, which evaluates one’s creativity, had been dispensed to myriads of people across the globe, and have concluded that creativity has been slowly diminishing. Kyung Hee Kim, professor at the College of William and Mary, also comments that this is most prevalent and grave among students from kindergarten through sixth grade (Prompt 1). Consequently, society, or in this case, the world fears that current students and future generations will not be nourished with the creativity required to thrive as individuals, affecting the world as a whole. Ultimately, this poses the question whether a creative thinking class, which solely focuses on the education of creativity, should be taught in the school. This school should impose a creative thinking class, due to the fact creativity is a vital element for the future and is the solution to the creative crisis.

For the entirety of the fall semester, I took on a project to create a three-page layout for a fictional campaign in National Geographic magazine about endangered species. The goal was to create different content for my portfolio, challenging my skills in photography and photo-manipulation. I transformed people into animals and used gel lighting and Photoshop to create my artwork (see Appendix A figure 1 & 2). At the end of the semester, I reviewed my completed pieces and two theorists best fit my creative process, Julie Burstein, and Teresa Amabile. Julie Burstein discusses the best way to foster creativity is by ‘letting go’ she outlines this in four lessons (Campbell and Dubois, “Artist Best practices” 25). These lessons include experiences, challenges, limitations and loss (Campbell and Dubois, “Artist Best practices” 25). While Teresa Amabile discusses how the theory of creativity is fostered through her componential model of creativity (Campbell and Dubois, “On theories of” 14). These include domain-relevant skills, creative thinking skills and motivation (Campbell and Dubois, “On theories of” 14). Both of these theorists go hand in hand providing me with the framework for my best work. This essay will discuss how Amabile’s theory for intrinsic motivation and Burstein’s lesson of experience and loss, align in my creative process to be conducive to my work.

Some of the greatest minds in history became successful without having more than an eighth-grade education. Some of the greatest minds in history became successful after achieving a doctorate level education. So, is receiving an education a requirement for a successful career? The answer is no. Being successful is not determined by the person’s intelligence level after completing their education; it is judged by their determination, creativity and natural intelligence.

Many magazines and television programs tell us that success means having a lot of money, have a fulfilling career, and success; Besides, religious organizations and spiritual for that success means finding spiritual happiness and peace to the supreme being and to yourself. A successful idea to focus on the relationships created by people who love you and care about you, time with family and friends. A college education can help you achieve some sort of success, but it does not differ much, you can still be successful in other areas of life such as religion, art, and can Sports. While a college education can be a measure of the success of an individual, the world's most modern work based on skills and experience, rather than a university degree. There are many cases in which talent is the prerequisite. A talented individuals have more opportunities to succeed. Most of the actors, and musicians, did not even finish high school before they find success. Some, successful that even left school. Can become a member of the family business is a great opportunity for success. There are many family businesses, course members can go up the ladder to become owners, and or CEO of your business. Who says that even worked in a restaurant can not bring success? Working at Pizza Hut, McDonald's, KFC can be a great thing, especially if you move up the chain to work to become a manager, highly paid, and it does

Society has influenced many minds that in order to become successful, one most obtain a post-secondary degree. People perceive that their lives depend on a degree so that they can prosper in life. However, one does not need an approval from others to become successful in society. To many people, a degree is like an approval from educators and it is in their best interest to receive one. In a developing world that we live in, people often discover different ways to be successful, even without a degree. One man who dropped out of college to pursue his dreams of becoming an inventor and entrepreneur, became a cofounder of Apple. He invented innovative technology that “put a ding in the universe.” A degree does not guarantee that one can “be a

reactive in its approach to tackling the issues at the school. As the most effective school policies have demonstrated, the whole school needs to come together to change the culture to create the positive, safe and productive learning environment that all schools, parents and students want.

According the most recent national assessment recorded in the Washington post, “the nations high school seniors have shown no improvement in math and reading performances since 2009.” In the most recent years, education has taken a huge downfall. Since 2010, over 45% of students drop out. Many students have problems with the grading system, so many different testing programs and having to follow a set of rules and not expand on those rules. The education system needs to induce more creativity, enforce the ways on how education is important and elaborate more on the rules of grading.

Although some may argue that it is a need to pursue post-secondary education. Often people who attend post-secondary who finished and earned their bachelor’s degree and master’s degree do become successful. Those who become successful get into their desired job or working environment, however, not many graduates get into their desired jobs. Furthermore, some successful people earn their jobs because of family connected business. Without trying too hard, they inherit their job because their family runs or owns the business. Without putting effort and hard work in life, one will not really be successful in life.

Do schools provide students with enough opportunities to be creative? Most children in the United States start school at the young age of five. Normally children are looking forward to the art class part of their day. You with often see drawings on notebooks kids will keep with them on their binders/school supplies. So are schools taking this joy away at too early of an age? Should art or other creative classes be taken more seriously? And finally why are these creative classes one of the first to go if the schools are having budgeting problems?

After high school, a choice that many students have to make is whether to go to college or not. There are many factors that go into one’s decision. There are pros and cons to going to college and also there are pros and cons for not going to college. But the decision that will give someone the better opportunity to have a more successful life is to go to college. The money that one will earn after getting a college degree will be more than the money a person will make without getting a college degree. As our society has continued to evolve, education has become the optimal route to professional success: pursuing a degree is the best way to receive training, to gain expertise in a given field, and even to guide you and help you make choices

Creative learning is about how children are involved in their own learning and making choices and decisions. It is important to let children explore through play and praise their creative efforts. Creativity can link through play, dance, music, making things, drawing and painting where the child will make their own actions and ideas. They will learn to feel frustrated if a project isn’t going right and they will learn to feel proud when their projects go right. Socially they will learn to make friends through play. Intellectually they will learn about problem solving, numeracy, reading and writing skills. Children will communicate b better with adults and feel more confident. Children will develop fine motor skills and participate in physical

Change, creativity and innovation are essential elements for survival and growth of an organization. Creativity is vital for the birth of fresh and beneficial ideas. Creative thinking allows groups and individuals to solve problems or stimulate to think differently in order to bring forth fruitful ideas. The above mentioned creative thinking enabled our team of six different personalities to come together and implement a plan to solve a complex problem in a hospital. Our assigned task was to recommend a plan in order to alleviate hospital readmission among elderly population within thirty days of discharge. In this paper the author is narrating the team dynamics, functionalities and personal competencies in the process of recommending a change in the system. As a member in the innovation leadership team the author is also reflecting on the assessment, capacity for innovation in the organization which is the hospital where the team is assigned.

In the Ted talk video clip the presenter describes how he views creativity in education today. He believes that education has created a hierarchy between subjects, meaning subjects such as languages and mathematics are placed at the top, and creative subjects such as art and dance are placed at the bottom; where level of importance is at the top and not so important is at the bottom. He also describes intelligence as being dynamic, diverse and distinct. He goes on to say that we truly need to rethink the fundamentals in which we teach our children, we need to focus on educating the whole being instead of educating children from the center of their bodies up.