Topic 1: Should schools actively teach creative thinking skills?

Children are no longer encouraged to be creative in the test prep environment. Instead, they are being taught to perform well on standardized tests and are labeled as unintelligent if they don’t. Young children are born with creativity and we see that when they are playing and pretending. According to Sir Ken Robinson, in Slon’s (2013) article, “by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity” to be creative. The fundamentals of creation and experimentation are not part of the standardized testing mechanism.

The American youth are becoming smarter, but are creative minds are shrinking. American children’s scoring on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking has been falling since the 90s. Having

Thinking must be practiced in each content field at each educational level. For the teacher, this means hard work. To teach students to memorize facts and then assess them with multiple-choice tests is a much easier choice to make. In a course that emphasizes thinking,

Furthermore, connections can be made between subjects to develop prior knowledge which pupils have gained with new information that teachers need children to acquire. Similarly, adopting a cross – curricular approach allows the recognition of several opinions and helps teachers ‘to build more knowledgeable, lasting and transferable understandings of the world’ (Barnes, 2015: 261). There are various strategies which can be used to teach thinking and learning effectively. These strategies can assist teachers in planning and delivering lessons which allow creative outcomes to be achieved. Further on in this assignment creative approaches will be shared to suggest how they may be used in the classroom alongside a variety of

In a society where everything is constantly shifting and changing, it is essential for education to move away from teaching facts and figures to educating to inspire curiosity and creativity. The need for creativity in the classroom matters more than ever in our society. "Creativity is no longer seen as just being for artists and musicians .It's a crucial skill for everybody to master. "the following three articles were elaborated critique Department thinking, creativity and observation of contact,

Assessment of this kind identifies strengths and weaknesses, and provides detailed diagnostic information about how students are thinking. The collection of evidence of this

We also learn that creativity in the classroom has a positive effect on vocabulary, increases creative problem solving skills, increases the enjoyability of learning, and if used in conjunction with technology can help develop skills in the creative use of technology that will stay with them throughout their lives. (p. 237)

Problem solving skills entail two distinct mental skill analytic and creative thinking. Analytical thinking utilizes comparing and contrasting, evaluating and selecting, to find the best alternative (ITS Education Asia, 2005). Creative thinking uses the imagination to create a large picture of the

Today’s education system has become focused on standardized intelligence testing and what works best for the majority. This system, although created to help the masses, is impersonal and only benefits a specific group of students who learn the best through testing. Those students who think creatively and use imagination are left behind. This is why intelligence tests are not accurate measurement of a child’s knowledge as it does not account for creativity and the child’s individual strengths. Changes need to be made within the school system. Instead of focusing on what is “correct” schools should be encouraging problem-solving through the process of making mistakes and failing. This challenges a student to learn about themselves and the world around them. When everything is already laid out for them it is easy to follow. There is no single way of thinking. By making a student have to think on their own it stimulates creativity and allows them to better connect concepts to real world situations.

A smart man said “Creativity is as important as literacy and we should treat it with the same standing.” (Ken Robinson-“Do schools kill creativity?”). There are multiple studies on how creativity helps improve a student’s mind. Project based learning is a huge creative booster for students. A math teacher from California uses projects to do math instead of using the text book. From doing this, she’s had more students pass her class then from when she was teaching straight from the text books. Instead of having standardized tests, using more creative techniques for students to enjoy the learning they’ve done and for them to show the higher officials what the students are learning. Creativity is the process of turning real world problems into an understanding by extending the minds cognitive processes. In Alabama, kindergartners are studying different ways to be creative.

In the same manner, Schacter (1996) identifies that “engrams that are never used are probably best forgotten”. Furthermore, Caine and Caine (1990) and later on Schacter (1996) recommend that meaningful activities should include a “great deal of ‘real life’ activities including classroom demonstration, projects, field trips” (p.69), “guided imagery, and mnemonics”. Engaging students in problem solving is another method to implement critical thinking in the classroom and initiate conversation for a deeper understanding of the objective (Erickson, 2002, p.

A.2. I would involve children to be conscientious of their environment, to be aware that things need to be explored in depth before drawing conclusions, that what it looks like it is not. Asking questions and giving the right material for the exploration process. An example is Kathy exploration of cardinals as a way of learning to distinguish birds in children’s life events.

Graff says that putting students in classes in the contemporary system is wasting and limiting students’ potential and creativity (198). Complaining that intellects do not meet the success standard set by schools, Graff proves that schools limit the intellect students can achieve in their academic career (198-199).

Creativity is the basis of childhood and success in adulthood. It is the ability to create original and imaginative ideas and put them into action in an innovative way. Creativity is a skill that can be built upon with effort and persistence. For children, it comes in the form of imaginary worlds and mythical stories and it has always had a major part in all children’s lives. However, this creativity is diminishing in children from kindergarten to sixth grade. Whether this is caused by teaching methods, increased testing, increased dependency of technology, or how children are raised, it is a significant problem that should be addressed by the school boards. Therefore, creative thinking should be incorporated into existing classes in schools rather than taught in a completely different course in order to increase children’s learning capabilities and skills in the future and to increase interest in subjects that may not be very interesting to some students.

This article helped me to understand the importance of including creativity within classroom instruction and the author did an excellent job at describing one way to do so. The author was all about using the inquiry based learning. The author explained this type of learning in a way that I could see myself using it within my classroom. Although the author is an advocate for using inquiry learning within science classes I could see myself using this type of learning within other areas of instruction as well. If I would use inquiry based learning within language arts or math it would still encourage creativity because the students would still be taking responsibility for their own learning.