Education plays a vital role in both developing today’s creative minds and setting us up for a future full of innovation. With technology growing at a rapid pace, it is easier than ever to find the tools, resources, and people needed to foster the creative potential all around us.
Living with a Creative Mindset
The Wall of Fame’s marketing director, Christina Townsend, co-majored in entrepreneurship at Miami University, where she learned the importance of creative problem solving in all aspects of life. A few of her favorite skills gained in the program include her ability to deal with uncertainty, exercise empathy, and take risks both professionally and personally. In addition, she began to see the importance of creativity in innovation, marketing, and even relationships. She now knows that we all have the potential for creative thinking once we discover how to unlock it and where ours best thrives.
Living with a creative, growth-oriented mindset allows her to try new things and take risks without fear of failing or being wrong. Not because creativity eliminates failure, but rather because it necessitates it. She operates with the knowledge that failure is not the opposite of success, but instead is often a step toward where you’re meant to go.
Miami’s lead creative entrepreneurship professor, Jim Friedman, teaches his students that “Creativity is unlearned.” A lesson that has always resonated greatly with Christina. Her time in school prior to college was often marked by simply “playing the education game” of memorizing the right answers and regurgitating information. She never saw herself as a creative person because she did not take art classes, and no one ever showed her the value of creativity in other subjects.
Students are expected to listen in class, retain the information presented to them, and repeat it back on an examination. Even the teachers who want to emphasize creative thinking and ambiguous assignments get stuck in a system of mandated curriculums and testing scores that makes it difficult.
Creativity in the Classroom
Associate Professor of Psychology and Creative Studies at the University of British Columbia, Liane Gabora, says “creativity involves cognitive processes that transform one’s understanding of, or relationship to, the world.” According to Gabora, though, classrooms often inhibit these types of cognitive behaviors by devaluing attributes such as “risk taking, impulsivity, and independence” for fear it will be disruptive. They reward “reproduction of knowledge and obedience” over stimulation and creative thinking.
But, as Gabora points out, creativity does not come without drawbacks. She does not completely dismiss the value of lessons learned through traditional classroom education, but rather shows the need for a balance of both traditional methods and more creative ones. Since creativity can be correlated with, though not causative of, rule bending, law breaking, social unrest, and dishonesty, it is important to nurture the creative parts of students, while also instilling a healthy respect for rule compliance and ethical behavior.
Despite this balancing act, however, creativity is undeniably a vital piece of education. The variety of stimulus better engages students and allows for more adaptable teaching methods that account for the diversity of people, perspectives, and learning styles within the classroom. In recent years, as technology has continued to evolve, the types of shareable class content and presentation materials has also grown exponentially, allowing for more creativity among both students and teachers.
The Use of EdTech in Learning
One recent movement in particular has impacted the ways creativity and education interact: The development of Makerspaces. These are designated areas in learning centers, such as libraries, labs, and college campuses that provide space, materials, and supplies for people to engage their creative minds and collaborate with others while they work. Technology has enhanced this push by increasing the pool of potential resources to combine both simple tools like plywood and hammers with the more advanced materials like 3D printers and laser cutters.
Educational technology, or EdTech, has emerged in recent years to introduce a variety of IT tools into the learning environment, creating a more inclusive, engaging experience for students. As with any innovation, creative processes are required to develop and implement these solutions, which makes them a perfect bridge between education and creativity. Technological advancements and scientific innovations all around us, including within schools, help showcase the value of creativity in every field, not just artistic ones. The integration of such tools into classrooms, therefore, opens the door for kids to embrace their own creative desires and for teachers to tailor the academic experience to the individual students, encouraging diverse, independent thoughts, rather than shying away from them.
Fostering Creativity in Children
In 2006, Sir Ken Robinson gave one of the most popular TED Talks with over 70 million views today. His topic was on how schools kill creativity. He opened by explaining how we all as individuals and as a society have a vested interest in education. Because it’s “meant to take us into this future that we can’t grasp.” Even though none of us, teachers, innovators, politicians, or otherwise, know what the world will look like in five years’ time, education aims to prepare students for the future anyway. The uncertain, unpredictable nature of life makes the learning of skills, rather than simply facts, all the more valuable.
Sir Robinson then continued by describing the exceptional capacity for talent and innovation among children. He told an array of stories of kids taking chances without fear of being wrong. Kids do not worry about looking foolish or stupid because those fears are learned later in life. So, they imagine, draw, write, act, perform, invent, and whatever else they feel like without concern they might not do it “right.” And as Sir Robinson said, “you’ll never come up with anything original if you’re not prepared to be wrong.” It’s why new ideas are easiest to come by with kids and far harder with adults. As a society, we tell people there is one and only one right answer in most situations, stigmatizing mistakes along the way. The result is “educating people out of their creative capacities.”
The role education plays in both today’s creative minds and the future of innovation, therefore is huge. With technology growing at a rapid pace, it is easier than ever to find the tools, resources, and people needed to foster creative potential. The opportunities at our fingertips are vast and exciting. We get to see the benefit of interdependent learning at the cross-section of education, creativity, and technology. These three areas that have at times seemed independent of each other can now work hand-in-hand at building a stronger, more productive and innovative next generation.
As renowned author, professor, and storyteller Brené Brown astutely noted, “The only unique contribution that we will ever make in this world will be born of our creativity.” And with the next generation of changemakers currently sitting in classrooms, it is vital that creativity be celebrated, nurtured, and taught within education.
Sources:
https://theconversation.com/what-creativity-really-is-and-why-schools-need-it-81889
https://www.theadvocate.org/how-technology-can-expand-creativity-and-innovation-in-education/
https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity
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