How Schools Can Encourage Creativity

Within every child exists the desire and ability to be creative, and this can manifest itself in a multitude of ways. Within schools, it is the role of the teacher to encourage students' self expression and creativity to flourish, and create an environment wherein they feel safe to explore new ideas, try, and fail. It is only in fairly recent times that creativity has been understood to be a valuable, necessary, part of a healthy development and research has proven that creativity is a useful tool for developing confidence in one's own identity, and for understanding one's own thoughts and feelings, as well as those of others. 

So - how can teachers create an environment that encourages and fosters create expression amongst their students? 

Emotional development: 

• The act of being creatively expressive is often catalysed by the possession of strong emotions, ideas, and desires. With younger children, this creative expression is best fostered through ample time to play, and engage with various tools, objects, mediums. As children grow, creativity is often expressed through other modes such as music, visual art, writing, dramatic arts, etc. Therefore, students that have the option to play, and express their emotions via an artistic outlet as described above, will inherently feel more emotionally liberated and self assured than those that do not. 

Communication:

• The development of healthy and strong communication skills are vital amongst all children and adults in schools and within the greater community. Therefore, the establishment of a classroom that encourages shared learning, group problem solving, critical thinking, and innovation, is critical in allowing students to connect with one another through shared creative experience. 

Innovation

• It is easy for students to feel bound by what they perceive as generally uninteresting curriculum and rules when attending school. Therefore, it is  the job of the teacher to present lessons in a a way that is engaging and relatable, and that includes ample time for play and/or art, group work, and other forms of creative exploration that are decided by the students themselves and guided by their own interests. Inspiration and ideas can be provided in some cases to guide students, but this time is spent most effectively when student-led, and allows children to enjoy learning and have a positive association with school.

By Isabella@NU