Before answering the questions Why teaching creativity? it is important to define what teaching creativity means. The definition I want to share was developed by a group of teachers in the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural education (1999). They defined Teaching Creativity as: “forms of teaching that are intended to develop young peoples own creative thinking or behaviour” and added the following points: (1). Encouraging young people to believe in their creative identity, (2) Identifying young people’s creative abilities, (3) Fostering creativity by developing some of the common capacities and sensitivities of creativity such as curiosity and (4) Recognising and becoming more knowledgeable about the creative processes that helps foster creativity development and providing opportunities to be creative, a hands on approach. This definition defines what I do in my Creativity Classes. You might have also heard the term "Teaching Creatively" which is deferent than teaching Creativity in the sense that Teaching Creatively means applying some Creativity Tools in yourclass room but this could happen without the intent of developing your students creative thinking or behaviour.
In the early seventies, S. Parnes and R. Noller proved that creativity could be learned and thought. After that several other studies have proven the same thing and have shown that Creative Problem Solving (CPS), other courses derived form CPS and artistic programs are most effective in developing creative thinking.
Then the question is, why teach it? For me there are two reasons. The first one, is the rational one: creative thinking skills are critical in today´s world, a world that is going at a faster change pace than ever before in history, where new jobs and fields are being created all the time. Then the other one, that is more inspiring for me, is my believe and experience from teaching and facilitating creativity is that developing creative thinking, becoming more creative and adopting creativity to our everyday life, makes our jobs and lives more fun, more enjoyable and specially it develops affective skills like hope that are critical too in the world we live in. Creativity opens a space for collaboration, for valuing others opinion, for being more present with out judging all the time, for imagination and dreaming ; for me, this is opening a space for a better world. That is why I love teaching creativity and will work to develop more creativity programs in Colombia. If you are interested, you are welcome to join me.
In the early seventies, S. Parnes and R. Noller proved that creativity could be learned and thought. After that several other studies have proven the same thing and have shown that Creative Problem Solving (CPS), other courses derived form CPS and artistic programs are most effective in developing creative thinking.
Then the question is, why teach it? For me there are two reasons. The first one, is the rational one: creative thinking skills are critical in today´s world, a world that is going at a faster change pace than ever before in history, where new jobs and fields are being created all the time. Then the other one, that is more inspiring for me, is my believe and experience from teaching and facilitating creativity is that developing creative thinking, becoming more creative and adopting creativity to our everyday life, makes our jobs and lives more fun, more enjoyable and specially it develops affective skills like hope that are critical too in the world we live in. Creativity opens a space for collaboration, for valuing others opinion, for being more present with out judging all the time, for imagination and dreaming ; for me, this is opening a space for a better world. That is why I love teaching creativity and will work to develop more creativity programs in Colombia. If you are interested, you are welcome to join me.