The goal of fostering creativity and encouraging it to grow within our students is like planting any other seed. It takes time, attention, love, and a desire to have something new and unique come into the world. Creative expression is and always has been essential to a student's holistic growth and development. Today, however, creativity is experiencing a renewed vitality in our digital culture that makes it one of the most important things we can teach.
But teaching creativity? How is that possible? In this article from Miriam Clifford, you'll discover 30 ways you can work with fostering creativity in your own students.
Creativity is becoming a stronger learning focus because art and design are now so integrated into our culture, largely due to the rise of technology.
As we have said before, the creative arts are no longer ornamental—they are fundamental. Interestingly enough, though, the call for creativity to be taught in our schools isn't necessarily a new idea.
In her article, Clifford cites the work of E. Paul Torrance among others. He was an American psychologist who was renowned for his research and work involving creativity. According to her, Torrance dedicated his life to the idea of fostering creativity in education. He came under fire for it for various reasons. From her article:
"Creativity was considered to be an immeasurable, natural ability. Torrance called for the teaching of creativity. He advocated that it was skill-specific, requiring intentional instruction. His life’s work ultimately led to the development of the Torrance tests and gifted programs throughout the world."
We now also know that, with the help of processes like Creativity Fluency, creativity is a teachable and learnable skill.
Below are the 30 strategies Clifford says educators can use for fostering creativity in our classrooms. She goes into much more detail about them in her article.
