Creativity Across the Primary Curriculum

Framing and Developing Practice

Anna Craft

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781134635702
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book takes an inspirational look at how to foster children's creativity as well as following the guidelines in the National Curriculum. The book:

• explores the nature of the creative mind
• investigates the role of play and the concept of creativity
• examines appropriate continuing professional development for teachers
• looks at the personal and professional identities of teachers
• considers ways of analysing and describing creative practice.

This text looks at the bigger picture in education, asking what sort of systems need to be designed to develop children's learning in the 21st century. It will be a resource to teachers, head teachers and advisory staff committed to asking questions, encouraging play and not allowing problems or circumstances to block action.

Part I: Creativity in children and teachers

1: What is creativity?

In this chapter I introduce the idea of ‘possibility’ providing the engine for little c’ creativity. I explore aspects of possibility thinking, such as being imaginative, asking questions and playing. I go on to explore creativity in convergent and divergent thinking and look at creativity as a form of selfactualisation, as well as a plural view of intelligence. I look at some characteristics of the so-called ‘creating mind’ before introducing a framework for exploring creativity in education involving people, processes and domains.

A definition

The National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (1999) describes creativity as ‘imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value’ (p. 29).

The imaginative activity involved in creativity I will explore later in this chapter. But I would like to see creativity as something slightly broader than imaginative activity; at the core of creative activity, I would posit the engine of ‘possibility thinking’—and necessary to being creative I would specify insight.

What I am concerned with throughout this book is the kind of creativity which guides choices and route-finding in everyday life, or what I have come to term ‘little c’ creativity.

Possibility thinking

Picture a time in your own professional life when you have been faced with what seemed like an impossible situation. How did you handle it? Did you find a way around it or did you allow yourself to be blocked by it—or both? Much of the artistry in being a successful teacher involves holding on to the notion of possibility in what may seem to be adverse situations: in other words, of using ‘possibility thinking’.

Being imaginative

For me, possibility thinking means refusing to be stumped by circumstances, but being imaginative in order to find a way around a problem or in order to make sense of a puzzle. Being imaginative is surrounded by much discussion in the philosophical literature in particular. ‘Going beyond the obvious’ or ‘seeing more than is initially apparent’ or interpreting something in a way which is unusual, seem broadly to encompass what many writers mean by being imaginative. When my sister describes her profession, medicine, as ‘sharp, straight lines’, I consider her to be imaginative. As Morton (1980) has argued, working out what another person’s state of mind might be, also involves being imaginative.

Another aspect of being imaginative, I have argued elsewhere (1988), must involve the agent being aware of the unconventionality of what they are doing/ thinking. Thus a child drawing a lion in a swimming pool may be unaware of the unconventionality of the representation. Unless the child does have awareness of the originality of the idea, I would not call it being imaginative.

The issue of originality is an important one in ‘little c’ creativity. Young children’s language development is rich with examples of originality. For example, at the age of 5, my sister would declare that she had a ‘brown hungry’ (for example, a hunger for chocolate) or a ‘white hungry’ (which might be satisfied with milk), etc. She was making associations between descriptors which for her were original.

A question arises here about to whom something is original. In the examples of the ‘brown hungry’ etc., my sister was being original in her own terms. She may also have been being original in wider terms. To be imaginative, does something have to be original both for the originator and for the wider world? It seems to me that it must at least be original in the first sense, for the creator, for if being imaginative involves departing from some rule/s or convention/s, the outcome must have some originality in it for the creator.

Thus in a way, finding an original idea or way through something may be a little like learning itself (indeed, Beetlestone 1998 and NACCE 1999 have argued that creativity is a form of learning).

It seems to me that being imaginative must also involve a wider originality, because it involves a departure from what is the norm, as discussed above. The spectrum of originality, however, is vast—a child may request spaghetti with apple sauce for a special tea; an original idea for them and a break with convention, thus original in both senses, but not of ground-breaking significance. Toward the other end of the spectrum, a child may write a poem for a competition which is selected for a prize and publication. This again would demonstrate both kinds of originality, but is of a wider significance than the spaghetti and apple sauce example. At the extreme other end of the spectrum are the massive leaps of imagination which change paradigms, which it is rare to find in young children.

Being imaginative must, I suggest, also involve some kind of outcome—for us to be able to say that someone has been/is being imaginative, there must be a public indication of some sort to show for it—a decision, a model, a piece of writing, a behaviour, an idea which can be shared, etc. The outcome of creativity could be described along a spectrum similar to the originality one discussed above. At one end of the outcome spectrum might be outcomes which are within the agent’s head—for example, an idea—but not yet shared with others. Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum might be an outcome which is external but not yet disseminated in a wide field—for example, an idea which has been expressed to others, but not scrutinised by the field in which it is generated. At the other end of the spectrum might be an idea which has been turned into some sort of public product which can be scrutinised by the field in which it has been produced. Thus the outcome may not be one which has been publicly debated/explored/acclaimed, but must be in a form where this could happen. The outcomes produced by children could fall anywhere along this ‘private-public’ spectrum. A child who has thought of (but not yet shared with others) a way of persuading others to care for other children’s property in the classroom has produced an outcome at the ‘private’ end of the spectrum. At the other extreme, a child who has written a poem and submitted it for a national competition and won the prize of having the poem published in a collection of children’s work has produced an outcome at the ‘public’ end of the spectrum.

There are, of course, limits to being imaginative. The person who hears voices in their head may be not imaginative but mad. But the line is a thin one. A friend and colleague of mine is a composer of piano music and lyrics. She hears sounds in her head which she believes to be sent to her, and not of her own making; yet these become her written work which itself suggests lyrics. Her work is ultimately performed and enjoyed by others, both performers and audience. Her work is performed and thus in the public arena. It is scrutinised by others in her field and considered to be original, in that she goes beyond what was there previously, creating both musical and moral dilemmas in what she writes. She, it seems to me, is being imaginative. In contrast, the man who listened to the voice in his head which told him to climb the fence around the lion enclosure in the zoo, and who was then mauled to death, was mad. The musical example illustrates yet another aspect of being imaginative: it does not necessarily involve intention.

Some classroom implications of fostering imagination are:

• teachers stimulating and encouraging non-conventionality, whilst also
• encouraging children to understand the nature of conventions so that when they are being original in either their own or wider terms, they can identify this.

Asking questions

Professor Philip Gammage has suggested that education, rather than focusing on ‘answering the question’, should emphasise ‘questioning the answer’. And possibility thinking is about posing lots of questions. Children enter school doing this naturally and with ease, as Holt has said (1991):

The easily observable fact is that children are passionately eager to make as much sense as they can of the world around them, are extremely good at it, and do as scientists do, by creating knowledge out of experience. Children observe, wonder, find, or make and then test the answers to the questions they ask themselves. When they are not actually prevented from doing these things, they continue to do them and to get better and better at it.

(Holt, 1991:152)

A characteristic of possibility thinkers, then, is their curiosity. The ability to wonder about the world around them leads a possibility thinker to both find and solve problems. And often, as well as asking questions, a possibility thinker will answer a question with further questions—leading them into new ways of thinking about the world around them.

Asking questions may sometimes be ‘unfocused’, i.e. a question may not always be consciously posed. Sometimes all that we are aware of is a nagging puzzle, or a niggling feeling that something is not quite straight in our mind. Another way of describing this sort of questioning is a sensitivity to possible problems.

Questions are as important at the end of the process of creating as they are at the outset. Thus, as the outcome of creativity is scrutinised, the creator and others ask to what extent this yield is original and of value. As it is put by the National Advisory Committee cited at the start of this chapter, there are two ‘modes’ in creative thought: one is the ‘imaginative-generative’ which brings about outcomes; the other is the ‘critical-evaluative’ mode which involves scrutiny for originality and value. Both are equally important, as the committee suggests: ‘The quality of creative achievement is related to both’ (1999:31).

Some practical implications for teaching and learning of what I have been saying are:

• learning opportunities need to both stimulate and support the posing of questions by children and their teachers;
• the posing of questions may involve puzzling at a fairly non-conscious level as well as actually asking questions;
• we need to remember that children do this naturally, and that much of what we need to do in classrooms involves finding a balance between not inhibiting children’s curiosity and managing large numbers and a pre-determined curriculum.

Play and possibilities

An important part of possibility thinking involves playing. According to Hudson (1973), Einstein himself considered ‘combinatory play’ to be a key part of his own creative thinking. And play forms a part of the six areas of learning (one of which is called ‘creative development’), which nursery schools must now provide for children (Ofsted, 1996; SCAA, 1997). Among those who research creativity in the arts there has long been a fascination about the relationship between the child and the artist, as Gardner has documented (1994).

A creative teacher will stimulate and support possibility thinking across the curriculum, in a variety of ways. These will include playing through, for example:

• simulations;
• empathy work;
• storytelling;
• dramatic play;
• role play;
• open-ended scenarios;
• improvisation;
• fantasy modelling;
• puppetry.

Some of these activities will involve a deliberate structuring, and others will involve much less. For example, drama improvisation in pairs, or a simulation, may be set up quite deliberately in a way that free play in the home corner is not. In Chapter 3 I explore a little further some relationships between play and creativity.

It seems to me that the elements I have been discussing—being imaginative, posing questions and play—are all necessary to possibility thinking. In turn, possibility thinking is, I would argue, essential if individuals and communities are to thrive in the uncertainties and fast-shifting social, technological and economic environments of the twenty-first century.

Possibility in divergent and convergent thinking

Back in the 1970s, Hudson (1973) suggested that children who excel in science, maths and technology also do well on traditional IQ tests, where there is just one right answer. Put another way, they are good at convergent thinking, which involves just one solution to the problem. In contrast, those children who are divergent thinkers, finding several possibilities for each question, tend to excel in the arts. Put another way, they are good at thinking of many possible solutions to a problem. Hudson’s thesis was that the arts and the sciences demand different kinds of thinking. One implication of his view is that science, maths and technology are uncreative, in that they involve a very focused perspective on possibility thinking.

In this book I take a different view. I would argue that possibility thinking, which is the basis of creativity, is involved in both convergent and divergent thinking—a position which White, philosopher of education, has started to map out (1972) and which can in fact be traced right back to thinkers such as Dewey (Garrison, 1997). Throughout this book I try to show how, for me, possibility thinking is at the core of creativity.

Possibility thinking as the engine of creativity

The Oxford English Dictionary describes creativity as

‘being imaginative and inventive, bringing into existence, making, originating’

(Concise Oxford Dictionary, 9th Edition, 1995)

So the word creativity seems to describe flux, change, development, growth; the approach to life which begins with: ‘what if’ …or ‘perhaps if’…One way of describing creativity is that its core is one of questioning… or that possibility thinking is the ‘engine’ of creativity. I would include in this the ‘puzzling’ type of possibility thinking, of which we are not necessarily fully conscious.

Possibility, self-actualisation and being imaginative

There is a sense in which creativity involves making out of nothing. And, of course, there are different theoretical perspectives on this phenomenon. For example, Skinnerian psychology which might describe creativity as simply the revealing of pre-existent ideas, rather than conjuring them up. Or Freudian psychology, which might define creativity as the sublimation of a sexual urge. Or the information processing perspectives which equates the brain to a computer, as discussed by Boden (1992), where creativity is seen as being concerned with imaginative leaps within a set of rules or codes or ‘grammars’. As a result of the leaps, the grammars themselves are altered.

There is the psychosynthetic perspective which sees creativity as involving conscious choice over levels of unconscious processes. Or humanistic psychology, based on Maslow’s ideas (1971), which sees creativity as self-actualisation and a special talent to boot. I return to Maslow’s ideas and humanistic psychology in Chapter 4. These are only some of the perspectives which can be found in one field—psychology. Other fields, such as sociology, philosophy, spirituality and studies in education, yield further approaches to and definitions of creativity.

For example, within the philosophical literature, Elliott’s (1975) definition places creativity very close to imagination. He writes that ‘Creativity is imaginativeness or ingenuity manifested in any valued pursuit’ (p. 139). He does not tie the concept of creativity to an end product, but only to a ‘pursuit’—in other words, to the process. So, for Elliott, the process by which someone proceeds can be considered to be creative. The processes involved in creativity, for Elliott, are ‘problem-solving’ and ‘making something of an idea’. He claims that ‘to proceed imaginatively is…to be creative. All creativity is creative (i.e. imaginative thinking)’ (p. 147).

Using Elliott’s analysis, it appears that imagination and creativity are the same, for it could be argued that problem solving involves imagination, in order to see possibilities. Making something of an idea; finding something valuable in some way in an idea, or having a novel idea, likewise seems similar to another aspect of being imaginative.

Elliott draws an important distinction between two sorts of creativity, the one tied to problem solving, the other not. This, it seems to me, is paralleled in the concept of imaginativeness. For imaginativeness can be tied to solving a problem, but in the same way as Elliott writes ‘the value of a novel idea may not lie chiefly in its usefulness for problem-solving’ (p. 146), this is sometimes the case too in being imaginative. Thus the value of 10-year-old Jessica’s description of maths as ‘numbers are colours in my mind’ is not necessarily chiefly its usefulness for problem solving. Similarly my sister Naomi’s student-days description of her profession, medicine, as ‘sharp, straight lines’.

Involved in both problem solving and having novel and valuable ideas, it seems to me, is insight, which is also logically necessary for imagination.

My own approach to creativity draws upon psychosynthesis and humanistic psychology, partly because I think they have particular relevance to classroom teaching. I therefore see creativity as being to do with self-actualisation, and involving choice, which is informed by levels of unconscious processes. I also subscribe to Elliott’s perspective introduced above, that creativity is very close to being imaginative, and his suggestion that creativity involves both solving problems and also having novel and valuable ideas.

Possibility thinking, it seems to me, also involves problem finding. Being able to identify a question, a topic for investigation, a puzzle to explore, trying out new options, all involve ‘finding’ or ‘identifying’ a problem (using the word problem in a loose way, to mean ‘other possibilities’).

Summing...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: Creativity in children and teachers
• Part II: Creativity across the curriculum
• Part III: Personal and professional development
• Part IV: Vision
• Bibliography