Creative Teaching & Learning

In search of creativity

Collette Higgins reports on a project in Solihull to develop children’s creativity by integrating the arts in the curriculum

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      string(5672) "Just as JonnyLearning outside the classroom with a lost time traveller.32Vol 4.1School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comLeadingLearningCurriculumInnovation Wilkinson would cup his hands prior to converting a try in an attempt at visualisingthe ball going between the posts, I too would try and visualise what a successfulschool would look like. I’d try and create it twice, once in my head, and once for real. Ofcourse, it was a lot easier doing it in my head, but I felt confident that the more often Ivisualised it the more likely it would happen. Finally on Day 179 we came out of specialmeasures.Building a spiral curriculumAs well as Covey’s relatively recent research, there is one other educationalist whosework I value. His name is Jerome Bruner and he’s well worth a Google. In 1960 hewrote a book called The Process of Education2 and in it he talks a lot about a ‘spiralcurriculum’. A spiral curriculum, as the name suggests, is one that is continually fluid;the concepts come round time and time again, regardless of age or stage. As a result,skills are continuously reinforced and revisited at different times of life relevant to thelearning context. The notion therefore of only doing angles in Year 4 or the Victoriansin Year 6 is anathema to a spiral curriculum. For this reason, Bruner is likely to haveopposed a National Curriculum built around discrete subjects. I like Bruner very much.Bruner was adamantthat any child, whatever ageor ability should be able toaccess the spiral curriculum.He argued that teachers ‘canteach anything to anyone in anintellectually honest mannerby translating it courteouslyfor them’2. In other words, itmatters not one bit how oldor young a child is, or whetherthey are on Free School Meals,are summer born, EAL or SEND.All the teacher has to do is‘translate it courteously’ forhim, what in the trade is knownas good differentiation. Andhere’s another reason why I likeBruner so much: Like me, hewould have boycotted the SATsbecause he would have rightlyargued that there is nothingfurther removed from being ‘intellectually honest’ than the shenanigans surroundingthe cramming for, and teaching towards, the end of Key Stage tests.The spiral concept is a key component of a successful curriculum, especially withcreativity at its core. As a headteacher, I was well aware that if teaching was to improveto the next level, we simply had to give the teachers a rich and exciting contextin which they could ply their trade. A creative, thematic curriculum was thereforeessential. In the words of Sir Ken Robinson, if creativity was to be at the heart of thecurriculum, then by definition it had to be ‘an original idea’ and it had to ‘add value’.I was sure we were onto a winner if we could combine this with Bruner’s concept of aspiral curriculum where the teachers could teach these original and purposeful ideasto anyone. The trouble was, we just didn’t have enough time, such was the pressure todeliver quick results. By now we were into Day 600-plus and in the eyes of the DfE wewere still a failing school.The creativity challengeJust the thought of it sends shivers down my spine. I am the most uncreative personyou will ever know. With this in mind, I have never asked my staff to be creative. Wehave never in a staff meeting attempted to define creativity in terms of what it lookslike or how it can be assessed. Despite this, subject leaders were very aware that wehad to make the curriculum more creative and more relevant to our children, the vastmajority of whom had very limited opportunities to experience the richness of life.It was therefore our job to provide these creative experiences for them. At first westruggled, perhaps because we were trying too hard. And then one day, my leadershipReferences1) Covey, S (2005) The 7Habits of Highly EffectivePeople, Simon andShuster UK Ltd., Glasgow2) Bruner, J (1977) Theprocess of education,Harvard University Press,Harvard3) Claxton, G., The BuildingLearning Power Serieshttp://www.buildinglearningpower.co.uk/The escaped meerkats33Vol 4.1School Leadership Todaywww.teachingtimes.comLeadingLearningCurriculumInnovationKnowledge trails1) In search of creativity – How a project in one area developedchildren’s creativity by integrating the arts in the curriculum.http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/in-search–of-creativity.htm2) Unlocking creativity – A case study of one school thatdevised their own creative curricula to develop personal, socialand economic success.http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/unlockingcreativity.htm3 Picking up the pieces – After Ofsted’s shattering verdict, theheadteacher of a failing school is left to rally the staff, handlethe media and prepare for special measures.http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/picking-up-the-pieces.htmArticle available from School Leadership Today on theProfessional Learning Community (access by subscription).team proposed a radical overhaul of the curriculum, throwing outthe traditional subjects and opting for a thematic approach basedentirely on children’s interests. Despite my initial reservations, Iwas soon sold on the idea.So by Day 650 we were launching our own bespoke, creativecurriculum that was bursting at the seams with a range of activitiesand experiences that the children would enjoy. We knew they’d enjoythem because they told us what they wanted to learn. They were theirideas. We created a series of ‘hooks’ that immediately captured thechildren’s attention at the start of each unit. By ensuring that LearningOutside"
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Leadership

To combat special measures, go creative

4 Jul 2012

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      string(5643) "series of ‘hooks’ thatimmediately captured the children’s attention at the start of each unit. By ensuringthat Learning Outside the Classroom was at the heart of the curriculum (we werea national LOtC finalist in 2011) we were confident that experiences would bememorable, time and time again.We wanted the children to become better writers, boys especially. To achievethis we created a series of ‘Everybody Write Days’ where children wouldarrive at school to be metwith unexpected mysteriesto solve. On one occasion wecommissioned some localactors to be lost time travellerswho had mysteriously fallenthrough a door in the centre ofthe playground. The childrenspent the week investigatingthe strange t ime porta land interviewing the timetravellers.On another, we borrowed amobile police unit and ‘faked’a crime scene in which anodd looking suitcase had beenfound in the garden. CCTVfootage showed a strangeperson acting suspiciously.TheLearning outside the classroom witha lost time traveller.Curriculuminnovation26Volume3.1nCreativeTeaching&Learningchildren loved being crime investigators andwriting all about the stranger. Last term, thechildren came to school on the Monday only tofind a spaceship had crashed on the playgroundand that FBI agents were trying to locate themissing aliens that had fled into the schoolbuilding. Only a few weeks ago, we created ascene in which several large crates en route toa local zoo had fallen out of a plane and landedon the playground. On closer inspection, theywere a family of meerkats that were now hidingin the school, conveniently one per classroom.Since then, each class has adopted their owntoy meerkat as a class mascot. Apparently, sothe children tell me, they are all part of the sameBogdan family.Not surprisingly, attendanceincreased significantly from astubborn 92 per cent mark toabove average. Writing wason the up. SATs results morethan doubled. The Vici 50swere instrumental in improvingstandards. Consisting of 50things the children want toexperience before they leaveour school, the Vici 50s nowform an integral part of thecreative learning journey. Weliked them so much we builtthe curriculum around themso that they spiral throughoutall that they do.We were very fortunateat the time to be a CreativePartnership school, and were excellently supported by Creative Alliance, whoput us in touch with all manner of creatives to help us buildan innovative and child-centred curriculum. We had also justlaunched ‘Building Learning Power’ (BLP) on the back of havingpreviously been accredited as an Edward de Bono ‘ThinkingSchool’. By then, most of our children were already confidentand independent learners, able to use a blend of thinking toolsto assist with their learning. Assessment for Learning wasembedded across the school and so BLP became the obvious‘next steps’. We wanted our children to be fluent in what GuyClaxton refers to as ‘Learnish’3. After all, they already speak morethan 40 languages between them, so one more wouldn’t hurt.Day 1,000 and beyondFollowing Ofsted’s visit on day 999 and 1000, the lead inspector wrote in thereport that the ‘whole school is currently buzzing with excitement’ and that ‘pupilsbubble over with enthusiasm when talking about the things they learn.’ Were youto visit, I am confident you would see the same.In particular, you would see Learnish in action. Children would be workingcollaboratively and in small groups as lead learners, perhaps using video camerasto make eHow movies teaching other children how to learn a new skill. Thesewould all be uploaded to VPTV, our own in-house TV station. Class forums,The escaped meerkatsAn ‘FBI agent’ scours the playground27Volume3.1nCreativeTeaching&LearningCurriculuminnovationKnowledge trails1) In search of creativity – How a project in one area developed children’s creativity by integrating the arts in thecurriculum.http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/in-search–of-creativity.htm2) Unlocking creativity – A case study of one school that devised their own creative curricula to develop personal,social and economic success.http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/unlockingcreativity.htm3) Picking up the pieces – After Ofsted’s shattering verdict, the headteacher of a failing school is left to rally the staff,handle the media and prepare for special measures.http://library.teachingtimes.com/articles/picking-up-the-pieces.htmArticle available from School Leadership Today on the Professional Learning Community (access by subscription).discussion boards and Wikiswould be created at homeand in school using our ICTlearning platform to help pupilswith their learning. ICT woulddominate the lessons includingTalking Postcards, EasiSpeaks,Visualisers, Laptops, Netbooks,DS Lites and video cameras.You would observe first-handthe positive impact our recentlyappointed Creative LearningApprentice is having. Workingin partnership with CreativeAlliance she is currently triallingand developing the innovativeMonstersWrite programme.The CLA also produces a termlyon-line digital magazine(VPZine) as well as providing a number of creative learning opportunities bothindoors and out.Children enjoy using BLP to help them when they are stuck (or in the ‘Pit’as we call it). When this is the case, they will show high levels of resilience,resourcefulness and reciprocity at working collaboratively in order to get outof the Pit. They might even take a BLP potion to help them with their noticingskills, or to manage distractions or become more absorbed. They may"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

One thousand days

27 Apr 2012

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      string(5761) "8 Teaching Thinking  Summer 2002www.teachthinking.comFocus on: creativity and the artsFocus on: creativity and the artsFocus on: creativity and the artsFocus on: creativity and the artsFocus on: creativity and the artsharon Bialin is one of the world’s leading authorities on criticaland creative thinking. She was the main speaker at a recentconference organised by Teaching Thinking magazine.SW. A lot of people in education are talking about creativityat the moment and arguing that it should be more of apriority. Why?SB. I think it’s because we recognise that there are majorproblems facing societies and that we are undergoingchange at an amazing rate. We need to educate people whocan deal with these challenges in new and productive ways.Concern with creativity also comes from a recognition thateducation is not only for utilitarian ends. We must educatethe whole person and this means fostering the naturalhuman potential to engage in creative activities and toderive understanding and deep satisfaction from creating.SW. You are sceptical about the idea that there are creativepersonality types who can be identified with psychologicaltests.SB. Yes. When we call Einstein, Mozart, or Picasso creative,we are not referring to aspects of their personality. We donot need to know anything about their personal attributesin order to judge them creative. We call them creativebecause of what they have produced. There is not only onetype of person who can be creative. Thus no student shouldbe excluded from creative activities because they do nothave the right type of personality. All students have thepossibility of coming up with innovative works at their ownThinkingabout creativitySharon Bailin talks toSteve Williams about themyths that surround theconcept of creativity andsuggests ways thatschools can fosterchildren’s creativeachievementS9Teaching Thinking  Summer 2002www.teachthinking.com Focus on: creativity and the artsFocus on: creativity and the artsFocus on: creativity and the artsFocus on: creativity and the artsFocus on: creativity and the artslevel given the right conditions. The possibility of creativityis open to all of them.SW. Some people argue that creativity involves a specialmode of thinking – ‘divergent thinking’ that breaksestablished patterns of thought. Is it a good idea to teachcreativity directly through devergent thinking?SB. I am rather dubious about the claims made for divergentthinking alone as a quick route to creativity. Advocates ofdivergent thinking see the creative process as essentiallygenerative and non-evaluative. It involves producing largenumber of ideas without judging them, since our criteria ofjudgement would lead to the rejection of unusual, creativeideas. (This is the rationale for brainstorming, for which theinstructions explicitly include the suspension of judgement.)However, I would argue that judgement is very muchinvolved throughout the process of creating, that oneevaluates all the time, and that one must do so. The initialrecognition of any problem as a problem is very much aproduct of judgement, as is the determining of a generaldirection for solutions. And knowing where to look forsolutions to problems and even what kinds of ideas wouldcount as solutions also requires judgement.SW. Doesn’t evidence suggest that divergent thinking canhelp us to see innovative ways through problems and thattoo much judgement can constrict our thinking?SB. Judgement may be problematic when it is too narrow.Sometimes a problem is thought about in terms that aretoo confining. Creativity requires thinking about problemsin ways that are both broad and deep. Sometimes we mustbe willing to question the way a problem is framed and theassumptions which lie behind it, and to look in newdirections for its solution. However, there is evidence thatjudgement and creativity go together. David Perkins studiedpoets engaged in the actual act of composing. He foundthat the most highly-rated poets did not search throughmany alternative words, but usually considered only one ortwo options. Perkins explains this phenomenon in terms ofthe way we do mental searches. As an example let me askyou to think of an orange vegetable starting with letter ‘c’.SW. Carrot.SB. How did you do that? What you did not do is to generatea mental list of orange things, a list of vegetables, and a listof words beginning with the letter ‘c’ and then cross-reference. You probably searched your memory accordingto multiple criteria and went right to the appropriatepossibilities. We evaluate in the process of generating. Andit is the most highly skilled poets, the ones with the mosthighly developed poetic judgement, who are least in needof generating long lists of words. They can go right to themost effective possibilities. In fact, Perkins claims that theproblem of uncreative solutions to problems does not stemfrom inhibition at generative thinking, as suggested by sometheorists, but rather, from insufficiently clear and highstandards to begin with.SW. You stress standards quite a lot in your work.SB. Yes. I think it is very important to educate learners aboutthe appropriate criteria for good thinking and good creativework in all the tasks they attempt. Again, one should notdivorce creative and critical thinking. They should developtogether. One should also develop the skills that are mostimportant to any activity. I disagree strongly with Edwardde Bono who argues that ‘too much experience in a fieldmay restrict creativity because you know so well how thingsshould be done that you are unable to escape to"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Thinking about Creativity

24 Feb 2011

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      string(308) "... work with what children comeup with in the course of lessons.GC: Yes. There has to be room for the happy accident.Again, the literature of creativity shows that a lot of thecreativity of artists and scientists is stimulated bymessing about with materials. What can you do withvideo? What can ..."
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      string(5669) "interest. Now, when your approach to creativity is toset up a clown-week for kids, you are not exercising thatdisposition because the creative job you give them isalready quite well-structured. The more creative challengeis to organise a classroom in such a way that every week,cumulatively, you are building the disposition for childrento be interested in noticing and harvesting those littleseeds that might turn into creative projects.    How would you take the first step? Imagine the childrencome in on Monday morning and you ask them about thethings they noticed and you tell them: ‘I noticed a man ona bus yesterday and that made me think and I didn’tunderstand why?’ Tell them their homework is that whilethey are watching the television to pick out a couple ofthings that they don’t really understand but that they findinteresting. Tell them you’ll talk about them tomorrow. Justmaking the space to invite those kinds of things isimportant; it is a start.    Ralph Waldo Emerson talked about the essence ofcreativity as being the ability to notice the little gleamof a thought that flashes across the edge of your ownmind – which most people don’t notice. And Ted Hugheswrites about learning to be able to fish in your own mind.So this isn’t about noticing external things now, it moveson to being interested in those little things that go on atthe edge of your consciousness. Ted Hughes said in atalk to children once on the radio that if we don’t learnto do this – to be interested and perceptive about thoseactivities that go on at the edge of our minds – then hesaid: ‘our minds lie in us like fish in the pond of a manwho cannot fish’. We need to be able to learn to fish ourown minds. It’s a skill, a craft; it’s something learnableand Hughes describes in this radio talk how he learnt it.SW: Once you’ve noticed things or think, ‘I don’t know whybut that’s interesting’ do you then follow that up bytrying to figure out the significance of it? Or by asking:‘How can I now use this?’8Focus on: CreativityFocus on: CreativityFocus on: CreativityFocus on: CreativityFocus on: Creativity               www.teachthinking.comTeaching Thinking&Creativity  Winter 2004GC: I would change the language that you use there a bit.It’s not trying to ‘figure it out’ or to ask yourself what theuse is – to search for a rational explanation. In the creativeproject the next stage will often be (and I might be mixingmy metaphors horribly here) using that seed of an ideaas a kind of bait that draws other things to it – things inyour own mind or from your experience. So when TedHughes was writing a poem, what he would often do istake a central concept and stick it in the middle of a pieceof paper (a bit like a Mind Map) and then use thatdeliberately as a kind of bait that he would throw intohis own unconscious and see what came up, what fishwould come up, what memories, what phrases, whatnoises, what images would surface that were drawn tothat notion. And only when there was a rich pool ofthings that had surfaced in a way that was not explicit,would he set to work writing the poem. So I think forme, that kind of patient fishing process is the essence ofcreativity.SW: There seems to be an argument there for lessprescription about the specific outcomes of lessons andfor more willingness to work with what children comeup with in the course of lessons.GC: Yes. There has to be room for the happy accident.Again, the literature of creativity shows that a lot of thecreativity of artists and scientists is stimulated bymessing about with materials. What can you do withvideo? What can you do with the Internet? What can achild do when playing about with words or numbers?SW: But teaching is to do with managing behaviour andtime. Isn’t there a danger that children could end up ‘justmessing about’ and not learning anything?GC: Sure. But I have been talking about just twoinstruments in the whole mental orchestra – noticingand playing. You don’t turn your whole classroom overto unstructured messing about; you create smallamounts of time within which kids understand that thisis a useful thing to do and then you come back and talkabout it. That’s the first thing I’d say. The second is thatany classroom of kids need coaching so that they areable to make use of these opportunities in a way that isproductive and manageable. You employ time-limitingand you gradually give pupils more time andresponsibility to modulate their own mental activity.SW: What are some of the other things teachers can do toexercise the creativity of their pupils?GC: Well, teachers should cultivate the disposition to askquestions. So the first ten minutes of every Mondaymorning you ask the kids: ‘did you think of an interestingquestion over the weekend?’ They could put it up onthe ‘question wall’ at the side of the classroom. Let me,the teacher, model what I thought of at the weekendbut didn’t know the answer to. Let’s have a littlebrainstorm about one of these questions and say howwe might find out about it. Who could we ask? How couldwe develop it? And then at the end of the day you letsomeone pick their favourite question off the questionwall and talk it over with them and the rest of the class.SW: One aspect of imagination involves the ability to holdpossibilities in one’s mind and not jump to conclusionstoo quickly. Could that be developed.GC: Absolutely, with the teacher modelling: ‘that’sinteresting, I’ve never thought about that before; that’sa great question; that might take some time;"
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Creative Teaching & Learning

Talking About Creativity

1 Nov 2006