Check out the following resources on the importance of creativity:
- Sir Ken Robinson on Creativity who says that creativity is as important as literacy.
- Creativity at School: Is it even possible? This is a thought-provoking article that ends with suggestions for six pre-requisites of developing creativity at school.
- Creativity and Innovation through Lifelong Learning by Pasi Sahlberg (Finland).
- Developing Students’ Creative Skills for 21st Century Success from Education Update, Vol. 50. No. 12, December 2008, published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Dr. Haley Simons has founded an organization called Creative Alberta, “to encourage and support creativity in the multiple arenas of Culture, Commerce and Education.” Want to know more? Want to help? Visit http://www.creativealberta.com/
How to Be Creative? Can Creativity be Taught? by Paul Thagard (Psychology Today Blog posting) http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hot-thought/201005/how-be-creative
Check out the blog “Imagine That” by Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein at http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/imagine In one posting they write: “Creative people tend to utilize a wide range of thinking skills. In our book, Sparks of Genius, we have identified thirteen “thinking tools” common to creative people across many disciplines and endeavors. These are observing, abstracting, imaging, pattern recognition, pattern forming, analogizing, body thinking, empathizing, dimensional thinking, modeling, playing, transforming, and synthesizing. It may seem odd, but scientists and artists of all kinds abstract and simplify complex things and processes, play with their ideas, and empathize with the objects of their study in similar ways.”
Are we encouraging these types of traits in our students? In ourselves as parents? In ourselves in our working lives? In how we approach improving our education system?
College Readiness: How to Help Students Think Abstractly A blog posting by Ben Jonson in Edutopia
