Encouraging creativity

In the last week or so I've been doing a lot of thinking about creativity.  This started when I watched the TED talk by Priya Ganesan about Creativity in Schools (click here to see my reflections on this talk).  I have been questioning whether or not I give too many instructions to the students and whether or not these instructions limit the students' creativity.  Last week I had one class of Pre Kindergarten students who were drawing shapes on the computer using different coloured lines and then colouring them in using different coloured paints - this was to reinforce the knowledge of different shapes they had been doing in maths and to have them practice using the line tool, fill tool and colours in the drawing software Pixie.  I gave them specific step-by-step instructions and waited while they did each step before moving onto the next one.  My conclusion was that all the students did the task, but that all the drawings ended up looking the same.  I decided that with the next class of Pre Kindergarten students I would try to do this a different way.

Today with the students I started off by asking them to name any shapes they knew.  Then I modelled drawing the shapes - some of the shapes I drew were ones the students had named and some were different ones. I drew about 8 shapes on the board, but I said to the students "You can draw as many shapes as you know."  I made sure I used a different colour to draw each shape and I said "I decided to use a different colour for each one, you can decide yourself if you would like to use different colours".  When I coloured in I also made comments like "I'm going to put yellow inside this shape because I think it will look good with the red line outside." I told the students they could use whatever colours they liked to colour in the shapes, or leave them white if they wanted to.  I showed them the Undo button and told them that if they didn't like what they did they could always undo it.

Then I watched them do it.  I found this hard.  I found myself wanting to step in to "help" when I could see students drawing all the shapes and filling them in the with same colour.  I found myself wanting to stop students colouring in the background the same colour as the shapes - which meant that the shapes then disappeared altogether.  The results this week were more mixed.  I thought the students definitely had more "ownership" of their drawings, but I also thought that some students had not really practiced using the different tools very well.  I'm going to think again about how I can improve on this approach before I take another class of Pre Kindergarten students.  (Early Years teachers please give me some feedback on this - how can I make this more creative yet still have the students learn how to use all the tools?)

After school today we had a staff meeting where we were writing learner outcomes for the visual arts, for the creating and responding strand in the PYP.  As our school is also trying to align all 3 IB programmes, we had to put these creating and responding learner outcomes into the school strands too - one of which was acquisition and application of technical skills.  I was with a group of Kindergarten and First Grade teachers and we were asking ourselves how we should teach technique to this age group - or even should we teach technique?  A learner outcome must be something that can be assessed.  We asked ourselves should we really be assessing these things or would this kill creativity?  One of our teachers shared the poem below.  I left the meeting with even more questions about how to encourage creativity and whether or not it is possible to assess it in children so young.

The Little Boy - by Helen Buckley
Once a little boy went to school.
He was quite a little boy
And it was quite a big school.
But when the little boy
Found that he could go to his room
By walking right in from the door outside
He was happy;
And the school did not seem
Quite so big anymore.

One morning
When the little boy had been in school awhile,
The teacher said:
"Today we are going to make a picture."
"Good!" thought the little boy.
He liked to make all kinds;
Lions and tigers,
Chickens and cows,
Trains and boats;
And he took out his box of crayons
And began to draw.

But the teacher said, "Wait!"
"It is not time to begin!"
And she waited until everyone looked ready.
"Now," said the teacher,
"We are going to make flowers."
"Good!" thought the little boy,
He liked to make beautiful ones
With his pink and orange and blue crayons.
But the teacher said "Wait!"
"And I will show you how."
And it was red, with a green stem.
"There," said the teacher,
"Now you may begin."

The little boy looked at his teacher's flower
Then he looked at his own flower.
He liked his flower better than the teacher's
But he did not say this.
He just turned his paper over,
And made a flower like the teacher's.
It was red, with a green stem.

On another day
When the little boy had opened
The door from the outside all by himself,
The teacher said:
"Today we are going to make something with clay."
"Good!" thought the little boy;
He liked clay.
He could make all kinds of things with clay:
Snakes and snowmen,
Elephants and mice,
Cars and trucks
And he began to pull and pinch
His ball of clay.

But the teacher said, "Wait!"
"It is not time to begin!"
And she waited until everyone looked ready.
"Now," said the teacher,
"We are going to make a dish."
"Good!" thought the little boy,
He liked to make dishes.
And he began to make some
That were all shapes and sizes.

But the teacher said "Wait!"
"And I will show you how."
And she showed everyone how to make
One deep dish.
"There," said the teacher,
"Now you may begin."

The little boy looked at the teacher's dish;
Then he looked at his own.
He liked his better than the teacher's
But he did not say this.
He just rolled his clay into a big ball again
And made a dish like the teacher's.
It was a deep dish.

And pretty soon
The little boy learned to wait,
And to watch
And to make things just like the teacher.
And pretty soon
He didn't make things of his own anymore.

Then it happened
That the little boy and his family
Moved to another house,
In another city,
And the little boy
Had to go to another school.
This school was even bigger
Than the other one.
And there was no door from the outside
Into his room.
He had to go up some big steps
And walk down a long hall
To get to his room.
And the very first day
He was there,
The teacher said:
"Today we are going to make a picture."
"Good!" thought the little boy.
And he waited for the teacher
To tell what to do.
But the teacher didn't say anything.
She just walked around the room.

When she came to the little boy
She asked, "Don't you want to make a picture?"
"Yes," said the lttle boy.
"What are we going to make?"
"I don't know until you make it," said the teacher.
"How shall I make it?" asked the little boy.
"Why, anyway you like," said the teacher.
"And any color?" asked the little boy.
"Any color," said the teacher.
"If everyone made the same picture,
And used the same colors,
How would I know who made what,
And which was which?"
"I don't know," said the little boy.
And he began to make a red flower with a green stem.


There is another (happier) ending to this poem - please click here to read it.  I know which teacher I would most like to be!

Photo Credit:  The Captain by Thomas Hawk