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It is hoped that the new curriculum will give teachers better opportunities to foster creativity in their classrooms. We talk to one of OCR's creativity gurus
The British inventor James Dyson once said that engineering was all about being creative, and having the ability "to recognise the power of the imagination and the potential of a good idea, and then to translate this into a tangible object or a clever piece of machinery".
Drawn to art and design from an early age, and now a multi-billionaire, he should know. Having his early designs rejected by one major manufacturer after another, he might well have added: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again."
Many teachers will have a potential inventor sitting in their midst who might never realise their potential. The question for schools is: how do they develop the next generation of innovators and creators who will positively contribute to the nation's future?
According to Steve Blundell, who develops courses in creativity for OCR, creativity is already there in most people they just may not realise it.
"When you think about it, the rudiments are already there within each one of us. We all take risks, we all come up with imaginative solutions to unpredictable problems and we all learn from mistakes.
"We might not be very willing to take risks and we may stubbornly resist learning from our mistakes, but creativity is a dimension of the human condition," he added.
Teaching, therefore, is about how children and young people can be encouraged to take and manage risks within a structured learning environment. He believes that children learn best when they are active participants in the learning process.
"We want to fully engage our students in experiencing the mysteries of a subject as well as teaching them how they can make sense of those mysteries for themselves," he said. "Each subject has evolved through practitioners taking risks, being open to opportunities, and finding out about things in novel ways. But none of their experiences would have counted for anything had they also not been able to learn from all those practices."
So to bring out the creativity in their students, teachers need to be aware of thir own creativity in their own teaching, learning and planning. This includes their classroom organisation, the way they display pupils' work, and in their evaluations. Many teachers are excellent at this already and thrive on the challenge of producing ever new, interesting and motivating resources for their pupils.
OCR says it is aiming to allow teachers the flexibility to produce different work from their students every year. For example, the drama GCSE specification will allow centres to choose their own texts and stimulus material to teach to their strengths and to suit the needs of their students so that they get the most from their courses and their creativity is encouraged.
But there is another aspect to being creative and that is in teachers' relationships with their students: what means have they at their disposal, what strategies could they adopt, what mechanisms could they devise to encourage their students to take risks in their learning and to invest in their students' potential for being creative?
So what exactly inspires students to be creative? Mr Blundell believes everyone has a creative streak, often without even realising it, which manifests itself at the slightest provocation.
"For example, what happens when visitors suddenly turn up uninvited and the shops are closed?" he said. "We raid our fridges, freezers and cupboards to rustle up a quick snack or a feast. Without the tools and planning to solve this problem, we have been creative in making the best use of what we have and created a meal which, while not perfect, satisfies the needs of the moment."
The need to be creative might also be a practical requirement. For example, most people know exactly what to do when a stranger falls over on the pavement and cries out for help.
We make them comfortable, call for help, and perhaps even fashion a make-shift sling if necessary until professional help arrives.
"In such as case, we have acted creatively, used what skills and materials we have available. The surprising thing is how many have done something like this and yet not been trained for it," he said.
"We inspire others through our own actions. Teachers can offer the most inspiration for their students, not just with their knowledge, but with their ability to share with them the feelings and moments of discovery, of surprise. In that way they share in their successes, and tease out with them how mistakes provide learning tools for next time."
Using creativity as a learning process is an important part of "real world" life for instance, when working to a client's brief.
OCR's new GCSE, called Design & Technology: Product Design, for example, helps develop just those skills, providing students with a brief designed to encourage "open-mind" thinking about a design situation to respond in ways which might appear at first unrealistic, but which can be refined and developed.
As part of the task, students must also reflect on their solution to the brief, to look at what they could have done differently were they to do the task again, and how their design could be improved. By looking at the design process as a feedback loop based on responses to designs, students can take on board the views of their colleagues, and learn from each other.
Identifying and unlocking creative potential in children and young people might not seem so easy, especially when we believe that other people are more creative than we are. Teachers should not expect to provide all of the answers to tasks and problems.
Both teachers and pupils alike need to temporarily suspend judgement when things are not going to plan and should seek and identify the positives in a situation, according to Mr Blundell.
He added: "It is much better to try instead to identify and build upon the positives in any situation, to nurture our strengths and even acknowledge that we have skills and abilities that we bring to others."
In a piece of recent research, it was revealed that people in the UK associate being creative with being artistic, but that this perception is not replicated in other countries or cultures such as in India, China, the Far East, or even in the Americas.
Mr Blundell continued: "We could do well to dispel this UK myth. No one discipline has the sole rights over creativity. In fact, a lot of so called artistic work can be predictable, uninspiring and unimaginative, so working at being creative should be a task for all teachers, especially art teachers."
The new updated GCSE specifications also provide further opportunities to foster creativity. For instance, OCR's media studies GCSE has moved with the times to allow students to submit projects as blogs and podcasts as well as in more traditional methods. In a wide range of subjects, from GCSEs in environmental and land-based science to graphic design, students can submit work in electronic formats, so their creativity can run as freely as possible in line with today's technology.
"Being creative is synonymous with being open-minded, experiencing things that are uncertain, challenging and novel, and also it is letting go, for the moment, of that sense of judgement that blocks learning, that we all too easily adopt when we are uncertain or faced with something new," Mr Blundell said.
"What actually goes on during lessons should involve some element of creative activity some sense of exploring the unknown, finding out about something new, about seeing ideas fly. Equally, some aspects of all lessons need to focus on what has been learnt, what mysteries are being revealed, and how confident students feel about their developing subject understanding and skills."
Much of the day-to-day activities in schools depend on a timetable, and a highly structured and ordered sequence of events and activities in which everyone knows roughly where they should be, and what they should be doing. However, that is no reason to feel constrained, Mr Blundell said.
Having these restrictions can act as an impetus for creative teachers and managers to devise experiences for students within that supportive structure. In other words, creative experiences can be safe yet challenging, and can be inventive yet manageable.
"It is natural for us to be defensive about newness or uncertainty, and to ask ourselves what does this mean or what will I have to do here?'. But the skilled teacher knows how to provide degrees of risk in activities that could come up with variety, with options, or spontaneous opportunities in ways that are not threatening or leave others feeling uncomfortable or embarrassed.
"In other words, teaching for creativity tries to balance the need to share risks, uncertainties and unknowns while providing a structure that is safe to operate within."
Or as James Dyson once said: "Enjoy failure and learn from it. You can never learn from success."
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Article added to SearchWarp.com on Wednesday, September 24, 2008 View other articles written by Michelle Hughes(20)
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