CREATIVITY IN EDUCATION. Edited by Anna Craft, Bob Jeffrey and Mike Liebling. Continuum pound;15.99. CREATIVITY IN EDUCATION AND LEARNING. By Arthur J Cropley. Kogan Page pound;16.99.
Creativity in Education opens with a quote from Bertrand Russell: “We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.” Many consider this as true today as it was in the 1920s, due to a lack of creativity in the education system. What is creativity and why is it important?
These books set out to explore the nature and purposes of educating for creativity. The authors argue that creativity is not the preserve of the few but is central to every individual’s well-being; it is the concern of the whole curriculum. Both books provide an overview of research and general principles for encouraging creativity in schools, but cover different ground.
Creativity in Education is a collection of papers on policy, practice and pedagogy within the British context, responding to the recent Department for Education and Skills report: All Our Futures: culture, creativity and education.
Creativity is an elusive concept, difficult to define and measure, and one that seems to have slipped off the agenda of a government focused on outcomes and targets. These authors see creativity not as an extra but as central to human flourishing, as much a core priority as literacy and numeracy. Peter Woods argues the case for more creativity in the literacy hour, quoting Seamus Heaney on the “fluid exhilarating moment which lies at the heart of any memorable reading” and any memorable teaching.
Teaching for creativity means students and teachers being allowed to experiment and innovate, not imitate. Creative teaching requires high ambition and a spirit of optimism. Not all experimental and creative teaching will succeed, but, as the American inventor Buckminster Fuller argued: “There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes.” And we have all experienced those. The book covers a wide field, including home education and teacher education. It is a pity it does not show more of the “unexpected outcomes” of creative teaching.
Arthur Cropley is a professor of psychology at Hamburg University. His book, Creativity in Education and Learning, is a review of more than 50 years of international research from a psychological perspective. The focus is not on the “sublime creativity” of great artists but on “everyday creativity”. His simple definition of creativity is “the production of novelty”, and he extends this by saying that true creativity must be effective and ethical. By “effective”, Cropley seems to mean purposeful, and by “ethical” he means it should derive from positive intent.
Cropley identifies many aspects of the creative personality but ignores imagination. He is against “fast food” recipes but presents few examples of the “home-baked” creativity he advocates. The book does raise important questions, such as how can creativity thrive in a culture of conformity? How do we make school “a place of living fun, full of mental adventure”?
Practical strategies are little discussed in either book, but the case they present for creativity in education is overwhelming. Our students face a world of unprecedented challenges: economical, technological, social and personal. In economic terms, profits from “creative” industries far outstrip profits from the manufacturing sector. We are a nation, as Bethan Marshall notes in Creativity inEducation, living on our wits. What we need are imaginative strategies to enrich the curriculum if we are to overcome the obstacles to intelligence, creativity and freedom of thought.
Robert Fisher is professor of education at Brunel University
