In EC all three grades are currently inquiring into ‘How We Express Ourselves’ which leads to discoveries of our own and others’ creativity, our values and appreciation of the aesthetic. Young children are creative, it’s innate, it’s how they make sense of their world, by thinking and just doing. Our input into ensuring we foster their creativity is fundamental and this is linked to what we interpret as creative.
I believe some perceptions of creativity tend to revolve around the creative arts and as adults, many of us believe we aren’t creative because somewhere along the way our efforts have not been appreciated or acknowledged. However, the creative mind is so much more than that of the child who can paint or play a musical instrument. One definition describes creativity as ‘the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality’, which could mean anything and perhaps that’s the way we need to think about creativity when we think about young children.
The Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood explains creativity as ‘the ability to challenge, question and explore. It involves taking risks, playing with ideas, keeping an open mind and making connections where none are obvious.’
So let's look at other activities where creativity isn't as obvious.
The Scientist
Science intrinsically involves inquiry and invention, which are triggered by curiosity, intuition, imagination, all of them elements closely related to creativity; it is also widely accepted nowadays that effective science and mathematics education is based on inquiry, which leads to wonder, and is fuelled by curiosity. (http://www.creative-little-scientists.eu/content/about-project)
The Engineer
A world of ideas can be created with a simple box, cardboard tubes and a roll of sticky tape. Children need to explore and think imaginatively and there is huge potential for inventive play in everyday objects. To construct the child needs the ability to plan how to use the materials, to have an idea and make it a reality. They also need perseverance in the face of challenges.
The Gardener
Creativity means finding new and exciting ways to grow food. Thinking about how colours can be combined when planting flowers. Painters, writers and poets are all inspired by the breathtaking beauty of gardens, charmed by the suggestions of the creative gardener.
The Mathematician
'Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show'. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
The Storyteller
Envisioning, writing and acting out a story allows the imagination to run wild. Whether the children use this to make connections to the real world or develop a fantastical experience the opportunities to use language, written and oral are vast. It is perhaps a dying art in our rushed world? Imagine the joy people had from evenings around a fire listening to tales, it is something we must not lose.
The Imaginist
Through role play you can imagine and create new worlds and experiences. Role play gives the opportunity to be as creative as you want, you can change voice, your appearance, you change who you are. It is an opportunity for theatre, drama, song and stories.
So what can you do to cultivate creativity, curiosity and hopefully a passion for life?
The cognitive psychologist Alison Gopnik describes two types of parents in her book, The Gardener and the Carpenter, she refers to the carpenter as the overprotective parent, one who sees their role as constructing their child through constant intervention and instruction, whilst the gardener is the parent who sees their role as planting a seed, to water it, to protect it from true dangers, but to otherwise simply let it grow.
The carpenter-parent tends to create an environment of pressure and expectations, prioritizing structure and metrics over exploration and play. In contrast, it is in the presence of the gardener-parent approach that children are assured that they are safe enough to be curious and to explore, to play their way toward a fuller understanding of themselves and their world the way humans are designed to. (http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2019/11/curiosity-and-exploration.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TeacherTom+%28Teacher+Tom%29)
We, as adults, need to create these environments to allow the child to engage in inquiry, be curious and develop their passions ( their's not ours). This is not just in the early years it is for all ages, unfortunately some schools tend to exclude creative activities from the curriculum in the quest for more time for academics, the truth is that children then lose this ability and it is harder to recover.
...creativity is an attitude to life, one that everybody needs (Prof. Guy Claxton, 2014)