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by Patricia Barry

Creativity in the Classroom, Part 2: Creating a Culture

In this article, the second in the series, “Creativity in the Classroom”, art educator Patricia Barry explores ways to consciously create a classroom environment that nurtures creativity.

So, in the current, 30-year-old, high-stakes testing frenzy in American education, how does a teacher manage to “give the crayons back” to the students? Hopefully, you are not just looking for formulas...Or handouts...Or a single technique...Or even a “method.”

Certainly, a set of rules, procedures or specific activities can facilitate the day-to-day processes of a creative classroom and aid in nurturing a creative environment. However, the creativity-inspiring classroom is a culture, an open mindset that teachers live, model, demonstrate to, and actively invite their students to explore everyday. The teachers themselves have to strive to become more divergently creative than before, and therefore become creative practitioners themselves. Thus, the students and the teacher are both on their own creative continuums, trying to grow beyond their past limitations to a more openly creative future.

Quite honestly, after teaching for nearly 40 years, I don’t know if creativity can be taught, but I am sure it can be, and must be:

• Defined • Permitted• Developed• Discussed• Displayed • Rewarded and above all...• Expected and• Respected

“A teacher’s respect and the respect she builds in her students are the most important elements of a classroom that builds, rather than destroys, creativity.” -Miriam Clifford

First of all, we must define creativity for both ourselves as adults, and for our students, as well as set expectations and parameters. There are many methods to arrive at that collaborative definition. Here are but a few; however, some are more creative than others:1. Look it up in a resource like a

dictionary. Webster’s defines creativity as “the ability to make new things or think of new ideas.” (merriam-webster.com)

2. Rely on experts such as Sir Ken Robinson who said, “I define creativity as the process of having original ideas that have value.

Creative work in any field often passes through typical phases. Sometimes what you end up with is not what you had in mind when you started. It’s a dynamic process that often involves mak-ing new connections, crossing disciplines and using metaphors and analogies. Creativity is about fresh thinking. It doesn’t have to be new to the whole of humanity —though that’s always a bonus— but certainly to the person whose work it is. Creativity also in-volves making critical judgments about whether what you’re work-ing on is any good, whether it’s a theorem, a design or a poem.” (The Guardian, May 2013)

Or use the student’s own creativity and knowledge to define it.3. Have students utilize

brainstorming techniques, borrowed from writing gurus Leif Fearn and Nancy Farnun, San Diego State University, to list the “many, varied and unusual” words that describe creativity. This strategy pushes fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration, all indicators of creative processes, as tested by The Torrance Tests.

“In the most advanced industrial countries, there is a growing emphasis...a huge emphasis...on creativity in the educational process...born of the realisation(sic) in the 21st century, that the knowledge economy will require people to be creative thinkers— people who can think outside of the box...and who can bring solutions to unanticipated events and so on. They are trying to make every school a creative school and a thinking school.” Brian Boyd, Scotland, Journey to Excellence

“Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the “creative bug” is just a wee voice telling you, “I’d like my crayons back, please.” Hugh MacLeod

Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association www.tepsa.org November 2015 Instructional Leader

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4. Have students define the creative process using a prose format, such as this writing prompt based on Shel Silverstein’s poem, “My Rules” in The Light in the Attic. “If you want to be creative, here’s what you have to do! First...Sec-ond...Then...Next...and Last...!

5. Use a “reversal strategy” and list what creativity isn’t. In other words, describe critical, linear thinking, which is the opposite of creative, lateral thinking.

6. Have students collaborate to use a technology site like wordle.net to enter their many, varied and un-usual descriptors for creativity. The website then creates a one-of-a-kind graphic that illustrates creativity. The most frequently used terms are larger and more prominently displayed, and often appear in high-lighted text or different fonts.

7. Students can use the brainstorm-ing strategy of mind mapping to define creativity and illustrate it. Great examples of artistically cre-ated mind maps as well as mind mapping programs can be found on numerous websites: IQMatrix.com, mindmapinspiration.com, mappio.com, mingenius.com and mindjet.com.

8. Use poetry formulas such as a diamante to describe both creative thinking and critical thinking or use an acrostic poem, sometimes called a vertical poem, to enumerate the characteristics, letter by letter, of the word c-r-e-a-t-i-v-i-t-y.

“There’s no single answer to making young people creative—it’s more about giving them permission to be creative and recognising [sic] that the ideas that they have, that maybe seem slightly out of the box, may well be quite important”. Brian Boyd, Scotland, Journey to Excellence

Once you have determined a working definition, at this point in time you must give your students and yourself permission to be creative. You may, depending upon the class and age of students, be highly dramatic. I usually am!

“All arise! Raise your right hand and repeat after me...” The standing students repeat the following pledge:“I, being of mostly sound mind and body, do realize with smiling abandon, that I now have permission to be consistently and openly creative! I now must give myself, and you all, the permission to be more creative in this classroom!”

Participants may feel free to hug, handshake, high-five, and fist pump other participants to congratulate them on their permission to be creative. I then give students a Creativity Certificate proclaiming them “highly creative.” Kids love this! I have to admit I do, too! It’s a great way to further your beginning-of-school relationship building.

After this initial and crucial definition phase, and second, granting permission to be creative, the teacher must then ensure that there are frameworks, models, and practices in place to nurture and develop these creative capacities. I often have my third, fourth and fifth grade classes compose Creative Constitutions where both rights and responsibilities are enumerated. For each right granted, there must be an equal responsibility. Being creative is not just about doing what you want when you want.

“There are various myths about creativity. One is that only special people are creative; another is that creativity is just about the arts; a third is that it’s all to do with

uninhibited ‘self-expression.’ None of these is true. On the contrary, everyone has creative capacities; creativity is possible in whatever you do, and it can require great discipline and many different skills.” -Sir Ken Robinson, The Guardian, May 17, 2013

Now the real work, and the fun, begins. As a teacher/nurturer of a creative classroom climate, one must supply challenges and problems to solve worthy of the minds of the students, and that have some real life connections. The processes by which students individually or collaboratively arrive at decisions must be discussed and analyzed by the students themselves so new understandings can grow. In this phase it often becomes necessary for the teacher to be a facilitator or thinking mentor to an individual, small groups or the entire class.

“Teaching creativity needs to go further than direct instruction; it needs to be a relational kind of teaching in which the teacher mentors, encourages and inspires the student. To teach creativity we need creative teaching, and creative teachers. We cannot expect to be more creative if those who teach us are not capable of inspiring and encouraging us. That’s why the best teachers of creativity are also practitioners, those engaged in creative practice, whether in visual art, writing or chemistry.

Creative teachers need to be experts in their discipline and also experts in teaching creatively. Too often we assume that success in a field of endeavor qualifies someone to teach. This is not the case.

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Teaching is in itself a creative undertaking that requires real commitment and expertise.Most of all, teachers of anything need to have confidence in their students; they need to believe that their students can learn what it is that they are teaching, that their students can acquire the creativity they need and become great in their chosen fields.” The Conversation, author Dallas J. Baker, adjunct fellow at Southern Cross University

Teachers can purposely do some things in their classrooms that increase the odds of both their students and themselves being more creative. • Ask students to help select and

phrase classroom rules and procedures, and solve issues.

• Validate student creativity with a “Creativity License.” 

• Believe and respect that creativity is a highly personal process, not one-size-fits-all.

• Change discussions to allow for divergent ideas, interests and even debate.

• Ask open-ended or Socratic questions.

• Allow time in class for thought incubation.

• Encourage constructive questioning of your opinions and those held by students.

• Allow and accept mistakes/failure as part of the creative process.

• Model and expect responses to student work/thought that are positive and constructive.

• Ask for a reason why an answer is given, instead of just saying, “no” or “wrong.”

• Stress “many, varied, and unusual” categories in brainstorming to push fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration.

• Allow written brainstorming for introverted students.

• Ask for multiple possible answers to questions or multiple possible solutions to problems.

• Encourage collaborative learning.• Research and use a classroom

creativity model like the Osborn-Parnes model.

• Don’t limit assignments to one format. Allow and encourage mix-and-match formats.

• Do away with clip art.• Encourage students to explore,

research and create on their own.• Teach the proper use of quoted

materials. • Use technologies that encourage

creativity: podcasts, videos, films, iPhones, iPads, etc.

• Work a “genius hour” into the school day to mimic the “20% Rule” in business.

• Give points for design on all assignments. 

• Add creativity spaces or “maker spaces” for production.

• Display creative student work in your classroom and more public areas of your school.

• Discuss and share the creative work of experts, musicians, artists, writers, etc.

• Seek out the creative ideas of other educators through interdisciplinary connections. 

• Make creativity a criterion on all assessments. 

• Understand that creativity is essential for the students’ futures in the job markets of the future.

• Participate in a program that encourages creativity like Odyssey of the Mind, Thinkquest, Destination Imagination or Everyartist Live!

• Celebrate unique, creative production.

• Above all, respect creativity and the students who demonstrate it.

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy

in creative expression and knowledge.” -Albert Einstein

References“Why Creativity in the Classroom

Matters More Than Ever” by Kristen Hicks on March 17, 2015, edudemic.com.

“8 Ways to Help Introverts Brainstorm for Creative Projects” by Leah Levy on November 17, 2014, edudemic.com.

“Thirty Things You Can Do to Promote Creativity” by Miriam Clifford on November 26, 2012,

informed.com. “Tips for Enhancing Creativity

in the Classroom” by Shelley Carson, PhD, author of Your Creative Brain, josseybasseducation.com.

“How to Promote Creative Thinking” by Alice Sterling Honig, PhD, contributor Early Childhood Today, scholastic.com.

“To Encourage Creativity, Mr. Gove, You Must First Understand What It Is” by Sir Ken Robinson on March 17, 2013, theguardian.com.

AuthorPatricia Barry teaches art at Lamkin Elementary School in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD. Her career in education spans more than 30 years. For 20+ years, she was a self-contained third grade teacher and a Reading/Language Arts instructor in Lewisville ISD and Spring ISD. Since 1990 she has been an elementary art instructor. She is a five-time Teacher of the Year, and has presented numerous district, state and national workshops over the course of her career.