Managing Creativity in the Schools - Essay Example

Student’s Name Instructor Course Date Managing Creativity Introduction There has a controversial question regarding whether or not schools kill creativity which has continuously been argued within the formal schooling context. Most people hold a high opinion that schools are places where creativity is highly enhanced (Carey 5). This entails the footnote which stipulates that many students would have otherwise never engaged in such creative activities if they were not accorded those opportunities in their schools (Robinson 7). Therefore, it is evident that creativity is a great thing. However, the same creativity pervades the life of humans as it is a significant mark of individuality. Thus, although there are efforts of integrating and enhancing creativity in the education system, it does not mean that creativity is usually always ethical (Baucus et al., 163). Therefore, the paper will seek to evaluate the potential barriers in promoting creativity in education through assessing aspects of the dark side of creativity. Creativity is often regarded as a vehicle which drives a person’s self-expression which signifies progress in the behavior of humans (Hughes et al., 99). Creativity originates from human beings, and human beings are very complex. This means that the people who are creative are the ones that are most complex. This, therefore, means that it is evident that this creativity possesses a dark side (Gino and Ariely 445). Many countries have called for more creativity in the education system which means that they are advocating for more time allocation in some of the creative subjects like drama, music, arts, among others (Hughes et al., 102). A lot of desk work as well as continuously listening to the instructors is not efficient for creativity nurturing. Additionally, very creative people are associated with some negative characteristics and behaviors which are what has probably made the education system to become rather reluctant when it comes to enhancing and integrating creativity in the education system (Gino and Ariely 446). The thought of developing creative skills and thinking as a business of just music and drawing in the education system is possibly a narrow perspective of creativity (Robinson 8). Since creativity means possessing original ideas which are useful; it can efficiently relate to various other activities and subjects in the educational setting as it certainly should be the case. The education system could improve their creativity learning through learning foreign languages, and different sciences, among fields of study (Robinson 10). All the educational instructors and teachers have the ability to teach almost anything in a creative manner which enables the students to do various things in new and unique ways which are efficient in their educational growth (Kim 237). Additionally, through adopting a creative approach, the instructors can accommodate students from diverse cultural backgrounds which will, in turn, shape them to be comfortable and fit in various cultural industries. However, many teachers and other educational instructors find adapting the creative educational approach a great challenge for one main reason which is that high creativity levels are increasingly being linked to some dark qualities (Baucus et al., 166). This dark side of creativity is what has led to the standardization of teaching procedures which dictates that the students just learn what is spelled in the curricula (Hughes et al., 107). This has significantly limited the efforts of promoting creativity in the education sector. As previously documented, creativity has defined desirable traits with the main being the ability to develop ideas that are both useful and novel in both the creative and cultural industries. In the same light, it is also evident that creativity has been linked to a broad range of some counterproductive traits which are the seldom discussed character traits (Baucus et al., 170). Having a deep insight of this darker side of creativity is what has resulted both in its promotion and lack of promotion in the education system. Being aware of these current tendencies of creativity is essential for people or sectors which seek to understand their personal productivity as well as that of the other individuals. One of the dark sides of creativity is that it is associated with negative moods (Gino and Ariely 449). One does not have to have negative attitudes or be depressed so that they could be creative. It is essential to note that these negative feelings and the crippling depression are destructive, but at the same time it is also true that there is an empirical backing that many creative people are depressive and often have mood swings (Gino and Ariely 451). These negative attitudes and depression is often not fruitful and is not needed in the education environment. This is one of the reasons why many educational settings are not creative. Surprisingly, only a handful of teachers often describes themselves as being creative. This is often because they possess the arts-based model and performance-related models at the back of their minds like painting pictures, acting in plays, writing individual songs, as well as stories and playing the musical instruments (Carey 12). This contrasts the expansive definition of creativity being the ability to link two contexts and ideas that were previously not related which has often been termed as bisociation (Robinson 12). Creativity in the education system is also hindered by its inability to suppress the inappropriate ideas and irrelevant thoughts. They also have poor impulse control. These are then the barriers which make creativity to have little attention in the education (Robinson 13). Recently, creativity, especially in the cultural contexts, has been linked to high levels of dishonesty (Gino and Ariely 452). This is presumably because it allows the students and individuals at large to distort reality in a creative manner. This is, however, not to say that all the creative people are always unethical (Baucus et al., 173). Instead, it means that the creative people usually have low tolerance levels of conventionality and boredom as their vivid imaginations usually equip them with the necessary mental tools that enable them to deceive themselves and other people (Baucus et al., 175). This dark side of creativity has led to many education practitioners and policy makers to standardize the educational procedures which limit the room of enhancing creativity in the educational settings. Additionally, one of the goals of the educationists is to help in creating honest and ethical people which mean the aspect of creativity being linked to dishonesty will prevent them from achieving this important objective. Studies have documented that creative people are usually narcissistic and this narcissism could probably boost the creative achievements of this group of people (Kim 239). One of the dark sides of creativity is that it encourages the students to be narcissistic which assists them to focus on themselves and spend a lot of time in developing their personal ideas rather than just focusing on entertaining other people. It is also essential to note that narcissists often think that are very creative more than they are which makes them unable to assess creativity in an accurate manner (Carey 18). Educational facilities are places where people are expected interact with others and understand the cultural backgrounds of other people; it is not often a place to nurture narcissist (Hughes et al., 110). This dark side of nurturing creativity is what has led to the educators shunning from developing creativity in the learning institutions to make the students fit in different cultural contexts. Research has demonstrated that the dark creativity side could surface in the individuals who are not objectively creative (Robinson 15). To put this into context, the students who perceive themselves as being creative have the possibility of developing an entitlement sense which is the belief of them being more deserving as compared to their counterparts. This group of people often perceives their ideas as being important, novel, and unique which results in them thinking that they are justified to act in a particular way get rewarded for their creative efforts (Kim 240). Following this, the educational reforms have not attempted to address this issue regarding creativity. Rather, many of the educational policies currently aim at elevating the educational standards, have many computers in the learning institutions or extending the stipulated times for learning (Baucus et al., 180). These efforts will remain insufficient in promoting creativity in the education system. Conclusion The schools and various educational institutions have been said to kill creativity in a variety of ways. This is because of the emerging issues that have illuminated the dark side of creativity which has made many education stakeholders reluctant in improving and integrating creativity in various cultural industries. Some of the dark elements of creativity is that is associated with dishonesty, narcissism, feelings of superiority over others, individuals, and negative moods. These attributes will probably make the students less productive and hinder them from being holistic as well as have the ability to fit in various cultural contexts. Therefore, instead of the educational reforms striving to promote creativity in education, they have put measures which hinder the same. Works Cited Baucus M., Norton W., Baucus D., and Human S. ‘Fostering creativity and innovation without encouraging unethical behavior.’ Journal of Business Ethics 81(1) (2008): 163-190. Carey J. ‘What is a work of art? in what good are the arts?’ 1st Ed. Oxford University Press (2006): 3-31. Gino F., and Ariely D. ‘The dark side of creativity; Original thinkers can be more dishonest.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 10(23) (2012): 445-459. Hughes D., Evans M., Morrow G., and Keith S. ‘Popular Music Education’ in The New Music Industries: Disruption and Discovery, Palgrave Macmillan (2016): 97-116. Kim K. ‘Underachievement and Creativity; Are gifted underachievers highly creative?’. Creativity Research Journal 20(2) (2008): 234-242. Robinson K. ‘Out of our minds’ in Out of our Minds; Learning to be creative, UK Capstone (2011): 1-18. Read More