Can Teachers Support Creativity and Imagination in Children - Essay Example

?Running Head: Creativity and Imagination Creativity and Imagination s Can teachers support creativity and imagination in children? “We humans have not yet achieved our full creative potential primarily because every child’s creativity is not properly nurtured. The critical role of imagination, discovery and creativity in a child’s education is only beginning to come to light and, even within the educational community, many still do not appreciate or realize its vital importance.”(Ashfaq Ishaq cited in Morris, 2006) Childhood is a critical period in one’s life because the knowledge that is applied on the various issues faced by the individual during his or her adulthood is usually procured during one’s childhood. Therefore, teachers play a huge role in moulding the personality and character of the child and hence make substantial contributions in encouraging imagination and creativity in a child. Though, the substance of this prose will examine as to how teachers can spur creativity and imagination young children. Creativity is a highly important aspect of a child’s educational endeavours because through creativity the child helps to identify himself as a unique person and is conducive to a healthy personality development of the child. Creativity is the process of innovating and focuses on how people use new methods and ideas in order to find alternative and fresh solutions to a particular problem. The United Kingdom National Advisory Committee’s report in 1999 focuses a great deal on the importance of creativity. (Morris, 2006) The report describes and defines creativity as, “First, they (the characteristics of creativity) always involve thinking or behaving imaginatively. Second, overall this imaginative activity is purposeful: that is, it is directed to achieving an objective. Third, these processes must generate something original. Fourth, the outcome must be of value in relation to the objective.” Their definition of creativity clearly demonstrates the strong association with the imaginative and creative process within a child. (Morris, 2006) In simplistic terms, creativity embodies imagination, purposefulness, originality and the outcome must be of immense value and opens up the world to new opportunities and experiences. It is important to know the role of creativity in the society that focuses so much on creativity therefore, the process of learning greatly involves the child thinking in a lateral manner. Creativity is good for the child’s self-image and his identity so that he knows how to set himself apart from the crowd and make his own mark in this dynamic world. Creativity and imagination has become a highly important aspect in the educational sector and there are number of programs that are designed to help teachers out in order to encourage their students to become more creative and imaginative. The United States creative classroom is another example of how people from all around the world understand the need for the child to be creative and imaginative. The project was developed by Project Zero in collaboration with Disney Worldwide Outreach and together they worked to develop materials and a variety of methods to help the child become more creative. Their main objective was not only to help the teachers understand the importance of spurring creativity and imagination in the child. (Mayer, 2005) The American project further added to the definition of creativity given by UK National Advisory Committee report, they stated, “Although most people might look for signs of creativity in the appearance of the bulletin boards, student made projects, centres and displays in the classroom, I feel the truly creative classroom goes way beyond what can be seen with the eyes. It is a place where bodies and minds actively pursue new knowledge. Having a creative classroom means that the teacher takes risks on a daily basis and encourages his/her students to do the same.” (Morris, 2006) Further elaborating on the aforementioned quote, the teachers were only distinguishing between teaching creatively and teaching for creativity. Teaching creatively involves using imaginative teaching approaches to make the learning process more fun and engaging so that the child is greatly motivated to participate and learn as effectively as possible. On the other hand, teaching for creativity involves motivating the child to use and apply creative methods to solve problems and critically think things through. However, teaching for creativity and creative teaching are both side of the same coin and in order to motivate children to use creative methods, the teacher must adopt creative methods for their students. (Jones, 2008 & Morris, 2006) As it is mentioned earlier, enhancing creativity in a child is important for their personality development and it is not only beneficial for the child, but for others around. If he grows up to a stable and healthy individual, he can be a major asset to the society and even have a family of his own and further pass down his creative skills on to his or her children. Therefore, it is important for teachers to develop creative and imaginative skills in the child for benefits in the long-run as well. The development of creativity is a highly complex process and there are certain methods that the teacher must adopt. (Jones, 2008) However before delving in further detail of how to develop creativity and imagination in the child, the prose will explore the various theories proposed by eminent scholars and researchers in order to gain insight into the psychology of children and will also outline exactly how teachers can spur creativity and imagination in children. The most significant amount of researches done on the psyche and dynamism involved in a child’s thought processes was conducted by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Carl Jung and Sigmund are two names that have become highly synonymous with the field of developmental psychology. Though, their theories were highly different in their essence, but all their theories were based on the same premise and agreed upon the idea that the human mind composed of various structure or components that were responsible for triggering various images, perceptions and cognitions in an individual. Both Jung and Carl believed that these structures in the human psyche are subjected to change. (Singer, 1994) Hence their theory paved its way for a psychological paradigm that came to be known as Psychodynamic Model of Psychology. Though, Freudian theory about a child’s development was a little to reductionist and deterministic for a child, and further tied everything with sexuality. Freudian theory was then followed by the Jungian perspective that discussed the overall development of the child instead of focusing on just one aspect of sexuality. He discussed that other than the events and incidents that the child experiences during his or her childhood are one of the many factors that determine their personality growth in later years. According to the Jungian perspective thought processes were not always the result suppressed sexual desires, but in fact these associations and cognition also stemmed from social influences and the various archetypes that existed within the societies. Jungian theory regarding archetypes states that these personality archetypes are determined by the individual’s observation of the society. These are also responsible for establishing a repeating pattern of thoughts and behaviour in a person and though these archetypes may not stigmatize any individual because they are four basic archetypes that exist in every individual’s personality. The four archetypes are the shadow, anima, animus and the self. The equivalent of the archetype “Shadow” according to Freudian theoretical standards may be the sub-conscious. The name is shadow is quite self-explanatory and refers to the latent portion of the psyche. By its name, it can be easily deduced that this part of the individual’s psyche is dark, hidden and troubling; much like the sub-conscious. Jung stated that the thought processes that occurred on this level of the individual’s mental functioning was likely to manifest its elf in the form of dreams, hallucinations and musings. On the other hand, the anima and the animus represent the female and the male aspects of one’s character. It is the main source of creativity and according to Freudian perspective the anima and the animus for the unconscious of the mind. Jung postulated that that amalgamation of these two aspects of the individual is initially displaced onto his or her parent and then on to their significant others. The animus refers to male side in females, which remains latent and is much complex in women than it is in men. Men’s anima is their feminine side and is the main source of infant projections. (Jones, 2008) The self refers to the ego of the individual and it is born out of a coherent combination of the conscious and the unconscious, which eventually shapes the individual’s personality. These archetypes are often personal and may be internal; other archetypes exist in the external environment of the individual. These archetypes are systematically categorized into familial archetypes: a loving mother, father, and siblings, story archetypes such as the hero, villain and the damsel in distress, and animal archetypes such as a faithful dog, playful cat and cunning fox. (Knox, 2003) Jung believed that these archetypes eventually was responsible for affecting various areas of the child’s behaviour including learning and creativity. However, another one of the factors pointed out by Jung was the birth order that affects the child’s personality the most. He stated that the birth order leaves a profound impact on the child’s personality and affects the way he or she interacts with people, develops habits and how he or she may view their own self is often affected by their birth order. (Fordham & Adler, 1954) The theory further states that children who are the youngest in their household are usually spoiled and highly pampered. They may have sufficient amount of immaturity in their nature. However, eldest children are usually more responsible and domineering and the child born in the middle order is likely to suffer from the middle-child syndrome, as they may feel vastly neglected as most parental attention is either diverted towards the eldest or the youngest child. (Fordham & Adler, 1954) The birth order theory may not provide a reliable insight into the subject of child psychology because there are other variables involved and this theory is generally based on speculations. However, it does provide significant outline for teachers to study the intelligence levels of their students and can help them to mould their teaching styles effectively as per the child’s personality. As theories like these emerge at a highly rapid pace, counsellors and teachers experience a dynamic change in the way children are treated and dealt with these days. The methods used have a close association with all the theories and discoveries made by Jung and Freud. Jung’s work is applied more on school settings than Freud’s. This is fundamentally because as mentioned earlier, Freud’s theory focused primarily on sexual development that formed the foundation of the child’s overall personality development whereas, Jungian perspective provided a far broader view on the subject and therefore provided clear guidelines for teachers and counsellors to incorporate them in their teaching and counselling methods to help guide children, who possess different kinds of personalities. (Knox, 2003) The application of Jungian philosophy in order to develop creativity and imagination requires teachers to gain a profound understanding of the three components of the psyche that is conscious, unconscious and sub-conscious. According to Jung, creativity is an extension of the unconscious layer of the psyche and the unconscious mind actually lays the foundation for the “Ego” to develop. Although, this psychoanalytic approach was not applied on a “learning model” but it was fundamentally used to understand how human mind develops and functions. During the individual’s childhood the behaviour of the person is largely ‘egocentric’ that is focused on the self. Parental care initially is the fundamental component of a child’s creativity; especially the role of the mother has the most profound impact on the child’s imaginative abilities and develops images and associations pertinent to his or her relationship with the mother. The images are later important for transferential exchange onto their teachers, as their parental identification triggers the projection of the parental identity on to the teacher and stimulates learning. A typical development of the child then involves the child using these images and projections, in order to establish his or her own identity and this identity formation is at its peak when the child goes through puberty. Teachers can seriously help their students out during this time, because the child undergoes the process of making a transition from childhood to adolescence and as a result they may become highly confused during this period of time. Teachers can help their students get in touch with their creative side in order to help them get through with this period and the most important knowledge that teachers need to arm their students with during creative learning include relevance, control, ownership and control. Relevance refers to the wide range of activities social values that need to get their students abreast with. (Jeffery & Wood, 2009) Though the teachers must exercise caution when teaching these values to their students and it is important that they should attuned to he student’s cultural identity. Teachers must try to make the child feel in control of the creative learning process and must motivate the pupil using task-oriented exercises instead of extrinsic factors. Control should be further reinforced by teaching the student about ownership of the activities. Whereby, the child is able to internalize the creative learning methods he or she is introduced to and incorporates them in their everyday life and activities. Then finally last but not the least, the teacher should be highly innovative when designing a dynamic teaching environment for the child. (Jeffery & Wood, 2009) Sufficient amount of innovation is required to make sure that the child remains interested and is good enough to stimulate his learning and imaginative skills. According to Wood and Jeffery, the aforementioned criteria to develop a good and stimulating creative learning environment has been proved highly successful in motivating children to become more creative and imaginative. The higher the relevance in his learning process the greater the chances the child will develop more control over their learning capabilities. (Jeffery & Wood, 2009) Relevance is highly important to be introduced in the child’s learning environment, as it helps him or her in identifying objects and aids in developing immense amount of enthusiasm for the process of learning. Control and ownership are highly similar components and are directly proportional to one another. As more control is given to the child in his learning environment, greater the chances that he or she will develop ownership as well. As mentioned earlier, as an individual develops relevance, control and ownership of his or her activities, automatically these components would be a major spur to innovation and can lead to creativity and imagination in the child. Having defined all the key components of creativity, the following parts of prose will highlight as to how teachers and counsellors can develop them further. The first method to spur creativity in a child is to motivate and encourage curiosity in him or her. Encouraging the child to ask questions in a classroom is the greatest way to encourage him to think in a critical manner and develop approach the subject using his own creative methods and establishing his own take on the topic. If the child asks a question, the teacher must never demean him or her and must try to resolve them as effectively as possible. The child should be encouraged to make associations and relationships in order to develop greater understanding of the subject. This is a way of encouraging lateral thinking in the child by helping them make relationships to objects and situations that are in reality completely unrelated. Lateral thinking further helps the child to postulate and envisions the point from different perspectives and in various contexts. Lateral thinking also the child envisioning the knowledge and its application in a number of other environments. This method does not only help broaden the view of the child but also makes him more open minded and makes the child more adaptable to change. Helping the child explore the repertoire of ideas and approaches in his mind can certainly help him to use various alternatives and fresh methods to solve a variety of issues. This enables the child to adopt creative problem solving skills that is not only healthy for his mental growth but on an internal level, it is highly beneficial for the child’s intrapersonal and interpersonal skills. Teachers must always remember to give a positive feedback to their students and help them realize their shortcoming in order to effectively help them overcome it. The teacher must provide them with tips and be a good model for them to follow. Even the Social learning theory developed by Bandura states that children are naturally impressionable and pick up ideas and behaviours that are present in their environment. Therefore, children must always be around good role models in order to help them develop their personalities and counter various problems they face during their growth as efficaciously as possible. Robert J. Sternberg concurred with Bandura’s ideology and stated, “The most powerful way to develop creativity in your students is to be a role model. Children develop creativity not when you tell them to, but when you show them.” Therefore, a child will only be able to express his or her creativity, if he or she is brought up in an environment that is conducive for such behaviours. Other than the teacher’s attitude there are a variety of other activities as well that are highly favourable for the child and can help them become more imaginative and creative. The introduction of art as a part of the school curriculum has been known to be highly beneficial in encouraging creativity in the child. This point has further been backed by scientific researches and studies. The main premise behind this point is that exuberant colours are known to trigger various neurochemical in the brain that triggers greater amount of activity. Increased activity in the brain further stimulates the child and greatly helps him in the learning process. Through art6 the child can learn to express his feelings and emotions in a creative manner and further helps him to communicate. As mentioned earlier, the subject of art further helps the child to be more creative and provides an outlet for self-expression. Other than enhancing expressiveness in the child, art also enhances the child’s self-image and innovative side. He or she is motivated to experiment with the tools and use them, in different ways in order to create their artistic piece as beautifully as possible. It enhances their self-confidence and further gives them a sense of accomplishment as they continue to learn new things in a different way. The teacher’s role in this matter would be to keep on motivating the child and giving them a positive feedback so that they feel encouraged and confident. (Mattil & Marzan, 1981) The most fundamental aspect of teaching arts to stimulate creative learning in the child is the fact that they learn to gain control over their activities and as mentioned earlier, with control the child also adopts ownership of his or her activities. These activities further spur the child’s level of motivation and help them to explore various other aspects of the subject. Art is also good for them to enhance their coordination and triggers their perceptual powers; which refers to their level of imagination. The process through which they depict various situation using colours and brushes shows the immense degree of imagination the child possesses and the teacher must keep on him or her to explore even more. A child’s art has been known to provide great insight into his or her level of development. Young children largely focus on making unrecognizable shapes and scribbling that shows the primitive nature of their thought processes. There scribbling is usually arbitrary and can be explained by the fact that due to the fact that the child does not sophisticated motor control. (Mattil & Marzan, 1981) On the other hand, when the child reaches the age of 3 to five they are learning the art of verbal communication therefore, when asked they can actually tell the other person what their art is about and what they wanted to draw. They usually draw human figures and close relatives such as their father, mother or siblings: this clearly shows that they beginning to identify themselves with their parents and are effectively establishing a close association with, which they are depicting through their art. By the time the child reaches the age of six or seven years old, his or her drawing and art forms start to become slightly complex. They begin to notice and observe unobtrusive aspects of their surroundings and add great amount of detail to their work. Their shapes become more recognizable and they are able to gain control of their motor skills that make their drawings look less like plain scribbling and their art in great form. Teachers should know that the child is effectively making his transition into adolescence; therefore they must always encourage them. (Herr, 2000) Encouragement is conducive to helping the child grow into a healthy adult and it is important that the child feels that his contributions and art is appreciated by someone. Obviously, a child so young is incapable of producing an art work that resembles the works of Picasso or Da Vinci and every teacher needs to bear that in mind. The aforementioned stages of development give the same insight into the child’s mind, to help the teacher understand that the child is just beginning to learn to take control of his hand motions and strokes. Hence it is vitally important that the teacher should not be too critical of the child’s work. (Herr, 2000) However, as the child grows old all children are able to identify shapes and as their motor skills become highly developed, the child is able to draw complex objects. Other than arts, sports are also important to develop a child’s creative and imaginative. Sports do not only provide the child with mental fitness but physical as well. It teaches the child to work in a team and enhances is social interaction skills. Like art, sports also give the child good control over his motor skills and enhances their concentration span. Therefore, teachers must include physically challenging activities that also require mental capacity and physical labour for the child. Researchers have often stated that those children, who are given choices, show more creativity. The idea behind giving a child options is to help him gain control over the course of an activity, this control enables him to develop ownership and as a result they learn more creatively and are able to put a lot of imagination into their work. For instance, the child should be given a certain activity, he or she should given the tools and the teachers must give them the latitude to use the tools in their own unique and produce the best outcome. The premise behind this form of creative teaching is to let the child learn on his own accord. When a child is supposed to develop various methods to use a particular tool he or she will observe their environment to look for cues and even researches have backed up this observation and have stated that those children who keep on looking around the playground and classroom for cues use creative problem-solving methods. Other than giving the child the latitude to experiment and use tools in a creative manner another most important thing in teaching creativity and spurring imagination is using synectics to help the child answer creatively. (Lowenfield & Brittan, 1987) Synectics stems from the process of leaving reality behind and incorporating more irrelevant elements in the learning environments to help spur imagination and creativity. The process of synectics can take numerous forms and can be divided into basic components. These components include independence, exposure to diversity and brainstorming sessions. (DeBord, 2005) The concept of independence is very much similar to the concept of giving the child choices. Independence does not mean that the child must become self-sufficient but it refers to that fact that the child must have a sense of independence in the learning. This is also analogous to the phenomenon of introducing control and ownership of activities, so that the child can shoulder the responsibility of his actions and can become independent in way of thinking. Exposure to diversity is largely in terms of the community and the vast multitude of races living peacefully in one community is the best way to broaden a child’s horizon. If a child grows up in an environment, where they are people from all cultures and races; therefore, when a child sees them perform their activities, his mental capacity is enhanced. (DeBord, 2005) Diversity of the community greatly helps the child to adopt a very open minded approach; the idea is to reduce ethnocentrism in the child that triggers superiority and inferiority complexes in the child, but on the contrary helps him or her to accept the social norms of the people from other cultures and countries. They learn to accept and embrace the choices of other people and prevent him from judging people that is not only detrimental to his social interactions bur also for his growth as a stable member of the society. (DeBord, 2005) And finally last but not the least, brainstorming sessions are highly beneficial in helping the child think in many different and lateral ways. Teachers must always hold brainstorming sessions in class in order to let all the children express themselves freely. They must allow every child to participate and not put down those students, who do not come up with good suggestion but instead motivate them to think beyond their levels. Brainstorming sessions provide the child an outlet to express himself freely and this method is similar to providing the child independence in his way of working with problem. However, the only difference lies in the way he expresses it that is as the child expresses his creative side through his work but in a brainstorming session he has to express his creative ideas in front of the entire classroom. Therefore, the teacher must exercise caution when they tell reject a child’s idea. The teacher must be careful and not let the child feel demeaned or humiliated in any way as this can lead to shattered self-esteem and could result in a stunted personality growth. (Amabile, 1983) As B.F. Skinner stated that in order to reinforce certain kind of behaviours in an individual, the person’s behaviour should always be followed by a consequence; in other words, the process of operant conditioning is highly desirable in making the child more creative and imaginative. If a child doe something creative, the teacher must reward him by giving him accolades; however, children are often enticed by the idea of getting gifts therefore teachers use gold stars in order to help them become more creative and imaginative. Therefore, rewards like gold stars and encouragement as a mode of making the child more confident and enable him to become more creative. Deborah Meier; a renowned educator once stated, “Thousands of years of history suggest that the schoolhouse a we know it is an absurd way to rear our young: it’s contrary to everything we know about what it is to be a human being. For example, we know that doing and talking are what most successful people are very good at – that’s where they truly show their stuff.”. Therefore, the best place where a child can be taught to become creative after his home is his school. And teachers can make substantial contributions to bring out the best in the child. (Morris, 2006) References: Amabile, T. 1983. The Social Psychology of Creativity, Springer-Verlag, New York Fordham, M & Adler, G. 1954, the Collected Works of Carl Gustav Jung, Pantheon Books, New York DeBord, K. 2005, Creativity in Young children, North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, North Carolina. Web: http://www.newsforparents.org/expert_creativity_young_children.html Herr, J. 2000, Creative learning activities for young children, Cengage Learning, Kentucky Jeffery, B & Woods, P. 2009, Creative learning in the primary schools, Taylor & Francis, New York. Jones, R. 2008, Education and imagination: Post-Jungian Perspectives, Taylor & Francis, New York Knox, J. (2003). Archetype, attachment, analysis: Jungian psychology and the emergent mind, Psychology Press, New York Lowenfeld, V & Brittan, W. L. 1987, Creative and Mental Growth, Macmillan, New York Morris, W. 2006, Creativity: Its place in education, Future Edge Limited, New Zealand Mattil, E. & Marzan, B. 1981. Meaning in Children's Art, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey Robinson K, 2001. Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, Capstone, Dallas Singer, J. 1994. The Inner Process: Singer, Boundaries of the Soul, Doubleday. New York Mayes, C. 2005. Ten Pillars of a Jungian Approach to Education. Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice, New York Read More