Sir, I’ve had a great idea! Let’s all celebrate our creativity

By Howard Cheeseman, secondary school teacher for 30 years

Last updated 16:28, Monday, 26 May 2008

Next week we will discuss how we could combine the rhythms we have played and phrases we have sung to make a satisfying, complete piece of music, I announce to the class at the end of their lesson.

Undaunted and not hearing that this is the task for the next session, Amy’s hand shoots up in the air, urgent as a rocket, eager to burst forth and release a glittering array of ideas.

I know in advance that her explanation of what we could do will be complex, take a while to hear and leave many of her classmates bewildered by her imaginative flight of fancy.

It’s tempting to take the easy option and ask her to tell me later or even ask her to keep her ideas for next week, but I invite her to tell the class her thoughts and we sit listening to an elaborate and involved exposition of her vision for how we might use what we have learned.

Later, in another class, after learning a song that allows the students to make traffic noises at predetermined points of the piece, several pupils spontaneously offer their suggestions on how we could use instruments with the song, how we could split the piece up between the class and how we use actions and facial expression to mirror the content of the words and music.

I haven’t asked them to do this or even suggested that it is something we might consider after learning the piece, but the hands go up and there is no ignoring them.

I suppose that my experience reflects the findings of recent research which suggests that creativity is an innate personal trait in most children. Peaking at around the age of four, it then often falls into decline as they enter school and become exposed to our education system.

The significance of this has not been lost on several observers and commentators. The Commons Select Committee on Education reported last year that currently children’s creativity seems to be a “second order priority” and criticised the DCFS for making it “peripheral to their core responsibilities in education”.

While initiatives promoting creativity do exist, they argue that they should be available to all schools.

We all want citizens who can express themselves, take risks, are imaginative, are curious and who have original inventive ideas, but schools often unintentionally fail to nurture these creative traits in their drive to deliver the curriculum and in their paranoia over raising standards.

Conformity and convergent thinking predominate in uncreative education and it is little surprise that teachers as a whole tend to favour students with high intelligence but low creativity; those who are bright, follow instructions and are compliant.

Highly creative pupils can be seen as disruptive, attention seeking and difficult in the school environment.

Locally, five rural primary schools (Burgh by Sands, Ivegill, Great Corby, Cummersdale, Crosby-on-Eden) are seeking to redress the balance and are currently engaged in a Creative Partnerships initiative which aims to stimulate creativity through musical activity.

The work is themed around Chinese storytelling and music. As well as some enriching experiences such as seeing a traditional Chinese Opera, pupils are engaged in work that will promote creative ideals.

Students have a chance to generate and use their own ideas, work to an evolving outcome and experiment with things unfamiliar to them.

There is much to flex their creative muscles in the challenge of taking responsibility for their work and collaborating over agreed goals.

It certainly accords with the Select Committee’s statement that “. . . the best education has creativity at its heart”.

We can but look forward to the time when such passing initiatives become instead a part of the mainstream of all children’s educational experience.