Creative Boost

In 1999 a detailed report into culture and creativity in education was written by the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education headed by Sir Ken Robinson.

Well over a decade later, the world has changed but most of the points raised in the report have not:
https://www.thersa.org/discover/videos/rsa-animate/2010/10/rsa-animate---changing-paradigms/

The impact of creativity on learning and engagement cannot be underestimated.

Pick any 30 adults born in roughly the same year as you. Go and sit in a room. Someone arrives and tells you what you're going to do today. It's a task to build a tower of newspaper as high as you can. You've been given a blueprint showing a base with tubes of paper stuck together and so you get to work. Every adult will build a tall tower, but what was the point?

Rewind a step and imagine you're not given any instructions. How many inventive and interesting adaptations would 30 adults come up with? How much more challenging and engaging would the session be? How much more would you learn from the people around you?

Was the purpose to build a tall tower, or to work out a way to build a tall tower?
Which approach would produce skills that were useful in other contexts?

In essence, creativity is about unlocking potential : your own potential and the potential of those around you. Being surrounded by different ideas and viewpoints inspires and expands your own.

We are so worried about ensuring children meet targets that we demonstrate a lack of faith in them. Rather than risk missing a target we stay safe and guide them to a solution, give the instructions and lay out the blueprint. At the outcome - they built the tower, they got the grade - we reassure ourselves, pat ourselves on the back and feel we did the right thing.

A short term win; a long term loss.

If you still need convincing, put the kettle on and have a look at this article which gives a broad and well researched view on the vital skill of creativity in children and adults :
http://www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk/resourcesandcpd/research/summaries/rsfosteringcreativity.asp

In the words of Albert Einstein : 'Imagination is more important than knowledge.'


Further reading : 

The full All Our Futures report is here : http://www.creativitycultureeducation.org/all-our-futures-creativity-culture-and-education

The BBC reviewed it in 2009 and pulled together further research into the benefits of creativity in teaching, specifically its impact on results : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8064306.stm

Sir Ken Robinson reviewed his report in 2011, providing a brief assessment of whether the content was still relevant : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqjQ6iMGYKk