Teaching Creativity Through English

Each teacher can and should discover the potential of his/her subject in educating creative personalities. But not all teachers are ready to contribute to this process. A recent survey, conducted among future teachers at our university, showed that 25% of the respondents couldn’t remember a single example of creative work at lessons at school. At the same time 95% of students are sure that being creative is an essential characteristic of a teacher. Thus we can conclude that for 20% of respondents, creativity is an ideal desired but never witnessed. School isn’t viewed by most learners as a place where creativity is encouraged. On the contrary, it’s considered a very conventional institution. Let me support this statement with the words of a second-form pupil of one of the Moscow schools who said that Aleksandr Pushkin had got bad marks at school because of his fantasy and inability to answer the way teachers had expected him to answer.

One of most problematic areas in schools is the zero tolerance toward mistakes that students make. In teaching knowledge, mistakes mean lack of understanding of the subject matter, though in teaching creativity they are the portals of discovery (James Joyce). Scott Adams remarks that creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. School practice doesn’t seem to recognize mistakes as an education-friendly phenomenon. Teachers are the greatest mistake hunters and fighters. Thus students are afraid to make mistakes, to experiment, to express too original ideas, to look for nonstandard ways of problem-solving. I can’t but agree with Elbert Hubbard who remarks that the greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

Bartel Marvin, an Emeritus Professor of Art at Goshen College, points out factors that can have a negative impact on creativity. This is what he writes:

1. I kill creativity when I encourage borrowing instead of owning ideas.

2. I kill creativity when I demonstrate instead of having students practice.

3. I kill creativity when I show an example instead of defining a problem.

4. I kill creativity when I give freedom without focus.

5. I kill creativity by making suggestions instead of asking open questions.

6. I kill creativity if I give an answer instead of teaching problem-solving experimentation methods.

7. I kill creativity when I assign grades without providing informative feedback.

8. I kill creativity when I praise neatness and conformity more than expressive original work [1]

To teach bearing creativity in mind means to create certain conditions that encourage students to express themselves, to bring forward new ideas and share opinions. These conditions include providing positive experience of creative problem solving, granting students more choice in choosing tasks and methods of learning, reasonable evaluation of creative results, establishing constructive teacher-student relations, supporting friendly atmosphere at the lesson.

This pattern of work correlates to recommendations given by Robert J. Marzano in his book The Art and Science of Teaching. To teach students to generate and test ideas it’s necessary to:

1. engage students in experimental inquiry tasks

2. engage students in problem-solving tasks

3. engage students in decision-making tasks

4. have students design their own tasks

5. provide effective support for students’ ideas [2]

The above-mentioned conditions have one common feature: they are student-centered. To teach creativity means to sacrifice some authority and let students not only follow the instructions but set goals and find effective means of their accomplishment. Thus, students learn instead of being taught which increases their motivation and facilitates the process of studying.

References

1) Bartel, Marvin, author. 2001 - 2007. Ten Classroom Creativity Killers, Department of Art, Goshen College, Goshen, IN. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/creativitykillers.html

2) Marzano, Robert J. The Art and Science of Teaching: a Comprehensive Framework for Effective Instruction / Robert J. Marzano