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I somewhat believe that tests and the education curriculum imprisons us from being creative. How can you try to deviate from the norm if there are standards to be followed in order to get good grades? How can you truly express yourself when there is a criteria on what is supposed to be beautiful or not? Creativity could never be taught, i guess, but it can be nourished. Let's create an environment fit to creative expressions.

Creativity means a lot of different things. The shallow view is that anything people do that aspires to be "artistic" is creative. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you have ever tried to do anything truly creative, you know that it is the most "rigorous" and challenging kind of thinking around. I have my 8th graders write short novels in groups over the course of five weeks, and the hardest part is coming up with a plot that actually make sense.

I have them observe what happens in published fiction: everything in a story is there for a reason. Students tend to want to throw things in at random. I don't tell them what to write, but I do ask lots of questions like "Why is that scene in the story?", "Why is the character doing that?", or "Doesn't that contradict what came earlier?" Creativity, contrarary to popular opinion, is very practical. It's taking disperate elements, putting them together, and making them work. But make them work is the hard part.

We talk about one of our top creative companies in class-- Pixar, which has a virtually unbroken record of commercial and critical success. If you threw out any one of their plot ideas as a one sentence pitch (Toys come to life when we arent' looking and go on adventures!), it sounds utterly ridiculous. But it's how they make the premise work that's the key, and they make it work, according to a recent "Wired" article but being hyper critical of the plot points, animation, and every aspect of the process along the way. Everything has to "work" on multiple levels. Real creativity looks effortless but is incredibly hard work.

Unfortunately, a lot of people, including many who should know better think of creativity as a warm and fuzzy right brained only activity with no value. In fact, creativity is the highest, most complex form of thought in any discipline. Ask Einstein.

It is very, very easy to promote and generate creative production. We need just ask for it...that's the bottom line of 20 plus years of research not just whim.
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(If you like Look this up on Google or Bing:"Teaching for creative outcomes; why we don't and how we all can" Manzo, A. V.)

South University--While I believe that an exclusive focus on low-level tests without much else can stifle creativity, I'm not sure that creativity cannot coexist with high standards, strong curricula and excellent test. In fact, I believe all three would promote rather than stifle creativity.

David--I'm with you! I remember having to read high stacks of free verse poetry written by students who had become enthralled by the fuzzier notion of creativity you describe. They didn't understand free verse and just meandered about. Yikes. The next time, I subjected them to the rigors of the sonnet. They did better, had much more fun, and made my life easier. Constraints can sometimes improve the creative process. Knowledge gives it legs.

Anthony--Thanks for the link. I'll read your article.

I think you misrepresent the article in TIME. It wasn't how do we teach creativity. The article suggested that our focus on testing, standards, etc. were creating kids who can't think for themselves. Now there is data to support that proposition. The idea of teaching creativity is like some who talk about school reform and only address problems with schooling in a symptomatic way. What we need to address is school reform in a transformational way, address the whole system of schooling. If we don't, if we instead, "teach creativity" then those scores on creativity will continue to decline and we will have a population who can't think for themselves and who can be easily led by people who may not have our best intentions in mind. That is scary.

Creativity is play. It's not something you teach, but rather something you allow, that you encourage, that you don't discourage. We can train people in how to channel their creativity, but too often teachers discourage and destroy creativity because it involves doing things differently, e.g. not doing them the "right" way. Think of the kindergartner that spells his name with a capital letter at both the beginning and the end of each name. He'll have that little error quickly corrected. When recess is removed from the curriculum so kids have more time for tested subjects, what are we telling our kids about the value of play? The question is not, can we teach creativity? but rather, can we figure out how to stop destroying creativity?

Bob--Perhaps I've been unclear in the posting, but I don't think I misrepresented the article in Time. The authors really do suggest that creativity is something that we can teach, but you're right to suggest that there shouldn't be a "creativity class" or something simply appended to the current structure. The authors are quite clear that creativity can be taught--that it's not merely a natural gift--through specific approaches to teaching everything. Though they mention standards in the article, they do not say that standards are at fault for a decline in creativity. They do mention television and video games.  We did an interview with author Ashley Merryman last week, and she expands on some of these points.

By the way, I personally think some "traditional" forms of teaching can promote creativity by getting students to think creatively and "divergently" (in the authors' term) about challenging and engaging material.

caoilhe--I agree that we can destroy creativity and that play is important. (There are centuries of thought on the importance of play.) But I wouldn't agree that creativity naturally manifests itself if we just get out of children's way. Creativity involved discipline, work, prolonged engagement with challenging material, leaps of faith and strong correction, etc. That, it strikes me, is within the realm of teaching, even if some people have a stronger gift than others.

Good views expressed above. I also took note of this article in Newsweek and simply nodded in agreement. I also agree with an above comment that we don't need to teach creativity. If you look at how we now teach writing - we follow the basics that are required to pass the writing test. In most high school English classes creative writing has taken a back seat to the prescriptive method. I have been arguing for years that our writing scores would soar if we incorporated cr wr in our practice of writing. It is that simple - to validate the importance of the creative and let it happen.

Just last week I had a student in my Study Skills Workshop tell me that he's "not creative." This middle school boy's evidence? The fact that he keeps getting "graded down" on the "creativity part of the rubric." I asked him what he thought creativity meant. He said it's when you "add pictures, use colors, make things appealing." Dang. Poor kid's only hearing part of "the definition" from his teachers.

This, too, is from a now Junior Black Belt Martial Artist (he earned his black belt last week at our Martial Arts Academy) who created the coolest, most interesting new Kada (or "move") for his black belt test. He took what he knew, and made it into something new. Poor kid. Didn't recognize that that move was also a form of creation.

Probably the most well known "technology" lesson in creativity happens every year and culminates in the FIRST Robotics competition. Woody Flowers and his colleagues design a field game for robots, give teams of students a kit with too many pieces, and not enough power to play the game, and let them loose with power tools. At the end of the game cycle during the world championship, the cheering is proof enough that the values of FIRST are alive and well. There is probably no better example of hands-on, discovery learning, collaborative, team-building project on earth. It's no surprise that Dean Kamen and Woody Flowers lead and mentor the effort and corporate recruiters attend the final games even though the players are high school kids.

Claus, the best creative assignments in college (I have a studio art degree) began with odd restrictions. But I think it's telling that in my entire classroom experience, only a couple of teachers stood out in that respect. If you see teaching as the ability to orchestrate changes in how a person thinks, either narrative (story telling) or discovery (hands-on experiential) fit into the definition.

Joseph E. Gould, author of Challenge and Change: Guided Readings in American History (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1969) was one. Dr. Gould would tell us a story that set up two sides for conflict, then we would discuss why we thought what played out was important.

Watson B Duncan brought English Literature to life in a most amazing way, by acting it out before the class. A more famous (than me) student of his is Burt Reynolds whom Duncan inspired to act.

Finally, Claus' remark caused me to remember David Tell's design course where he delighted in creating tortuous assignments in a step-wise fashion that stretched and challenged his students in a way I will never forget. Here's an example: Step one, buy something at the hardware store for under 25 cents. Step two, extract a 2D design and render it. Step 3, create a sculpture by repeating and folding from the rendered design that looks good in both forms, flat or folded (make it your own by changing and interpreting it.) The steps were delivered on successive days after we reflected on the process from the previous day. You will recognize this process if you watch "So You Think You Can Dance". This season's competition fairly transparently demonstrates it.

Perhaps teaching art is a way to preserve creativity against the assault of education because it's comparatively pure. Saying creativity can be incorporated into any lesson is a truism. But art represents distilled experience in creativity in a similar fashion to writing. And it's cheap.

@vonzastrowc --- I understand your point. High standards, strong curricula and excellent tests are all good. What I was basically trying to point at is going out of the box,allowing students to expand their horizon by injecting new activities but not totally deviating from the norm

I read the Newsweek article with interest and dismay. Dismay, because teaching creative thinking is a long way from being a priority in the United States, and it's a critical issue. It's especially sad that children are losing their creativity. Young children are the most creative people on the planet - we need to look at what, in our educational system, is decreasing their creative thinking skills.
I'm an early childhood arts educator and author, and I've been thinking about these problems for a long time. My new book, "Teaching Creativity: Supporting, Valuing, and Inspiring Young Children's Creative Thinking" talks about the issue and offers many ways teachers can nurture creativity in the classroom. See it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Creativity-Supporting-Inspiring-Childrens...
and visit my website freewebs.com/teachcreativity for hundreds of ideas.

One last reflection.

Judging creative output is the place where we crush expression. And the reason we crush it is to make our lives easier as teachers. We need a uniform product to be able to make the fine distinctions required of us as educators grinding out data.

Encouraging creativity is merely allowing a wider range of expression. It's easy to do. Just stop short. Judging it is something else again.

Where I stand in high school, the majority of the student body strains toward a goal that has to be sharply defined. The funny thing is that it's students demanding definition, not me.

When I give them scope for creative output, they cringe. They cringe because "process" is missing. Process is missing because it's not part of the testing regimen. Process is not in the state standards because creative output is not directly measurable by multiple choice tests.

At this point I can only refer you to Ken Robinson's talk where he describes the famous dancer's education. It could have gone one of two ways. She could have been medicated or sent to dance school.

The range of human behaviour is phenomenal and our limited acceptance of it is cringe-worthy. It may be true that no straight thing comes out of crooked timber, but maybe that's not what we need.