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Communication, Creativity and Imagination
Originally developed by Marianne Senior
Aims of the session
• To explore the concept of ‘creativity’ and why it is important.
• To analyse how our own thinking and the curriculum framework promote creativity.
• Evaluating our provision in relation to promoting children’s creativity and communication.
• Supporting creativity through our practice, experiences and the environment.
Creativity matters to people in Scotland
This is clear from independent research that tells us:
• 89% agree that Scotland is a creative nation - Scottish Opinion Survey TNS, September 2014
• 91% of the population has engaged with culture either by attending a cultural event or place or participating in a cultural activity - Scottish Household Survey, 2013
• 88% believe it is right that there should be public funding of arts and cultural activities in Scotland - Scottish Opinion Survey TNS, September 2014
• The Creative Industries contribute £3.7bn to the Scottish economy each year, supporting 71,800 jobs - Scottish Government Creative Industries Growth Sector Statistics, 2015
From Creative Scotland website
http://www.creativescotland.com
What does the term ‘creativity’ mean to you?
(In the spirit of creativity!…) Creativity is defined in different ways by
different people…. “Creativity is about liberating human energy”
(Howard Gardner)
“Creativity is the process of developing ideas that are original and of value. Creative intelligence is dynamic, diverse and distinct.”(Ken Robinson)
Brian Boyd – What is Creativity?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU0qweqw_jM
Creativity is not simply about coming up with big ideas but coming up with practical solutions to everyday problems and then applying them to real life situations e.g. engineer designing a bridge
• ‘Big C’ Creativity - exceptional achievers such as Mozart, Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci.
• ‘Small C’ Creativity – a disposition.
Lateral thinking (Edward DeBono): The ability to change perception and keep on changing
perception……
Acting on an anonymous phone call, the police raid a house to arrest a suspected murderer. They don't know what he looks like but they know his name is John and that he is inside the house. The police bust in on a carpenter, a lorry driver, a mechanic and a fireman all playing poker. Without hesitation or communication of any kind, they immediately arrest the fireman. How do they know they've got their man?
SOLUTION:
The fireman is the only man in the room. The rest of the poker players are women.
There are six eggs in the basket. Six people each take one of the eggs. How can it be that one egg is left in the basket?
SOLUTION:
The last person took the basket with the last egg still inside.
The fox and the hen The Puzzle:
A man has to get a fox, a chicken, and a sack of corn across a river.
He has a rowboat, and it can only carry him and one other thing.
If the fox and the chicken are left together, the fox will eat the chicken.
If the chicken and the corn are left together, the chicken will eat the corn.
How does the man do it?
Solution: The man and the chicken cross the river, (the fox and corn are safe together), he leaves the chicken on the other side and goes back across.
The man then takes the fox across the river, and since he can't leave the fox and chicken together, he brings the chicken back.
Again, since the chicken and corn can't be left together, he leaves the chicken and he takes the corn across and leaves it with the fox.
He then returns to pick up the chicken and heads across the river one last time.
Do schools kill Creativity……?
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity
Reflecting on Ken Robinson
“We are educated out of creativity”
“Creativity is as important as literacy”
“We need to educate their whole being”
Discuss.
WHY ARE CREATIVITY SKILLS IMPORTANT?
Dylan William
Why do we need Creative thinkers?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5Beq8Si8C0
Post it note task
“Creativity….involves looking at familiar things with a fresh eye, examining problems with an open mind, making connections, learning from mistakes and using imagination to explore new possibilities”
(Creativity across learning, Education Scotland, 2013)
With this in mind……
Mark Carney has been fired and your monetary committee are now in charge of the distribution of wealth across Britain. How will you reallocate the cash….?
REFLECTING ON CREATIVITY How good is our Early Learning and Childcare?
How Good is our ELC? 3.3: Developing creativity and skills for lifelong learning
open-ended play materials
indoor and outdoor learning environments
engagement with the natural world
use their imagination freely.
discussion and interaction
freedom to develop their play and interests
confidently lead aspects of their own learning
Challenge Questions 3.3 1. How well does your indoor and outdoor space support
creativity, curiosity and inquiry?
2. How well are natural materials and open-ended resources used to support sensory play, exploratory play and creativity?
3. How and to what extent does your setting work with other partners to support and enhance the development of creativity?
4. Do practitioners value the creative process including individuality, rather than a focus on the end product?
CURRICULUM AND SKILLS
Building the Ambition
Pre-birth to three
Curriculum for Excellence
Education Scotland Skills in Practice: Thinking skills
• Creativity requires the use of insight and imagination in order to develop something new. New ideas, models, systems, methods etc. do not come out of the ether but often result from knowledge and skills that have been thoroughly acquired and can be readily applied in novel situations.
• Creativity involves: combining; imagining; seeing things in different ways; brainstorming; generalising; modifying; inventing; planning; substituting; formulating; integrating; designing; speculating; adapting; devising; organising. Again, learners should be made conscious of the processes they are going through and the skills and knowledge they are using.
http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/resources/s/skillsinpracticethinkingskills/creativity.asp
“ Infants are extreme explorers; they possess qualities that are often lost by adulthood: curiosity, novelty seeking, always learning (and adapting) without much hesitation, and perhaps most importantly, not being afraid of failing”. Rachel Wu - Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, New York
“The need for a well-developed set of higher order skills will be a key part of the toolkit they will need and the ability to think creatively will be one of the
most important tools in that toolkit”
“Creativity is a process which generates ideas that have value to the individual. It involves looking at familiar things with a fresh eye, examining
problems with an open mind, making connections, learning from mistakes and using imagination to explore new possibilities.”
The development of Creativity and other higher order thinking skills are embedded into Es&Os:
I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts and I use what I
learn to invent my own, sharing these with others in imaginative ways .LIT 0-
09b / LIT 0-31a
I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts, sharing my
thoughts in different ways. LIT 0-19a
Brian Boyd – Permission to be creative
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3i_9TYCLwI
THE ROLE OF THE ADULT
‘We need adults who encourage children’s ideas, allow them to make mistakes, can offer a further suggestion and praise their attempts.’
To what extent do the adults in your centre meet this description?
Promoting curiosity, inquiry and creativity (BTA)
Babies Toddlers Young Children
Provide a range of visual, tactile experiences and talk to the baby about sensations and how they are responding.
Are aware that the simplest of activities to an adult are often full of potential for a toddler.
Encourage a young child’s learning by suggesting they try things out, inspire curiosity and see that this is essential to how children learn.
“We are social beings, born with the need to represent and communicate our experiences….and our role as adults is to ensure that the children for whom we are responsible have this opportunity” (Bernadette Duffy, 2008)
• Engage in sustained shared thinking
• Balance between child and adult initiated activities
• Open ended questioning
• Freely chosen play
• “We should not be rushing children, but tuning in to them”
Inviting Creativity “Look what I made”
• How do you respond to this comment?
• Did your response include….“Tell me about your drawing” What do you like about your drawing?”
• Open ended responses let the child evaluate his/her own creativity while initiating conversation about the work at hand.
• By not assuming anything about a child’s work of art, the door to self evaluation and communication opens.
‘Fostering Creativity’ , Mary Ann Kohl (Early Childhood News)
Here’s to the Crazy Ones
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rwsuXHA7RA
THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
The creative area
Music
Outdoors
Malleable/sensory play
Role play and imagination
The block area
Science
Your Creative Learning Environment
• Are there resources for children to play with that are open ended and so allow them to use their imagination?
• Do you have sets of different sized blocks, clay, dough, dressing up clothes…
• Do you allow children to use resources from one area in another – for example, can they use the counting cubes to represent food in the home corner (as long as they put things back in the right place when clearing up!)?
From ‘Creative Development’ (Practical Pre-School)
Block Play Early years experts have noted the connection between block play and language development. It's not surprising.
Blocks are so open-ended, children often have to verbally explain representation (that's my cello, not a bulldozer), not to mention the planning, collaboration, and "what-if" conversations inherent in block play.
(Community Playthings)
The Power of blocks
Read the Community playthings article on blocks and discuss in your groups.
Imaginative / Role Play • Creativity has its foundations in imaginative play
where the “earliest stories are both invented and enacted”
• Provide imaginative and creative stimuli that leave room for creative gaps for responses e.g. an old suitcase is more stimulating than a shiny toy. Allows children to ask and you to pose questions.
http://theplayhouse.org.uk
“I believe Scotland stands on the threshold of becoming a world leader in creativity, if, and only if, the education sector embraces the challenge of creativity across the curriculum to realise the Curriculum for Excellence” Eric Booth, international creative learning consultant and author of The Everyday Work of Art
EXPERIENCES
Curiosity
Open mindedness
Imagination
Problem solving
The importance of Role Play and Stories
• Through story children can encounter people they may never meet, visit places they may never go, witness events they may never see and worlds they may never live in.
• Does your role play area allow for children to set the context? Creativity has its foundations in imaginative play. It is here that the earliest stories are both invented and enacted.
http://theplayhouse.org.uk/climbaboard/category/early-years-play/the-importance-of-role-play/
From ‘Creative Developments’ (Practical Preschool)
Art & Craft
• Filling in someone else’s drawing with tissue paper, fabric or paint, drawing around templates, colouring in pre-drawn shapes … do not challenge children to think for themselves nor allow them to represent their ideas. As important is the damage that can be done to young children’s self esteem from the implicit message of such activities – that their ideas are of no value.
• Looking at and talking about works of art with children provides them with a more extensive repertoire of what they might be able to do.
From ‘Creative Developments’ (Practical Preschool)
Music • Do you support children to understand and appreciate
musical stories by providing opportunities for them to ‘tell’ a well-liked and familiar story using sounds instead of words? Encourage them to think how they might represent characters and events in the story with sounds?
• Do you bring in people from your community or professional musicians who can perform to the children or who might work with the children as they make and create music?
Hidden Giants: Is Google a boy or a girl?
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things that we don’t know we don’t know.” Donald Rumsfeld
Hidden Giants Experiments include:
• Talking to a tea bag with the Leaders of Early Learning!
• Playing with eggs in Livingstone with teachers
• Situating maths in a forest with secondary pupils removed from mainstream education
• Trading chalk with primary school pupils in Stirling
• Finding a ‘happy plant’ with nursery children in Maryhill
• Breaking into a flat with FE lecturers in Glasgow!
(Children in Scotland’ Article, August 2015 –see pack)
Paul Gorman – Hidden Giants “One of the key changes I’ve made responds to the belief there are differences between an arts education approach and creative practise. I would suggest an arts education approach is focused on the development of the pupils artistic skill based, i.e drawing, improvisation, learning an instrument. Whereas creative practise focuses on critical thinking skills and participation. The first endorses the traditional education system and the former challenges it. The first is product driven and the former is process, often never producing a tangible output. My work obviously lies within the former”
Fairies at Ballogie Nursery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEARv9XnZPg
Collaborative working “The best collaborations between teachers and creative practitioners involved lots of dialogue, mutual respect and curiosity, a sense of exploring new territory together. Creative practitioners can add value as:
• Communicators with different ways of talking to children
• Innovators of big ideas and different approaches to the ‘ordinary’
• Improvisers who observe and respond, role modelling risk taking.
• Thinkers who feel anything might be possible and bring different perspectives and ideas to your setting.
• Leading and organising a project or experience which is not confined by plans and bureacracy!
From ‘Looking inside Creative Learning’
Task
• Go forth and spread the word!
References • ‘Looking Inside Creative Learning’, Creative Partnerships Bradford
• Education Scotland ‘national improvement hub’ - https://education.gov.scot/improvement
• Education Scotland ‘creativity portal’ - http://creativityportal.org.uk/?home
• ‘The Virtues of Daydreaming’ – The New Yorker
• ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Giants ‘- https://hiddengiants.org/
• ‘Creativity Across Learning 3-18’ (September 2013) Education Scotland
• ‘Transform: Transform your school, Transform your Community, Transform your Life’ National Theatre of Scotland (Education Scotland)
• ‘Creative Development’ (Practical Preschool)
• ‘Supporting Creativity and Imagination in the Early Years ‘(Bernadette Duffy, 2008)
• ‘Fostering Creativity’ , Mary Ann Kohl (Early Childhood News)
• http://www.licketyspit.com/productions/
