Essay Sample on Creativity

If you had to choose one life skill to improve from now on, what would it be? My guess is many of you would answer ‘creativity.’ And rightfully so. Educators consider creative thinking one of the most important life skills and competencies for the 21st century. According to a report from the World Economic Forum (The Future of Jobs Report 2020, from 20 October 2020), “skills related to creativity will be in high demand between now and 2025.”

Creativity is part of what makes us human. A case in point is the fact that we can provide artificial intelligence to the most powerful computers and have them model creativity in an attempt to teach them how creative ideas arise in people’s minds. Still, they wouldn’t be able to select what is relevant or valuable without human help. And yet, creativity remains a mysterious and fascinating skill, so much so that it had been considered a supernatural force, a gift from the gods until the beginning of the modern era. Even to this day, scientific studies are not able to detect parts of the brain that are specifically associated with creativity and many questions remain unanswered. Some scientists even argue that a percentage of creativity is hereditary. That’s great news because it means that creativity is mostly learned and comes from different external and internal sources. There is no question that fostering creative thinking in the classroom should be a teacher's greatest concern.

Most educators would agree that creativity should be an integral part of the teaching process, not only to help students get good grades, but to prepare them to succeed in life. Yet, the need for grading students’ performance and restrictions in the amount of time available often prevent the implementation of activities that would encourage creative thinking. So, how can we start incorporating creative thinking practices in our class plans? Cambridge University Press has developed the Cambridge Life Competencies Framework to help teachers understand how some important life skills for the 21st century can be integrated into English language programmes. Each competency had been split into three key core areas. In the case of creative thinking, these areas are:

- preparing for creativity;

- generating ideas;

- implementing ideas and solving problems.

We prepare students for creativity by having them take part in activities that promote the development of creative skills (role-play, listening to music, performing artistic tasks, brainstorming grammar rules, and meaning of new words, playing games where they put themselves into someone else’s shoes to have different perspectives, etc). We encourage students to generate ideas by creating a safe environment in which they are not afraid to make suggestions during activities, by helping them explain what they mean in detail, and by complimenting them on their originality and imagination. We help students implement ideas and solve problems by letting them test out and refine things they have imagined in class. These are simple actions that can easily be adopted and included in your teaching practices.

It might seem a lot to have in mind while you are teaching, so try to have these three basic lessons on creative thinking in mind before, during, and after classes.

Creativity starts with imagination.

There are plenty of moments during your class to encourage the use of imagination. Have students think of what might have happened after the end of a story. Invite them to create a background story for someone in a picture. Ask them to visualize themselves at a place or doing an activity described in the book. Challenge them to come up with creative answers or solutions to situations presented in a text. You can always work with what’s between the lines, shown in images, or proposed in activities.

If students have ideas but never put them into practice, they are practicing imagination, not creativity.

It is great to have students use their imagination to discuss possibilities. But make sure that once in a while they actually get something done with it. For instance, you can ask them to imagine they are on a desert island and need to make a list of things they need to survive. But how useful and practical is it? Aren’t there other scenarios in which they can actually apply the results of the creating thinking process? Can you create a real-life situation in school in which students have to find creative ways to solve a problem and actually test it for real?

Creativity needs practice and discipline to become something that can be learned and improved.

How about creating a tradition for your classes? Can you think of an activity that would happen repeatedly during school term, something that can be done on a regular basis that would be engaging to your group of students and challenge them to be creative? Whatever you choose to do, remember that the more students practice creative thinking, the better they become at it.