Creativity in teaching and learning

      Creativity in teaching and learning 

 

•  Today, if education is to give something to our future nation-builders, it is not stereotyped knowledge or information which we give them in classrooms, nor the degrees or diplomas which they get at the end of their school and college education as a written guarantee for some kind of employment, This can only happen when students receive creative education in classrooms, allowing them to address their personal needs effectively and efficiently while also meeting societal goals by using a well-developed intellect to approach situations in various ways. 
• Creativity is as old as the history of man. The thoughts that now people have about creativity, however are not essentially old, they are new. 
•  They offer a unique viewpoint on natural events and human actions that have existed for as long as our historical records. 
• The shift from ancient creation tales to modern ideas on innovation reflects the significant progress and growth in human thinking over time. In the olden days, man has not discovered himself as 'individual'. 
• Today, thousands of years later, man is only beginning to discover the profound meanings of the individual person. For the religiously-oriented people, man was not creative; only God was creative. Up until three hundred years ago, considering any man to be creative in thinking or doing was seen as sacrilegious.

• For centuries, the Greek philosophers held the view about creation as the absolute, the fixed, the final and the unchangeable. As against this historical background, it took so long for Darwin to apear with a concept of movement, a concept of something that was not absolute, something that was not fixed, something that could emerge, evolve and yet still have infinity as a goal.
•  Five hundred years ago, the world was regarded as flat. People lived and died accepting the world so. However, to a few observers such as, Leonardo Da vinci and Cristoforo, Colombo, the world was not flat. The phenomena that today are used by ten-year-old children to explain the roundness of the earth were available for observation five hundred years ago, but at the time it was difficult to observe exactly or to integrate such observations into a consistent hypothesis regarding the shape of the earth.
•  The gradually emerging discovery, demonstration and acceptance of this fact, that the earth is round,not flat, has taken centuries.

• there are still many ways in which we behave according to the misconceptions of the past. There are many ways in which we do not know the shape of things before our very eyes. 
• Currently, the occurrences of human behavior are evident, and many individuals remain puzzled by the seeming irregularities and conflicts in human intentions.". Individuality is found in every living cell.
• Now we are beginning to think of individual differences in a moving, changing, progressing, interacting way, and this flow & interweaving of individual differences is by definition as well as by discovery the process of emerging originals-creativity which is in each of us(Anderson,1959).

      Creative teaching and learning 

There are as many definitions of creativity by authors on creativity. 

• However, there is one thing on which there seems to be consensus, i.e. creativity is the development of something that is unique.
• Unique is mostly associated with the terms such as new, distinct, unpredictable, unusual uncommon and lastly with which the beholders are psychologically affected. Nevertheless, Guilford has analyzed the concept of creativity in a scientific way in his, 'Structure of intellect'.
• Besides discovering at least 100 abilities of mind, he points out two main mental operations- convergent thinking and divergent thinking.
• In convergent thinking, one is caught up by logical necessities and in divergent thinking, the emphasis is not on logical possibilities. Creativity in brief, is the result of interaction between the person, the act, the process, the environment, the object and the aptitude and non-aptitude factors.
• Since the medicare system has changed from folklore to science, from hunches to judgments based on observation & experimentation, the education system cannot afford but to change in the same.direction.
•  The schooling at present is largely taken as a wastage of time & effort as it is detrimental to the development of children's capacities. There is stress on the learning of a few skills or simple information
• . Hardly, the individual child's personality is taken into account, not to talk of his individual needs, achievement & weaknesses. 
• Creativity through its divergent mental operation has opened the new vistas in teaching & learning. It has made the modern classroom teacher aware of the concept of individuality & emphasis is shifting from memorization of simple facts to wide searching-about & concept formation & teaching to learning.
• This new emphasis calls for making efforts for improving the current curriculum and methods of teaching. It necessitates the inclusion of such courses in our curriculum as would help both teachers and pupil think and act creatively. 
• The teachers who are involved in teaching-learning process need to update their knowledge, skills and expertise. They need having a well grounding in Psychology and Sociology and most preferentially in differential psychology & social psychology so as to enable themselves in devising such learning opportunities as would help pupils to become both creative & productive.
• Razik says that creative learning requires creative teaching & there is no substitute or shortcut. In this process, the role of the teacher is most significant. To play his role effectively the teacher needs knowledge and expertise to guide his pupils through a whole range of decision he has to make, whether these are concerned with groupings, use of aids, forms of organization or ways to implement his curriculum.
• The creative teaching, the teacher is required to have well defined aims and objectives.these aims and objectives can be achieved through curriculum 
• To conclude, the concept of creative teaching and learning points towards the teacher as to what extent he has gained knowledge, skills and expertise to prove himself as an effective participant in decision making process!