Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 How to Discourage Creative Thinking in the Classroom
- 2 Teaching for Creativity in an Era of Content Standards and Accountability
- 3 Developing Creative Productivity in Young People through the Pursuit of Ideal Acts of Learning
- 4 Creativity: A Look Outside the Box in Classrooms
- 5 Using Constraints to Develop Creativity in the Classroom
- 6 Infusing Creative and Critical Thinking into the Curriculum Together
- 7 The Five Core Attitudes, Seven I's, and General Concepts of the Creative Process
- 8 Learning for Creativity
- 9 Broadening Conceptions of Creativity in the Classroom
- 10 Everyday Creativity in the Classroom: A Trip through Time with Seven Suggestions
- 11 Education Based on a Parsimonious Theory of Creativity
- 12 Roads Not Taken, New Roads to Take: Looking for Creativity in the Classroom
- 13 Creativity in Mathematics Teaching: A Chinese Perspective
- 14 Possibility Thinking and Wise Creativity: Educational Futures in England?
- 15 When Intensity Goes to School: Overexcitabilities, Creativity, and the Gifted Child
- 16 Intrinsic Motivation and Creativity in the Classroom: Have We Come Full Circle?
- 17 Attitude Change as the Precursor to Creativity Enhancement
- 18 Creativity in College Classrooms
- 19 Teaching for Creativity
- Creativity in the Classroom Coda: Twenty Key Points and Other Insights
- Index
- References
1 - How to Discourage Creative Thinking in the Classroom
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 How to Discourage Creative Thinking in the Classroom
- 2 Teaching for Creativity in an Era of Content Standards and Accountability
- 3 Developing Creative Productivity in Young People through the Pursuit of Ideal Acts of Learning
- 4 Creativity: A Look Outside the Box in Classrooms
- 5 Using Constraints to Develop Creativity in the Classroom
- 6 Infusing Creative and Critical Thinking into the Curriculum Together
- 7 The Five Core Attitudes, Seven I's, and General Concepts of the Creative Process
- 8 Learning for Creativity
- 9 Broadening Conceptions of Creativity in the Classroom
- 10 Everyday Creativity in the Classroom: A Trip through Time with Seven Suggestions
- 11 Education Based on a Parsimonious Theory of Creativity
- 12 Roads Not Taken, New Roads to Take: Looking for Creativity in the Classroom
- 13 Creativity in Mathematics Teaching: A Chinese Perspective
- 14 Possibility Thinking and Wise Creativity: Educational Futures in England?
- 15 When Intensity Goes to School: Overexcitabilities, Creativity, and the Gifted Child
- 16 Intrinsic Motivation and Creativity in the Classroom: Have We Come Full Circle?
- 17 Attitude Change as the Precursor to Creativity Enhancement
- 18 Creativity in College Classrooms
- 19 Teaching for Creativity
- Creativity in the Classroom Coda: Twenty Key Points and Other Insights
- Index
- References
Summary
One would like to know how to teach students to think creatively. There are numerous proposals on the subject and a small amount of encouraging data (Cropley, 1992; Finke, Ward, & Smith, 1992; Nickerson, 1999; Stein, 1974, 1975; Sternberg & Lubart, 1991). I am becoming increasingly convinced that attitudes and beliefs play a much greater role in determining the quality of one's thinking – creative or critical – than is generally recognized. This is not to suggest that skills and knowledge are unimportant but rather that they are only part of the equation, and by themselves are insufficient to ensure that creative thinking will occur.
The idea that attitudes and beliefs are important to creative thinking – as well as to critical thinking – is not novel; many researchers have expressed it (Andrews & Debus, 1978; Baron, 1991; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Dweck, 1975; Reid, 1987). Unfortunately, research has not yet yielded a reliable prescription for promoting the attitudes and beliefs on which creative or critical thinking depends. It occurred to me that it might be easier to specify how to instill attitudes and beliefs that tend to stifle thinking, because, if the conclusions from numerous assessments of the thinking abilities of many students are to be believed, we collectively seem to know how to do this rather well.
While not wishing to claim to be an expert on how to stifle creativity, I know how I would go about it if that were my purpose.
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- Information
- Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom , pp. 1 - 5Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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