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3 - Creativity, Pedagogic Partnerships, and the Improvisatory Space of Teaching

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Pamela Burnard
Edited by
R. Keith Sawyer
Pamela Burnard
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
R. Keith Sawyer
Affiliation:
Washington University, St Louis
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Summary

There is a tension between two prominent agendas for school reform: the accountability agenda and the creativity agenda (see Burnard, 2008). Under the accountability agenda, teachers are required to measure and test students, to report using mandated standards and systems, and to teach in state sanctioned ways. Under the creativity agenda, teachers are expected to act effortlessly, fluidly, to take risks, be adventurous, and to develop pedagogy and classroom creativity in order to develop their own knowledge and skills as creative professionals. They are expected to develop creative learners who can succeed in a twenty-first-century economy that rewards creativity and innovation.

The accountability agenda makes it difficult for teachers to work more creatively. Teachers get overwhelmed by a constant barrage of accountability demands (standards, tests, targets, and tables) by government. There is general agreement that governments are increasingly taking control of the teaching profession (Alexander, 2004). Teachers are expected to perform in specific and regulated ways. In contrast, the creativity agenda encourages teachers to take risks, be adventurous, and explore creativity themselves. Yet, what constitutes creativity in education remains ambiguous.

Type
Chapter
Information
Structure and Improvisation in Creative Teaching , pp. 51 - 72
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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