Parents want their children to be creative, and educators love to talk about instilling "creative thinking skills," writes Chad Aldeman. But, can schools can teach creativity?
Creativity is not a general skill that can be applied to every subject from science to cooking to soccer, he writes, citing a review of the last 50 years of research. It's "domain specific." People must understand a particular field of knowledge in order to think creatively about it.
"The most innovative chefs aren’t tossing random ingredients together in the hopes of finding some new flavor combination; they master the classics in order to update them, and they learn the styles of different cuisines in order to combine them in new ways," writes Aldeman. Scientists "learn all the science in their field before they can make new discoveries and push the field forward."
If teachers want students to be "creative," he concludes, they need to answer the follow-up: "Creative in what?"
I think some people applaud out-of-the-box ideas as "creative," without considering if they're useful. Many are not, probably because the proponent doesn't understand what's in the box. Or they think creativity is about art projects.
Here's a National Education Association brief about teaching creative thinking. I see a lot of circular thinking: If we can teach creativity, then students will do a lot more creative thinking. Which will be good. Or, try The 8 Best Ways of Teaching Creatively That Never Fail. See whether you can find eight teaching methods.