Barriers to Fostering Originality and Creativity in Students

Unfortunately….I agree. The only flexibility we have is how we teach in the classroom to bring in creativity and foster originality. I have started to change up the learning activities that are not prescribed by my organisation – just to give students the opportunity to express themselves and challenge themselves to be creative.

Oh Fiona, I can feel everyone’s pain here It’s funny how expectations are placed on students from their care givers, with the best intentions, however that only causes frustrations for everyone, except the care giver And I agree with you, how did teaching become so ticking the boxes They need to employ people who do this function to allow us teachers to focus on our function It’s interesting to get an insight on what you deal with as I am the after school teaching and experience some of what you are saying, although my students have obtained an apprenticeship and… Read more »

Shaista, that appears to be the big killer of creativity – having to cover a syllabus…. regardless of having to meet a set time frame
The teacher should see the syllabus then their creativity skills then determine how the syllabus will be administered

Yes, our teachers are all sick of feeling like we are just teaching to the test.

I refer to an article I read recently: Inheriting the Protestant work ethic, most of us have been taught to see procrastination as unproductive and lazy. But a new body of thinking suggests procrastination can be a positive act for creatives.
ArtsHub Australia 2/24/202. Madeleine Dore.

Absolutely I agree with this. Pottering around is wonderful for creative thinking but then often the next step is the motivation to move forward with creative thoughts

I hear you Melissa!

I agree, teaching to assessments, reducing delivery time and making education financially viable how can anyone, staff or students be creative in this environment

Yes, very good point about the increased cost of some higher education degrees vs the ‘proper ones’.

To continue on that theme why is a university education being pushed in schools as still the be all and end all of education, some are not suited to uni straight out of school and need time and space to decide their futures – trade skills and VET is also have a ‘systemic low value’

We are buying into the argument about what is a real job. Medicine, Law, Finance. Perhaps we should carry around handouts with the stats about jobs of the future. It might change the thinking a bit!

I couldn’t agree with you more Julia. We have way too many things that are perceived ‘important’ or ‘necessary’ but really….are they?

I agree Mark. The requirements are not always in line with industry requirements but I think it needs to go further than that eg the organisations/people who write the units of competence need to be more aligned with what happens in industry.

Yes Tersem, lack of time is a critical factor in this for sure.

Yes, I agree. The constant feeling of being rushed for both students and teachers with little time for creativity and thinking outside the box.

I agree.

I also agree with you Denise

The assessments are so comprehensive that their is no time to teach and be creative.

I agree, Denise. There is so much emphasis on assessing, and so many assessments there’s no time to just enjoy the subject.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Consider Michael’s comments regarding the significant change in the concept of truth – the Post-Modern mindset – where there is no longer black and white truth – but now many shades of grey. By being required to teach to assessment, we are essentially asking for that “old” concept of truth…we want a prescribed response to the assessment – and only then will the student be deemed to be competent. There seems to be little scope for originality and creativity within this system.

Hit the nail of the head there Denise

Yes, teaching to assessments is not conducive to fostering creativity or originality. Sadly though it has become the norm and a systemic part of teaching.

Yes I agree – in VET there is a focus on assessment rather than learning. The students are focussed on “what do I need to know for the exam” rather than “how can I learn from this”.

I agree their is no time to deliver and be creative

True unfortunately

The current design of assessment tasks is often too complicated with too many components for students to undertake.

Agree Sometimes our demands are to quickly produce results therefore, having conflicting goals and objectives.

I agree, we have to teach to assessments as we don’t have sufficient time to deliver the content and allow students time to practice before we have to start assessing.

Yes, and the curriculum seems to be increasingly compacted into shorter timeframes and earlier finish times for some schools and universities, to reduce overheads and costs.

There is not enough time in the day to asses and foster creativity

That’s right Michael – the government is endorsing Platos theory.

Yes, this policy definitely needs a review. How many bright, creative and imaginative students will decide against a university education as a result?

It’s this mindset of the government that is prejudicing the arts and creative thinking. Parents are guided (consciously or not) by these messages and believe that this is not real education. Any student trying to enrol in an Arts degree may as a consequence face parental/school opposition. So who is going to argue the case for the importance of creativity and originality?

This is my concern also. And then rewarding everyone for good test results as a measure of success.

All too hard, too much to do in such little time

I agree Karalyn
The paperwork, the reporting , the deadlines to meet take up most of the teachers’ time. They are all important to maintain standards across the board , that’s a fact too,

Are we setting our priorities wrong? Are we trying to teach or rather assess in time that’s not enough to learn and practice?
I am confused here

It can nearly be discribed as ‘Functional fixity’.

Georgie – I agree. The nature of our education system was created by the Builders generation and a new system is needed. It will take time and creativity to form a new approach to the Education system and programs of learning that a nation can utilise. Society needs to value creativity and use AI to ensure humanity soars beyond our basic needs.

Agree and that’s not what the workforce wants. We will automate repetitive jobs what we want our students to develop is their creative ways of solving problems.

It seems that most of the teachers are not “trained ” to teach originality or creativity.
Perhaps, some of us have the vision to facilitate or develop students’ creativity.
I wonder if we have to propose the government to change the value of our education system.

I agree, whilst there is a need to ensure materials are compliant there should also be the ability for teachers to ‘teach’ and discuss or share sometimes creatively share important underpinning knowledge that would add to the teaching experience for both teachers and students.

I agree Meg, in this age of compliance and testing it is hard to foster originality and creativity.

Agreed competency compliance has reduced the amount of passion one has for reaching their true limits or potential. Competency gives everyone the same outcome, prior to competency, student would find their groove – how they could be seen or make a difference in the industry of choice, be behind the scenes, create a new role or product or policy….

Yes Meg. That’s how I feel

The system in place doesn’t support creativity, even in the home environment, being creative is often messy and tiresome. I guess it comes back to being overly fatigued, spending too much time on social media and having high expectations.

I agree with this observation and the factors that you have identified as contributing to pushing these trends.

It seems that the government expects the role of schooling is to create
“workers of the future “. However, they neglect the importance of
a ” tailor-made curriculum” to fit the needs of different generations, instead of the system of standardization in public assessments such as HSC.
When the decision-makers are ready to change the education system, teachers could promote more creativity in the classroom.

exactly, I have tried to do something outside of the box but within a private school I am told to stick to the’script’ so everyone has the same learning. there is so much restriction in what we can teach. if we cant be creative as teachers how can we teach our students to be.

Brendan, yes I agree, teachers are restricted by the systems in which they work. Primary Teachers in particular are drowning in Admin. How can teachers rise to the call for creativity with so much time and energy misspent on “pointless (legal coverage) ” time consuming tasks. The system also supports the views of parents (not trained in Education but whom realised teaching is hard during the COVID crisis), who might not be supportive of teachers who think outside the box. Primary teaching also seems strangled by the next set of teaching methods from the current contracted specialist who knows how… Read more »

Exactly we never encourage outward thinking. It’s about everyone turning out the same. No room for experimenting with ideas.

Although teachers do need to teach to the units of competency, there is room for creativity within the classroom.

I find this too with some of my adult students. The phone can be used as great learning tool but, during the process, students will check Facebook, emails, etc – and the challenge then is to bring their focus back to the lesson content.

Joanne, I totally agree. What happened to holistic assessment? As a professional, I wish my judgement was trusted more than whether or not a student understood and remembered to put X in the box rather than tick it – we get so bogged down in detail in the VET sector!

I agree, too many schools promote a one size fits all approach which is perpetuated by standardized tests.

The systems prevent creativity by having standardised assessment and marking guides. Even more so is the current push for the development of “automated assessment” in a digital environment.

Totally agree, it is so important to encourage creativity in all disciplines as this thinking is what is needed for the future

Yes, this preordained content only encourages thinking within the box. I have seen many marking guides for assessment tasks which only accept a narrow range of answers and do not allow for ‘out of the box’ solutions which are also correct but a bit different to what the assessor expected.

very true , to juggle with the training packages and trying to cover all contents , surely impacts to explore the creative inputs in a lot of cases

so true Mario! Challenge accepted:)

Yes, I totally agree Mario. It is not encouraged and therefore we end up DISCOURAGING it. How incredibly sad this is.

OMG and asking people to turn them off or put them away is like asking them to chop their finger off right in front of you!

Yes, totally agree, mobile phones are a very powerful learning tool, but students have to learn how to manage the distractions if they are to use them effectively.

I totally agree with you on that comment Julie W!

There is a well known company which uses a computer program to mark student’s writing. It looks for familiar and predictable words, phrases and use of language. There is zero room for creativity or being different. I wonder what score Lewis Carroll would have obtained!

Totally agree teaching to the marking criteria means we don’t reward creativity.

Yes absolutely true, in the VET education the training packages are so prescriptive and has very little room for creativity. With time constraints and course duration this element of creativity has been lost. It is very rigid and not flexible

assessments are so heavy and very stimulative that we spend around 50 % the delivery time getting the students ready for them, where would then be any time for students to explore and be creative

Yes I tend to agree, there is a heavy lean towards competencies and I don’t see the notion of creativity in assessment criteria and skills.

I agree the assessments tend to focus on compliance and don’t allow for originialty

I agree Kerry. The assessments we currently have are prohibitively restrictive. There is little room for creativity, individual thinking and imagination.

Yes Kerry, rigorus and over assessed assessments will prevent students in being creative!

I agree Kerry, it more like tick the boxes and just follow the rules. I honestly don’t see any creativity in this kind of assessment but then again it is a competency based.

The focus is definitely on assessment (and compliance) rather than learning and discussion.

Perhaps social media errodes our sense of what is normal and acceptable – hard to compare yourself with the perceived achievements and manipulated imagery!

Classic yes! video killed the radio star…social media kills the imagination of a creative thinker

I agree that they are distracted by being social using media. But I disagree that they are not creative. Look at TikTok, Instagram and other social media to see how creative our young folk are.
I believe they are just not good at focussing on what is more important.

How do we develop longer attention spans, especially when you consider that in my VET Space they are older students, very set in their behaviours.

As a librarian, I have often seen the influence that parents and grand parents have on students when it comes to reading. Simply having an older sibling, or parent that reads is beneficial, but where you do not have that, students simply do not grow up knowing that reading is possible, and reading promote imagination when movies and computers do not as much as they actively fill in the images that readers create in their own minds.

well said! definitely fewer students use the library. It is a chore for them to visit the library and select books. They just do not want to do research and self directed research or study. Solely rely on instagram, the web for ideas. Probably the attention span is not there for reading or inquiry

Reading is the bees knees – the creation of rich worlds from printed words – every reader interprets the words in their own way – like our dream landscapes – unique, absorbing and, best of all, no ads.