Barriers to Fostering Originality and Creativity in Students

It is difficult to foster originality/creativity in students (and teachers) when the focus for the future of education is automation and standardisation of teaching materials.

In the age of compliance ruling education, we shut down any originality and creativity in our teaching. Students cannot be creative or original in presenting their work, as we need to ensure that we can show competency, which needs to be marked according to the compliance documentation. There is no time to allow for discussion outside of what the curriculum covers.

In the school I work, it is the lack of opportunity for students to think outside the box and be creative. The increasing prescence of standardised testing and teaching to the test. Students don’t know what to write, create or do without asking and without being told. Students don’t know how to be creative. This is a massive failure.

The systems of standardisation and automation in assessment. The push for a digital environment and “one size fits all” for efficiency. Finances and budget are pushing this trend.

The systems we have in place in schools. Many of our schooling systems are not designed to support creativity and too often schools and teachers are restricted by the systems in which they work.

The biggest barrier really must be systemic disregard for creative thinking. I see it in TAFE all the time. We are never encouraged to think outside the box or to employ any differences whatsoever in our teaching and assessment practice. I find my section encourages predictability and reliability in the forms of (older) teaching methods and panics at the thought of a teacher deviating from the well-worn road. It is quite frustrating.

some students are scared to have a go and worry about failing and not giving it a go. Teachers don’t want to change the way they do things, the way they set up their room, the resources they use. some people feel they have to do as was done before them. This ends up not benefiting the students.

for me i find distractions a key issue , in the VET sector teaching adult students is a big challenge ,the students are constantly on their devices checking emails and other web pages , when the demonstration is over and coming into the lab they seem to be lost , they have no work plan and in the end frustration and have no more enthusiasm

I believe the ‘one size fits all’ approach stifles creativity in both teachers and students. When we as teachers are dictated what to teach and how to teach we are robbed of using our own professional inventiveness and creativity. Students are robbed of individuality and a chance to find their own way to demonstrate competence. Assessment tasks are becoming very lock step devoid of flexibility.

In an industry that constantly changing with new ideas in creativity and modern techniques it is imperative that we allow students to create new things however the rules are to follow what the Chef teacher has just demonstrated.
I as an educator do allow creativity in my class room as i think it is very important to learning and it is a challenge to get the student to show their skills and creativity to enhance their learning as it is vital to future success.

Ourselves! First we must be creative in order to allow our students to be creative in return. Time frames and having to stick to preordained content gets in the way of creativity. Creativity is our challenge!

Certainly agree that we as parents or educators sometimes fall into the the trap of teaching kids out of creativity. Being distracted is a major hindrance we as teachers face and keeping them attentive and interactive is getting harder. Love the quote creativity is no longer luxury for the future, but a necessity for all. we as educators also need to find ways of encouraging imagination, thinking outside the box

The biggest barriers i see would be social media, being glued to it, unable to put it down

Whilst it is incredibly important for the students to be competent at the completion of their studies, the way they can demonstrate these abilities tends to be very mundane.
At times I have taught programming and it is great when the students solve a problem in a different way to the textbook showing creative thinking.
Sometimes, it is hard to prove competency as their answer does not match the marking criteria. So we have the classic case of “teaching to the assessment” and “ticking boxes”

I am in agreement that social media is contributing to declining social skills.

There is a high level of distractedness and a need to be constantly entertained. This doesn’t allow room for any downtime to actually look at the clouds and let your creative mind wander, often we are distracted by social media, emails, netflixs etc.

Assessment requirements tend to be binary and restrictive in nature giving little room for a student to explore and be creative.

I think the system we are putting our students through with rigorous assessments and compliance to prove competence inhibits creativity, individual thinking and imagination.

Just as ‘video killed the radio star’, Social Media is killing creativity and simple things like the art of conversation.

The biggest barrier I see is distractedness. Some students cannot be ‘in the moment’ to achieve their course study because of social media and personal factors. The amount of time to be creative is reduced. The education system has broadened the list of subjects in the school to assist in creativity but it seems at the cost of not providing basic life skills needed – reading and basic maths. Perhaps the future can incorporate both.

Removing the students connectedness to the external regard of others – allowing them to create without judgement. Social media often means instant and frequently negative feedback on original ideas.

Short attention span. If it’s not instant – it’s not happening for many students

To encourage creativity in a student they need to have carers who believe that research and reading contribute to their creativity. Sadly many carers are not readers themselves and so are unable to pass on to their children the importance of reading books.

I am a great believer in enjoying reading. I always say that as long as you have a book with you, you are never bored. Evoking thoughts while you read is a wonderful experience. Students today don’t seem to want to read unless they can see it on their phones. What they read is gospel to them and so believe it.

Due to social media being enabled in the classroom, students have high levels of being distracted. As stated computers only give the answers so students have a low regard for creativity. They appear to like to be shown or told and don’t want to use their imagination.

I think one of the barriers is that students can’t sit with boredom, they need to be constantly entertained and if it’s not good enough they let you know. They find it hard to be creative or use imagination. My students are slightly better if there are things to play with or create, the boys love building and the girls will draw and make books, cards ( gender basis acknowledged) , but often the case. But then if they are given a creative writing task they struggle without a stimuli or if we scaffold as a class often many pieces… Read more »

Teachers play a vital role in shaping the youth who are the leaders of tomorrow. Instead of just imparting knowledge and disseminating something theoretically, the world of academicians including policymakers, teachers and others need to give our education system a long hard thought and revamp the existing pattern of education. We give the students knowledge, but what they need is experience and a creative mind to deal with everyday life situations. We expect them to survive in the ‘real’ world by applying what they learnt from books which is usually disconnected from reality with an examination as the goal. Most… Read more »

The biggest barrier to fostering originality and creativity in students is our curriculum design. Our curriculum is examination oriented. All school teachers have to make sure that they can finish the examination syllabus so that their students can go for the examination and get good marks to get into university. Students can only have time to understand what they learnt but do not have time to apply from or further inquire about what they have learnt. Teachers need to do more work to stimulate and guide students to think creatively.

For me even when there is the use of imagination or creativity, there is a need to put it on social media and open themselves for criticism and attack from keyboard warriors so it is once again stiffled. I think linking it back to improving the self acknowledgement aspect will make a big step towards students feeling comfortable to be able to explore creativity.

The Students don’t know how to be bored or have an imagination, therefore they have no creativity, no new ideas and cannot think outside the box. The few students that do are portrayed as weird

Curriculum needs to be changed to foster creativity. Focus is more on obtaining better ATAR

Low regard by society. See recent government decision to raise cost of humanities subjects at universities and lower fees for STEM subjects.

Attention span. Students have trouble focusing which is a barrier to foster creativity.

The curriculum is crowded and it is difficult to spend time on fostering creativity.

In order to be creative people need time and this for some is a luxury. The world moves so quickly and the cost of living is so high that people often feel guilty being idle and letting their minds wander.

The biggest barrier is the perceived lack of time people have – everyone is conditioned to be ‘busy’ all the time.

Imagination cannot be taught, only prompted. It has been said that we analysed too much, and work too much to achieve perfection ( the unachievable), which destroys the ‘what if’ kind of thinking that is the flint that ignites the imagination.

It is up to educators to foster an environment where ‘what ifs’ are explored – and students are given opportunities to explore both the possible and the impossible – imagination.

Creativity is taking the imagined and making it into something -and through that process, learning and innovating as one makes.

Compliance and ‘ticking the boxes’ need to be done but often at the expense of creativity.

One new huge barrier has just been introduced: a $45,000 Bachelor of Arts degree. More than doubling! If you think history, what remains is literature, sculpture, architecture, artefacts,…culture. What will we leave behind – plastic? We’re creating dull minds with our overemphasis on training for the workforce under the guise of education. We need to give them freedom and time to explore before becoming.

I agree with a lot of the comments posted. However, I believe that creativity and originality can still be fostered through good creative teaching strategies, flexibility of thinking and encouragement.

Schooling……”Colour the apple red!” Unfortunately this is still a key component of kindergarten classrooms, we need to allow children to explore the colours that apples really are…let’s stop stifling creativity.

The current curriculum is the biggest barrier to creativity.

That’s a hard one but I might put forward the thought that there often seems like a uniform way to look to be considered beautiful. What about standardised, school testing systems that focus on test results to establish how well the school is doing

A structured view of delivery of materials and of assessment of competence – a one size fits all model. I realise this is often compliance driven but would love to see greater flexibility here !

A right wing conservative government and society that just doesn’t value the arts or creativity because it doesn’t make money. I feel also that art in all its forms represents a level of diversity that society at large doesn’t want to acknowledge.

I see lack of time as a barrier to fostering originality and creativity in our students. There is so much that we have to ‘get through’ that we just don’t have time to let their imaginations ‘run wild’.

The curriculum drives us with out teaching and we often don’t have time to let our learners explore and be creative with their ideas and thinking – we are in fact are stifling their initiatives and innovativeness.

Curriculum and marking systems that reward regurgitation or cut & paste in answers rather than new and creative perspectives

Societal expectations/ education system does not support round peg in a square hole, there is a lack of disregard for the importance of creativity – many a time I have students say but… I Am not creative. This is one I refer to Malaguzzi 100 languages as there as the perception that creativity is just about art/craft.

Was blown away that the adult attention span is now only 8 seconds and I can know clearly see where it is all coming from!

Systemic low regard – seen in underfunding of the arts, increasing fees for arts courses from TAFE to now universities, the high profile of STEM courses, and school curriculum and marking systems that reward regurgitation in answers rather than new and creative perspectives. The distractions of technology and social media may be taking up a lot of our precious thinking time, but equally they are a forum for sharing new and creative ideas and encouraging imagination and innovation. Many new business ideas have found their feet in crowd funding and marketing online. Creativity breeds creativity, and the sharing of ideas… Read more »