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Fostering creativity in education

Research · August 2017

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.25607.70568

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Luis Arthur Vasconcelos

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 Fostering creativity in education
Luis A. Vasconcelos ([email protected])
August, 2017

Preface

Creativity and innovation are the main drivers behind any successful idea. These are not just buzzwords;
they are now key themes when discussing policy making, business strategy, and technology
development. However, whilst we are expected to be creative in order to thrive, these skills are not
formally or widely taught. On the contrary: it is argued that today's schools are actually killing children's
creativity. Considering the highly competitive and entrepreneurial culture in which we are currently
immersed, I believe that creativity will be the most sought characteristic of individuals in the future.
However, for that to happen, the way these skills are fostered should change radically.

This report summarises my findings and impressions from a series of visits and interviews with experts
in children education, as well as creativity researchers from different parts of the world. Among these,
special attention is given to two countries: Finland and Singapore, both known for having outstanding
education systems. Whilst the keywords here are early-childhood education and creativity, the report
also provides some insights into the future of education more broadly.

Research overview

Collecting data for this report involved attending conferences; visiting education centres; meeting
educators, researchers, and policy makers; and reviewing available research papers and reports on the
topic. As such, this is a qualitative report and it aims to provide insights from interviews and personal
observations rather than objective results from numerical data. Data collection happened in two different
moments. In the first moment, I interviewed 21 experts from different nationalities about early-
childhood education and its relation to creativity. These were short interviews and were intended to
provide a general idea about a small set of personal questions (examples of questions were: What does
the ideal school look like? What is the best way to foster creativity in schools?). In the second moment, I
visited education centres and conducted in-depth interviews with 12 experts from Finland and
Singapore (6 each). These were long interviews and were intended to provide a more detailed account of
two contrasting, high-performing education systems (examples of questions were: What are the
strengths and weaknesses of the national curricula here? What is the role of creativity in the schools
here?).

Before discussing what I have learnt through this research, I find it necessary to spend some time in the
key concepts in this report, given how abstract they are. As such, the next section deals with how
education and creativity are defined, but also how to measure them.
 Understanding education

Education is the process of facilitating the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and values. It is also about
empowering young generations and preparing them for the future. Often, when we refer to education,
we imagine a teacher in a large classroom, but this “formal”, curricula-driven education corresponds to
just a small portion of our actual learning in life. On the other hand, “informal” education happens
outside schools and institutions-alike, and whilst it might involve the figure of a mentor, much of it is
based on our self-directed learning process. Putting our learning into perspective, it may seem that most
of what we know today came from outside school walls; however, it is believed that most of what we are
is actually rooted in our early school years.

“empowering young generations and preparing them for the future”

The socioemotional, intellectual, and physical development of young children has a direct effect on their
future development, as well as on the adults they become. That is why kindergartens and schools are so
important: because they happen in a critical moment of our lives. It is during early-childhood education
that we learn to express ourselves, to explore the world, and to experiment with it. These activities,
aligned with curiosity and the search for new knowledge, makes schools one of the most influential
environments for the development of creativity. As such, it is fundamental that schools are prepared to
nurture and develop children’s creativity; however, in recent years, school systems worldwide have been
criticised for doing the exact opposite, to hinder creativity. Some of this hindrance can be attributed to
how stressful and assessment-oriented education has become, but how exactly are education systems
assessed?

Assessing education

Today, assessments are a fundamental part of almost any education system in the world. To allow
comparable results across countries and to set standards for education quality, the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) developed the Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA). It is triennial survey that started in 2000 and evaluates skills and knowledge of 15-
year-old students in 72 countries. Students are assessed in maths, science, and reading, although other
topics are beginning to be incorporated, such as financial literacy. Over the years, the number of
countries and students participating in PISA has increased, and it has gained central attention among
governmental institutions worldwide. However, PISA isn’t free of criticism. This criticism ranges from
the analytical models that are used and may produce misleading results, to the social and pedagogical
problems of having schools turned into PISA-oriented training. Also, the measurement itself can be
criticised for focusing too much on traditional subjects and too little on other qualities and skills,
creativity among them.
 Understanding creativity

In the past, creativity was connected to a range of very different notions. For instance, it was associated
with concepts like genius, good fortune, guardian spirits, and mystical or divine attributes, among
others. While more recent definitions of creativity may agree on some aspects, it is still difficult to
conceptualise the term across different disciplines. Today, the more stable definition describes creativity
as the ability to produce work that is both novel (or original) and useful (or valuable), and the extent to
which this work is creative will depend on whether the novelty and usefulness is perceived by oneself or
by the whole world.

“the ability to produce work that is both

novel (or original) and useful (or valuable)”

Creativity is considered to be a prerequisite for invention and innovation. As such, it is a key element in
catalysing technological and scientific leaps, also potentially leading to significant financial rewards on a
global level. On a more personal level, creativity plays an important role in determining how individuals
solve problems and approach challenges in their lives and careers. Not incidentally, creativity is one of
the few critical areas of development on which several of the so called 21st century skills frameworks
agree (along with collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving).

Creativity depends on several factors, which can be divided into two levels: personal and environmental.
The former comprises genetics, cognition, motivation, emotion, knowledge, etc. As such, some of these
factors are “hard-wired” in our minds while others can be more easily altered by training and mindset
variations. The latter comprises culture, physical and mental atmosphere, time, etc., and again, some of
these factors more mutable while others are less. Considering its measurement, creativity can be
observed in terms of its potential (or the innate, latent ability to come up with novel and useful work),
achievement (or the actual production of novel and useful work), and talent (or the tendency to achieve
creative work repeatedly). Given the age of the children, it makes more sense to analyse their creative
potential rather than their achievements or talent. To discuss this potential further however, we need to
understand how creativity can be measured.
 Assessing creativity

There are several ways to measure creativity and most of them require generating ideas in response to a
given task or problem. These metrics vary in different axes: objective/subjective; process-
oriented/output-oriented; explicitly measured/indirectly measured. The more well-established creativity
assessments consider fluency (or the number of responses), variety (or the number categories of
responses provided), and originality (or how unique those responses were) – these metrics are judged by
evaluators and their scores are considered based on their agreement. Assessing creativity is important
for several reasons: it can tell us whether specific interventions are effective in a particular group, it can
show the natural creative development of a group over time, it can be used to compare groups and
isolate factors that can be responsible for increased creativity, and above all, it can help identify creative
potential and tailor further training.

There is one particular assessment that is gaining more recognition and is already being applied in at
least 10 OECD countries. It is called the Evaluation of Potential Creativity (EPoC) and it is relatively
objective, output-oriented, and explicitly measured. EPoC is a test-retest procedure that consists of two
similar batteries of tasks in which students are required to generate ideas in two different domains:
graphic (or drawings) and verbal (or text); and according to two different thinking-processes: divergent
(or exploratory) and convergent (or integrative). As such, the assessment relies on tasks such as
generating as many drawings as possible containing a given shape, or as many endings as possible for a
given story opening; and a single drawing combining as many as possible of the given shapes, or a single
story that integrates as many as possible of the characters provided.

It is speculated that next 2018 PISA results will already contain creativity results from each country, and
these results will be based on EPoC scores.

How to foster creativity in schools…

Presumably, some school contexts favour creativity more than others, so it becomes fundamental to
identify the key elements that foster creativity in schools, as well as the elements that hinder it. These
elements may comprise the physical environment, resources and materials available, pedagogical
practices, the culture of both the school and the society in which the school is inserted, and teachers’
behaviours and their relationships with students.

So, how is creativity taught or fostered in education? When asked about whether creativity could be
formally “taught” in schools, most respondents answered that it could be, (since research has already
suggested so), but it shouldn’t be. Whilst some expressed their preference for a specific subject devoted
to creativity training, most recommended an approach that involved incorporating more creativity
within all the existing disciplines. Obviously, this holistic approach is much more complex to implement
and poses a great challenge to traditional pedagogies.
In total, seven alternative ways to nurture creativity in education were highlighted during the
interviews:

• Incorporating traditional creative methods or techniques into children’s education, such as

brainstorming or the six thinking hats. Pre- and post-testing results show that such interventions
are effective in creativity measurements. However, no long-term effects have been proven and
most of the existing results haven’t captured the multidimensionality of creativity;
• Designing the physical environment. Traditional school spaces don't foster creativity and
imagination; open spaces do so much more. However, it becomes difficult to tell whether the
increased perceived creativity is due to the environment or to the change in pedagogy that is
often associated with that. In fact, we still lack empirical evidence on the impact of innovative
learning environments;
• Making extensive use of digital technologies. In particular, there is a very strong trend towards
creating maker spaces in schools, although the main driver for this is the recent push for STEM
disciplines rather than creativity nurturing itself. Yet, maker spaces should be associated with
changes in pedagogies to be effective, such as incorporating more problem- and process-oriented
learning instead of content-oriented;
• Adopting alternative pedagogies or educational practices that are believed to foster students’
collaboration and autonomy. These include pedagogies based in the work of Paulo Freire
(Brazil), Reggio Emilia (Italy), Rudolf Steiner (Austria), Emmi Pikler (Hungary), Celestin Freinet
(France), and Maria Montessori (Italy). In fact, the last two have already shown benefits to
students’ creativity when compared to students who have undergone traditional pedagogy;
• Teaching arts. Research has shown that arts orientation correlates with creative behaviours, and
that participation in artistic activities has a positive effect in our creativity development. It is also
known that innovations in STEM usually come from people with strong artistic inclinations.
However, creativity isn’t only a privilege of those associated with the arts, and ideally it should
be stimulated in all other subjects;
• Selecting teachers who are creative role models. Adults impact children’s development and it
has been shown that mutual respect, flexibility, and dialogue are key elements in the teacher-
student relationship for creativity development. However, teachers often find it difficult to
incorporate creativity into traditional pedagogies when the school culture doesn’t encourage it;
• Creating a culture of creativity, one that encourages tolerating uncertainty, autonomy,
confidence and risk-taking, failure and acceptance, and collaboration in the classroom.
Individuals tend to conform to the environment in which they are set; that does not mean that a
culture of creativity will necessarily boost the creative capacity of individuals, but at the very
least it won’t contribute to the significant loss of creativity that happens over the school years.

From all the practices outlined above, both interview and research data seem to agree that the attitude of
the teachers, associated with a culture that embraces creativity, are the most influential approaches to
nurture this capacity among school children. This isn’t surprising and may seem relatively easy to
achieve; however, these practices are too intangible and therefore difficult to manage and monitor. To
build a culture of creativity may require little investment from governments, but to change cultures that
today are so far from this view will certainly require a lot of time and effort. But what exactly is this non-
creative culture like and what makes it so damaging to children’s creativity in school environments?
 … and how to hinder it.

All respondents consistently reported how education today is too much focused on achievement and
assessment. This, associated with criticism, limitation of choices, pressure to conform, and high
competition makes the traditional school today a place with no room for creativity. In fact, repeated
stressors (such as evaluations) were shown to reduce creative performance of individuals, and whilst a
positive environment may enhance divergent thinking, a negative one will only help thinking to
converge. Additionally, children in a school atmosphere of criticism and normative behaviour are likely
to perceive creativity as being outside the programme and something that is not rewarded or even
disrupting.

“Is it really necessary to sacrifice students’ creativity and well-being

for the sake of learning achievement and producing a workforce
capable of driving the economy forwards?”

However, it isn’t only about the stressful atmosphere that is created, one that doesn’t encourage
diversity, freedom, and experimentation. It is also about the teachers’ challenge in planning, executing,
and following activities that nurture creativity, while also meeting all the demands and requirements for
academic achievement. Teachers cannot become creativity enablers when schools are very content-
driven, test-oriented, and standardised, which is believed to be the norm in most schools today. But why
do we keep doing this? Is it really necessary to sacrifice students’ creativity and well-being for the sake
of learning achievement and producing a workforce capable of driving the economy forwards? Maybe if
we look at two culturally different but at the same time high-performing education systems and
economies, we might be closer to finding an answer.
 Lessons from Finland and Singapore

Whilst having relatively young economies and late industrialisation processes, both Finland and
Singapore have managed to become two of the most prosperous countries in the world, showing very
high per capita incomes and innovation indicators. Moreover, despite their significant difference in size
and number of schools (a few hundred in Singapore, a few thousand in Finland) these two nations have
been topping PISA results in all recent assessments. But how exactly did they get there?

These two school systems didn’t miraculously appear overnight. Education excellence in both Finland
and Singapore represent the consolidation of around four decades of intensive, government-led and -
funded education reforms. These reforms ensured that everyone would have equal access to high-
quality, public, and comprehensive education. More importantly, these reforms were based on the idea
that both countries lacked natural resources and their most valuable assets were their professional
human capital. Accordingly, such reforms were conceived internally instead of blindly adhering to
international trends. However, each system seems to have taken different courses, and although they
might be converging more recently, they still diverge in a number of significant ways.

Finnish education seems to be more concerned with supporting the social growth of children into
ethically correct and responsible human beings, and then with providing kids with life skills and
knowledge. On the other hand, Singapore education seems to focus primarily on the acquisition of
knowledge and skills, and then on social aspects. As such, Finnish schools represent a more holistic
approach to education, whereas schools in Singapore are said to be very pragmatic and economically-
driven. These differences are also reflected in the curricula of these two countries. It appears that the
Finnish curriculum provides a more general set of directions, which allow teachers freedom to innovate
in educational practices. Singapore has a much more detailed curriculum, and whilst this lack of
ambiguity can be beneficial for making sure that an excellent standard is achieved, it may also be
responsible for adding too much rigidity into the system.
 “Finnish schools represent a more holistic approach to education,
whereas schools in Singapore are said to be very pragmatic and
economically-driven”

Other major differences between the two systems relate to the ideas of playful education and
performance assessment. Finnish schools and kindergartens are famous for structuring their education
around play and getting rid of tests. This might seem too radical and risky, but it represents a much
deeper characteristic of the Finnish system: it focuses on what the children need and not on what we
need of them. Play is used as a means of igniting the joy of learning, social and skill development, and
imagination. Especially when unstructured, play stimulates children to find their own routes to curiosity
and knowledge acquisition, which represents a more organic form of learning. In Singapore, however,
play is more likely to need a purpose and tends to be associated with the acquisition of specific sets of
skills. Additionally, and what appears to be a trend in Asian countries, schools in Singapore rely too
much on constant measurements of students’ performance, with tests starting as soon as kids leave pre-
school or kindergarten.

Considering some of the alternative ways to nurture creativity in education discussed before, it was clear
from the interviews how digital technologies are being implemented much more effectively in
Singaporean schools compared to Finnish ones. On the other hand, alternative pedagogies are more
likely to be explored in the Finish system, as educators appear to have more freedom to experiment in
the classroom. Finally, and what I believe to play the most important role in how these two systems are
perceived among the education community, the classroom atmosphere and culture of Finnish schools
are supposed to naturally foster children’s creativity and imagination, whereas only recently have these
concepts left the periphery of education in Singapore to receive more central attention.

Leaving differences aside and now focusing on more general aspects of education, what are these two
countries doing right?

• Public investment. Finland invests above 6% of its GDP in education, which is above the
average of OECD countries. Singapore invests a considerably lower portion of its GDP in
education, below 4%, although that represents 20% of all government expenditure (similar to
that of Finland and second only to defence);
• Autonomy. School principals in Singapore have complete autonomy to allocate investments and
make changes to the schools, and teacher leadership is also stimulated to enhance their capacity
to deliver reforms at the school level. However, too much centralisation and curriculum-related
pressure from the government might end up limiting teachers’ autonomy. In Finland, where
teaching is a highly-regarded profession, teachers are free to experiment and choose what
methods they use in the classroom;
• Trust. Government, principals, teachers, family, and students believe in each other and
encourage mutual improvement. Accordingly, all elements in the school chain are in constant
communication, agreement, and share accountability. Notably, curricular reforms in Finland are
made available for comments not only from the education community, but from the whole
population;
 • Equity. Both countries rely on excellent public schools as a means to reduce social gaps in
education. They should provide a good education for every child, irrespective of their parent’s
background, career, and income. This is a very important premise of these two systems and
ensures equal access when entering the system and constant, dedicated support for students
who need it the most;
• Teacher education. Teachers tend to be highly-qualified and demands are always increasing. In
Finland, school teachers must hold a master’s degree in education, which is equivalent to 5 years
of training and should include considerable field work. In Singapore, all teachers are trained at
the National Institute of Education (NIE) and 80% of them have already completed a bachelor’s
degree on their specific subject of teaching before entering NIE.

“systems that breed PISA champions at the expense of their students’

well-being, and potentially ruining young children’s lives”

Indeed, these two countries show us how high-performing education systems and strong economies are
not dependent on how much creativity is nurtured in schools. However, a school atmosphere that
nurtures creativity is usually one that enables education to be more fun and increases students’
engagement, well-being, and sense of belonging. Conversely, a stressful atmosphere impacts on much
more than just creativity. I believe that the rigorous and competitive school system in Singapore was
fundamental to its rapid economic growth and has led the country to its position today’s ranks.
However, countries like Singapore risk becoming systems that breed PISA champions at the expense of
their students’ well-being, and potentially ruining young children’s lives.
 What next for Finland and Singapore?

Finland is currently experimenting a major change in pedagogy. Started in 2016, all Finnish schools are
going through a process of adaptation to what they call ‘phenomenon-based learning’. The idea is to rely
much less on subject-oriented teaching and offer a more integrated, highly-interdisciplinary way of
learning. Phenomenon-based learning (PBL) isn’t much different from problem-, project-, question-based
learning: all these approaches are student-centred, they foster the acquisition of integrated knowledge,
focus on open-ended real-world problems, and enhance collaboration. PBL works by asking questions or
posing problems related to topics on which students have considerable input, such as “how do airplanes
fly” or “how does the European Union work”. This new way of teaching isn’t entirely new in Finnish
education, but its systematic adoption by all schools is dividing the education community, especially in
times when the government is cutting costs in this area. As a result, we may expect this change to be
very gradual, and teaching subjects will continue to be the main approach in schools for now. Either
way, Finnish schools are very likely to keep on being a great environment for creativity to flourish.

“In a world where future jobs might ignore degrees, diplomas, and
certificates altogether and employ people for their skill-sets, Singapore
seems to be on the right track, from early-childhood to higher
education”

Singapore has always welcomed innovations and excellence from other countries to explore how they
can be adapted to local schools. Perhaps this has guided them into developing a more holistic education
in the 21st century (as Finland has been); slowly shifting from an examination-centred system that
prepares children for jobs, to one that seeks to prepare them for life. Yet, they still expect their education
system to “provide high-skilled creative, flexible workers needed for the 21st century economy”. A
similar, however timid trend is also happening in examination, which is currently changing to
accommodate more critical thinking and argumentation, although this kind of assessment is still very
peripheral. As the school system in Singapore is said to be very agile when compared to others, it is
difficult to see how much this change is desired however. If we look at other areas of development, it
feels like curricula and assessment haven’t changed much. Take technology as an example. Wi-Fi
coverage in schools will be complete by 2018, and a large portion of the schools is going through a
playmaker programme, with basic robotics and coding skills being integrated into learning, even for
children as young as 5 years old. In a world where future jobs might ignore degrees, diplomas, and
certificates altogether and employ people for their skill-sets, Singapore seems to be on the right track,
from early-childhood to higher education.

Final thoughts about creativity in education

Although creativity was a major theme when interviewing researchers and policy makers, the same
didn’t happen when I approached schools and teachers. Other concepts were often brought up, such as
play and problem-solving, but either as a means to talking about enjoyment or when discussing
transferrable skills. This lack of translation of policies and research findings into practice isn’t specific to
 education and many industries show a similar behaviour. One of the reasons is that education is an
incredibly complex system with many subsystems and stakeholders, so it takes a lot of effort and time to
change it. As such, it is conceivable that any education system in the world is always one step behind the
demands of its society. Yet, and curiously enough, creativity isn’t a theme in the Finnish curriculum
documentation and the word doesn’t even appear in many official presentations, so it might seem that
they aren’t very concerned with it. However, it is difficult to tell whether its absence in documentation is
due to their trust in the system to foster creativity already or due to it not being among their priorities.

“it is conceivable that any education system in the world is always

one step behind the demands of its society”

Unfortunately, there is no easy, reliable, and systematic way to study creativity levels across countries
yet. Whilst some numbers and indexes about innovation and creative industries are publicly available,
these are much more market-oriented concepts and don’t necessarily represent a good proxy for how
much creative individuals are, especially in schools. I hope that rumours are correct and the next 2018
PISA results will incorporate some sort of creativity measurement, and then we might be in a better
position to analyse countries and cultures based on more objective data. This will also permit identifying
stronger correlations between creative minds and specific teaching practices, such as the makerspaces.

On this topic, there is a high risk of governmental concerns about creativity being translated mostly into
digital technology adoption. Obviously, and as it becomes increasingly important in our lives, digital
technology should gain more space in schools and many initiatives of teaching kids the fundamentals of
coding are already out there. However, very often teachers are expected to incorporate digital tools (e.g.
computers and tablets) into their teaching with hardly any training or direction. Consequently, such
tools struggle to find educational application outside of “computer studies” due to confusion regarding
practical uses, associated pedagogies, and lack of curricular guidance. There is a risk that creativity
education will follow the same path, so more evidence and proper guidance will be needed to prevent
that from happening.

So, what do I believe to be the best way to foster creativity in education? Apart from a very indirect
approach to it, one that relies on a collection of sociocultural elements, it seems almost impossible to
offer more pragmatic directions and pinpoint the most promising practices in creativity education. There
are many ongoing bets and no thorough evaluation has been performed on them yet. Maybe the most
simple and utopic answer would refer back to our early-childhood times, when playing, imagining, and
creating made up the bulk of our routine. People tend to agree that we used to have very curious and
creative minds as children, and that kindergarten provided the right atmosphere for that. So maybe all
we need is to make school and life more like kindergarten used to be: a lifelong kindergarten.

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