ABSTRACT
Perhaps the most important feature of creative teaching in history is that of risk-taking; doing something novel, different and unexpected which has no predetermined outcome. An interesting illustration of this in practice is the work of the notable architect Daniel Libeskind who designed the iconic Imperial War Museum at Manchester which opened in 2002. The story goes that he gained inspiration by taking a teapot, smashing it on the floor and then putting some of the pieces together in a disorganised and disjointed fashion to produce a design for the building. Using a teapot to represent the world and then breaking it showed creativity and imagination but this was equally a purposeful activity which produced a creative response in the form of a building which externally and internally conveyed the chaos and disorientation of war. It is this dynamic style of creativity which should be an aspiration within the primary history classroom.
