ABSTRACT

In Chapter 1 I argued that creativity – although a buzz word used rather loosely in educational circles and closely associated with Western, individualistic cultures – is probably worth cultivating in primary classrooms, since it can help children gain a sense of ‘agency’ in their lives. I also introduced the idea that science can be creative, both for scientists who engage in the ‘Big C’ creativity of global originality and for children who may develop original ideas in their own terms (‘little c’ creativity) or go about scientific activity in novel or unusual ways. I challenged the accepted wisdom that creativity is more closely associated with the arts than with science, and introduced the idea that science is a worthwhile element in the primary curriculum because its content fosters enquiry approaches and the development of what Claxton (2002) calls ‘learnacy’ in children. This chapter looks in more detail at what creativity in learning science might look like, and what we as teachers can do to help foster it. However, the title of this book is Teaching Science Creatively, so we must first consider our own creativity as teachers, what creative teaching in science might look like and how we support each other in developing and maintaining a creative approach in the classroom. Teaching is – or should be – one of the ‘creative professions’: every time we plan a lesson or consider how to enthuse or engage children in learning we need to come up with new solutions to unique problems. Cremin et al. (2006) have proposed a model highlighting three interrelated dimensions of creative practice, summarised in Table 2.1. It may be helpful to think of our pedagogy as composed of two distinct elements: ‘teaching creatively’, where the focus is on me the teacher (or perhaps more helpfully us as a team of teachers) and our ability to communicate science in as creative a way as possible, and ‘teaching for creativity’ where the focus is on the creativity of the learners and our role is to teach in such a way as to enable the children to express and develop their creativity (Craft 2000). Having introduced these terms, Craft acknowledges that the

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dichotomy between them may be false and unhelpful, since one so clearly depends on the other: ‘a pedagogy which fosters creativity depends on practitioners being creative to provide the ethos for enabling children’s creativity’ (Craft 2005: 44). I have divided this chapter into two, with the focus on fostering the creative professional in the first half and an exploration of children’s creative learning in science in the second half. But I need to state at the outset that I value both equally and regard them as mutually dependent.