Examines and responds to the tension educators face while trying to nurture creativity within the curricular constraints of the classroom.

Tap into children's natural curiosity and scaffold their creative abilities across all domains of learning--and nurture your own creativity!

A must for all classroom teachers and those training to teach, this book is a user-friendly guide to exploring the nature of creativity with ideas and practical strategies for nurturing pupils’ creative skills in primary and secondary schools. It offers a detailed exploration of pedagogy that nurtures creativity, specifically examining the concept of creative agency by looking at how individuals are encouraged to develop their own skills of imagination, innovation and collaboration. Accounts from people well-known for being creative provide a lens through which to critically examine a variety of theoretical frameworks, published creative education checklists, and other relevant research and case studies demonstrating creative pedagogical practices. The book thus draws together consensus from multiple perspectives about the conditions most effective for nurturing creativity. This practical theorising approach will help professionals in educational settings engage in critical enquiry about teaching for creativity, while reflective questions encourage the reader to explore their own perceptions and practice.

As interest in creativity explodes, it has become more complicated to decide how to best nurture creativity in our schools. There are the controversial Common Core Standards in many states. Meanwhile, the classroom has become increasingly digital; it is easier to access information, communicate ideas, and learn from people across the world. Many countries now include cultivating creativity as a national educational policy recommendation, yet there is still debate over best practices. Indeed, many well-intentioned educators may institute programs that may not reach the desired outcome. The notion that schools 'kill creativity' has become a widespread social meme. We view such beliefs as both hyperbolic and problematic: they allow us to recognize there is a problem but not solve it. In this book, a wide array of international experts addresses these issues, discussing theories and research that focus on how to nurture creativity in K-12 and college-level classrooms.

Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom is a groundbreaking collection of essays by leading scholars, who examine and respond to the tension that many educators face in valuing student creativity but believing that they cannot support it given the curricular constraints of the classroom. Is it possible for teachers to nurture creative development and expression without drifting into curricular chaos? Do curricular constraints necessarily lead to choosing conformity over creativity? This book combines the perspectives of top educators and psychologists to generate practical advice for considering and addressing the challenges of supporting creativity within the classroom. It is unique in its balance of practical recommendations for nurturing creativity and thoughtful appreciation of curricular constraints. This approach helps ensure that the insights and advice found in this collection will take root in educators' practice, rather than being construed as yet another demand placed on their overflowing plate of responsibilities.

The author gives us a vision of educational reform that transcends standards, curriculum, and instructional strategies. He argues for a paradigm shift-a schoolwide embrace of an "ethic of excellence" and with a passion for quality describes what's possible when teachers, students, and parents commit to nothing less than the best. The author tells exactly how this can be done, from the blackboard to the blacktop to the school boardroom.

In their world, neither static definitions of intelligence nor traditional ideas of training stand us in good stead. Rather, we need to reframe the question given what lies before us and come to terms with a different answer posited in different language. This, then, are those who will thrive in the 21st Century: • They will blend multiple intelligences in a way that might be described as synthetic or even symphonic • They will be ambitious and focused without being self-obsessed • They will value asynchrony and even seek it out • They will use their own marginality to generate novel perspective and new work • They will exhibit a steadfast resilience in all phases of life • They will be measured by what they produce over the course of a lifetime, not by any static notion of capacity or quotient In the fractured environment of the 21st century, true success will be unique and unexpected—the result of a creative response to complex, shifting challenges. So, how do we prepare? How do we educate ourselves and our children for life in 2050?