The Chemistry of Creativity in Education Jobs
Photo by Todd Cravens on Unsplash
I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity in the education field. I was a school psychologist and now an administrator and for a long time creativity was an afterthought in my work. My work had plenty of creative moments. That wasn’t the problem. It was more than I didn’t think of my work as creative work, like a painter or an architect might.
A couple weeks ago my co-worker Erin sent me a video of the late Sir Ken Robinson. In the video, Sir Ken Robinson argued that public schools are giving more and more attention to activities like language arts and math, which are measured on accountability tests. This is at the expense of activities like dance or painting, which aren’t measured on end-of-year tests. The result? There’s less and less creativity nurtured through the public school system.
And that’s when it struck me—if this is true for students, can it also be true for us as educators? After all, most of us are a product of our country’s education system. It’s not too far a stretch to consider that the norms of our education system at the time we experienced it have, on some level, become our norms.
I started with a question: What’s it like to be an educator who believes in creativity not only as a way for students to learn, but as a way for educators to express their craft? Turns out, some researchers had the same question. Let’s dig into what they found.
Finding Creativity Themes in the Research
In 2011, Gillian Bramwell, Rosemary Reilly, Frank Lilly, and Neomi Kronish analyzed research papers about creative teachers. Their mission was to discover patterns in how creativity manifested itself in the teaching profession.
“What’s it like to be an educator who believes in creativity not only as a way for students to learn, but as a way for educators to express their craft?”
We’re talking about creativity here, which is not an easy thing to measure. In contrast, when researchers want to analyze what spending does for academic achievement, they use statistical models to estimate the relationship. But with something as nebulous as how creativity works in schools, researchers need to get creative (See what I did there? I’ll get my coat.).
Bramwell et al gathered up fifteen research papers about creative teachers and read them. As they did so, they picked out themes that came up over and over. This is like watching a season of a TV show and noticing when the same ideas come up over and over. I just finished Season 2 of Ted Lasso and by episode 6 I was like “There are a lot of dad issues coming up with the characters.”
Bramwell and team did what I did with Ted Lasso. Except where I saw how Rebecca, Nate, and Ted were coming to terms with their fathers against the comical backdrop of a fish out of water story, the researchers worked on something arguably more important: they picked out common ideas that other researchers independently found in their own studies.
When the Individual and the Group Combine
The result? The researchers found two qualities that, when combined, resulted in creative projects that were successful and meaningful to both the educators and the students. These two qualities led to a creative process. Then that process led to a product. And the product was as much a creative endeavor as it was an academic project.
What were the qualities that consistently combined to make creative magic in the lives of teachers and students? They were:
The personal interests of the teacher and
The interests of the community that teacher served
Bramwell et al pointed to one particular story that illustrated the combination of personal interests and community needs well. It was a story about a teacher, Alice, whose students led a project to raise awareness about the potential extinction of beluga whales. The creative project was impressive to say the least. The students wrote and performed a play about preserving the lives of beluga whales. Then they participated in a program to “adopt” a beluga whale as a way to donate money for research.
Documentary footage of educators thinking of themselves as creators.
It’s an uplifting and interesting story on its own. But it also illustrates how the personal interests of teachers need to combine with the needs of the community in order for a project like this to be successful.
There were three pivotal moments in this project where this dynamic played out. The first was when the school principal became frustrated that nobody was interested in using the available funding for a student project about the environment. The second was when Alice, the teacher, having an interest in projects like these, eagerly agreed. And finally, the third came when Alice and her students began exploring the plight of the beluga whales and became emotionally invested in the mission.
In this example, the success of the creative student project needed these separate components to come together and interact. It happened when the teacher’s personal interests (student projects about the environment) combined with the characteristics of the school community (available funding). It happened again when the teacher’s personal interests combined with the interests of the student community (the plight of the beluga whales.)
What It Means for Everyday Work
Now that we know the alchemy that contributes to the successful work of creative teachers, what can we do to make more of this happen in our education careers? Here are some things you can do to step towards experiences like the beluga whale project that Alice and her student’s created:
Get familiar with what drives you as a person and as an educator. Don’t be so quick to dismiss the role of your personal interests in the execution of your professional duties
Get to know your community and make connections. Projects might not happen right away, but early connections could be the seed for future collaborations and projects
If you’re a leader, make room for creativity. Make it safe to take risks. If you’re worried about the fallout or politics, find ways to protect your staff without limiting their creative spirit
Notes
In 2011, Gillian Bramwell, Rosemary Reilly, Frank Lilly, and Neomi Kronish analyzed research papers. Bramwell, Gillian, et al. “Creative Teachers.” 2011, https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/974917/1/Creative_Teachersfinal.pdf. Accessed 23 November 2021.
The researchers found two qualities that, when combined, resulted in creative projects that were successful and meaningful to both the educators and the students. They actually found more, plus some subcategories. But just trying to keep the story straightforward here.
If you’re a leader, make room for creativity. The authors of this research paper also pointed to the support of leadership and the qualities of the organization’s structure as two additional qualities consistently found in successful projects of creative teachers.