What is creativity in school?

Creativity in school means that you use your own ideas to solve a task, and that the result is both new to you and works for its purpose. It is the simplest definition, and it fits mathematics as well as music.

Two requirements: new and useful

If you just make something strange, it is not necessarily creative. If you just do the same as everyone else, but correctly, it is not creative either. Creative thinking needs both. A new way of proving a rule is creative if the proof holds. A story with an unusual point of view is creative if it works as a story. Read the full definition in the glossary: creativity.

Examples from different subjects

In maths, it can mean finding another route to the answer and explaining why it works. In Norwegian, it can mean writing a text that breaks with the usual structure to create an effect. In science, it is about designing an experiment yourself instead of following the recipe. In social studies, it can mean proposing a solution to a problem in your local area. In arts and crafts, creativity is often obvious, but even there the task can be so closed that there is little room.

What do you need to be creative?

Four things keep coming up in what we know from research and experience. You need knowledge of the topic, because ideas combine what you already know. You need time, because the first ideas are often the most obvious. You need safety, because you will not dare to suggest something new if you are afraid of being wrong. And you need a task that is open enough for there to be more than one good answer. Teachers and schools can influence all four, and you can influence some yourself. See Creativity in school for a checklist.

What is disputed?

Many claim that creativity can be trained as a general skill. Research is divided: some studies find that practising idea generation helps, others find that the effect is tied to the type of task you practised. Many also claim that school weakens creativity. That is a disputed question, which you can read more about in Does school kill creativity? (in Norwegian).

What can you do tomorrow?

Pick a task you have been given. Write down three different ways you could solve it before you choose one. Ask the teacher whether you can solve it your way, as long as you reach the goal. Ask for feedback before you hand it in. If you have younger siblings, you can read how play helps them learn in Play-based learning (in Norwegian). If homework takes all your time, Creativity and homework (in Norwegian) can give you concrete suggestions.

Remember that the school’s own plans and the curricula decide what is required. Check the current versions at the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training (Utdanningsdirektoratet), and talk to your teacher about what can be changed.