The sad fact remains that in spite of dozens of books about creativity, hundreds of research studies, and thousands of training programs and workshops, the development of creative potential is still largely an ignored aspect of a child’s total repertoire of acquired behaviors. (p. 15)
Without creativity developed using strong assessment processes, we cannot hope to develop learners who become deep thinkers, critical consumers, and empathic human beings.
Daniel Pink (2009) reminds us:
We know—if we’ve spent time with young children or remember ourselves at our best—that we’re not destined to be passive and compliant. We’re designed to be active and engaged. And we know that the richest experiences in our lives aren’t when we’re clamoring for validation from others, but when we’re listening to our own voice—doing something that matters, doing it well, and doing it in the service of a cause larger than ourselves. (p. 145)
I cannot overstate the importance of engaging in creative experiences that encourage this active engagement and passionate pursuit of meaning. Getting there, however, may require us to reimagine our ideas about creativity and assessment.
Reimagining Creativity
Being creative can be messy, unpredictable, and downright uncomfortable. It takes time and an unrelenting persistence in working toward desired outcomes, regardless of the cost. It cannot be packaged and sold in sterile boxes, locked away from the real lives of our students. That being said, educators must acknowledge that regularly engaging in creative processes and the assessment that supports this way of doing business takes tremendous courage, as Joan Franklin Smutny, founder and director of the Center for Gifted, and her colleague S. E. von Fremd (2009) assert:
Creative self-expression in its most basic elements determines how life is experienced, how problems are perceived, how duties are performed, how instruments are played, and how visions are realized. It demands openness and spontaneity, as well as the courage to fend off unreceptive responses of hard-nosed or narrow-minded thinking. (p. 293)
This runs contrary to the design of our education system. Timelines and deadlines rule the day, and making time for discomfort and mess is unpalatable and seemingly impossible for many. However, the cost of not doing so is far greater. An education system void of creativity and the kinds of reflective and self-directed assessment that support it is a system that will fail to nurture learners’ long-term emotional, intellectual, and social needs. It is a system that limits the potential of not only students and teachers but also the societies of which they are a part. As education scholar Katie F. Olivant (2015) shares, “A dichotomy has developed between what societies need from education and that which the education system is providing” (p. 115). Without creativity and the kind of assessment that fully supports it, we cannot hope to develop citizens who look for new solutions to problems, who innovate in the face of challenge, and who explore their need for expression and wonder as a way to nurture their mental health. Even decades-old research by Carl R. Rogers (1954, 1961), Abraham H. Maslow (1954), and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) finds that doing creative work is one of the most significant experiences of a person’s life. Our societies need more from an education system than simply revisiting information already discovered. Information is important, certainly, but inviting students to manipulate that information and reimagine it, revisit it, and build from it is critical for the health and growth of our societies as a whole.
To position the idea of creativity clearly in our thinking, consider the definition Sir Ken Robinson (2009) offers: “To be creative you actually have to do something. It involves putting your imagination to work to make something new, to come up with new solutions to problems, even to think of new problems or questions” (p. 63). Many people mistakenly believe creativity is limited to the arts, but Robinson’s definition of creativity shows us that the creative processes exist in every field. Another misconception is that creativity belongs to the gifted and is the result of building something from nothing. In fact, creativity can occur in everyday moments by everyday people. For example, during meal preparation, when a cook adds new ingredients to a tried-and-true recipe, he or she is exhibiting creativity, or when an adolescent tries a new strategy while playing a video game, he or she is taking a creative risk. Looking at existing ideas in new ways is a creative act. Imagining a new perspective or mode of expressing an idea that already exists is a creative event. Creativity is the fuel that drives exploration and wonder. Thinking in new ways, asking new questions, and imagining new outcomes advance all manner of learning. Olivant (2015) concurs:
Creativity is crucial to personal and cognitive growth and to academic success. It is a concept that continues to merit a central position in education but tends to fail to attain the appropriate attention and support of policymakers and education leaders. (p. 127)
Creativity is not simply about making something beautiful. Rather, it is about answering important questions, imagining possibilities, and solving challenging problems. By shifting our understanding of creativity, we can reimagine its place within our classrooms.
Creativity, in this sense, is a harkening back to the kinds of learning we did naturally when we were young. Smutny and von Fremd (2009) describe how students have lost this learning over time:
The creative world they lived in during their earliest years of learning as they touched, tasted, performed, molded, constructed, expressed, and explored their surroundings has lost its validity. They had to let it go in order to ply the more serious waters of skill acquisition and content mastery. (p. 5)
However, this loss does not have to occur. We do not have to choose skill acquisition and content mastery over creativity. Creativity, skills, and knowledge can develop simultaneously. They are interdependent, with each serving to advance the other. Slight changes in the kinds of questions we ask and the manner of assessing in which we engage can propel creativity forward, with skill development and content mastery being integral parts of the creative process. This is truly a win-win situation for students.
Reimagining Assessment
As we begin this conversation, just as we need to share a common understanding of what creativity describes, it is important to be sure there is clarity about the term assessment as it appears in this book. There are certainly enough definitions of this word to keep a teacher busy any day of the week. However, Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (2005) define assessment as “techniques used to analyze student accomplishments against specific goals and criteria” (p. 337). This definition is a great starting point for exploring the kinds of assessment processes critical to unlocking creativity.
In order to develop our understanding more fully, let’s imagine the word techniques in Wiggins and McTighe’s (2005) definition is interchangeable with the word processes. In Unlocked: Assessment as the Key to Everyday Creativity in the Classroom, we will explore a number of assessment processes a teacher can apply each and every day to develop learners’ creative potential. These include, but are not limited to:
Through these processes, educators can nurture critical skills such as striving to seek new solutions, building stamina for multiple attempts, and developing strategies to engage in purposeful revision for each