What Schools Can Do to Nurture the Creativity of its Students?
Creativity is the mother of success and the master of knowledge. Every mind is creative in a way and every creative mind acts as a mine for creative ideas, ideas that underlie morals from that era to this era. A recent study reveals that every individual is born creative. NASA scientists designed specialized tests to assess the ability to come up with new and original ideas. Of the 1,600 4-5 year-olds that took the test, 98% of them scored at “genius” levels of imagination. Over time, the same students were re-tested, and they scored worse and worse. Only 2% of adults (average age of 31) scored in the “genius” category, suggesting creativity atrophies as we get older. The reason for this decline in creativity is that as children grow through their formative years, parents and teachers encourage them to take the safe and secure route in school, work and life. They are not allowed to experiment with their ideas and thus over time their ideas surrender and creativity diminishes slowly.
The best schools in Odisha have understood that in the coming years, creative minds and new ideas are very important for the students to achieve success in life. That is why they are taking the necessary steps in helping students to experiment with their ideas; some of them are shared below:
1. Foster a Question-Friendly Environment:-
Encouraging students to ask questions is very important to ignite a spark of curiosity inside them which eventually paves way for the creative mindset. Top schools in Bhubaneswar help students to develop the habit of asking questions (“why”, “how”) about information, ideas, and beliefs normally taken for granted. This helps students to feel less afraid of asking questions and also allows them to learn and grow.
2. Practice Generating More Ideas:-
Creativity needs more exercise in generating new ideas because when it comes to ideas, quantity increases quality. No matter how less or more useful those are but if they are original they are the product of your creativity. Schools should allocate fixed time towards creativity for students with genius hours like Google does for their employees. This will help students to dedicate more time to thinking and coming up with more new ideas that could prove the best in producing a work of success.
3. Encourage New Skills:-
Don’t keep your students limited to a singular field of interest. Encourage them to realize their potential and learn a variety of skills and subjects. This will help them to come out of their comfort zones and experiment with new fields. The purpose of this is to foster new and creative ideas for the respective fields.
4. Creative Classrooms:-
The classroom is the place where most of the unlikely ideas hit the students. The best CBSE schools of Odisha believe that to help students unleash more creativity; weave an ambiance of the classroom such that their wings of imagination feel more comfortable. Also, allow them to openly share their original ideas with the class so that like-minded students can resonate with it and they can help each other to increase the potential of their ideas.
5. Use the Jigsaw Classroom Method:-
Allow students to plan classroom activities or at least when assigning classroom activities, allow students to do some work on their own. Doing individual work not only prevents groupthink, but it also facilitates student participation. It helps them to realize their inner strength and also encourages them to think of more creative ideas.