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Introduction:

Education is becoming more competitive.  Teachers around the world are questioning how to generate the next Einstein, Gershwin, and Cummings.  A mathematician, musician, and poet sent forth to grace society with brilliance.  However, why not strive for something greater?  A super student who has the ability to converge desired talents and abilities to gain a higher understanding.  Better yet, a classroom full of students who excel in all areas of the curriculum and embody intellectual abilities.  Geniuses.  “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction,” said Einstein.  How do you make a genius?

Changing Traditions:

Classrooms all have commonalities.  Comparisons can be made between brick walls, desks in neat rows, and #2 pencils.  Students all receive an education in math, reading, writing, science and social studies.  The traditional organization and delivery of education has been consistent for years upon years.  But growth will not occur without change.  “To change means to learn new patterns of attention.  To look at different things, and to look at them differently; to learn to think new thoughts, have new feelings about what we experience” (359, Csíkszentmihályi).  Education is not a static ritual, but rather a living, limitless, continuation of understanding connected to the well being of society.  It is imperative that common educational traditions are broken down with the introduction of creativity.  The time has come to foster creative individuals in an effort to make geniuses.  How do you teach creativity?

Creative License:

Creativity is not divided between the haves and the have-nots.  It is a skill that can be developed over time in anyone, anywhere.  “People in every creative endeavor use a common set of general-purpose thinking tools in an almost infinite variety of ways.  These tools reveal the nature of creative thinking itself; they make surprising connections among the sciences, arts, humanities, and technologies…” (Preface, Root-Bernstein).  The book of origin, Sparks of Genius, denotes a combination of tools: Perceiving, Patterning, Abstracting, Embodied Thinking, Modeling, Playing, and Synthesizing.  All of which impart creative thinking.  “At the level of creative imagination, everyone thinks alike.”  Where do we start?

The Very Beginning:

Young boys and girls are thrust into the hands of educators at an early age.  This primary education lays the pathway for thinking about thinking.  Students must be led in the right direction from the very beginning so that creative habits become the habits.  My first grade classroom is the ideal starting place to implement Root-Bernstein’s Tools of Creativity.

Perceiving:

Perceiving is the act of interpreting what you observe in context.  Perceptions change based on a variety of conditions such as environment, prior knowledge, or outside influences.  Young eyes are constantly observing their environments as they shape their understandings.  What my students see most often is what they will most often remember.  Student perceptions are so important to building connections between background knowledge and new knowledge at school. Therefore, linking classroom academia to the real world broadens these perceptions.  In my classroom an addition symbol is linked to the volume button on a television remote.  Both increase a product.  Letter sounds are linked to childhood favorites like McDonalds, and Sponge Bob.  “We cannot focus our attention unless we know what to look at and how to look at it” (42, Root-Bernstein).  Changing perceptions in a creative way in an effort to cement understandings makes teaching and learning powerful.

Patterning:

Patterns are one of the first concepts covered in elementary school due to their presence in most every learning domain.  My first grade students are encouraged to seek out and apply patterns to better understand a variety of content.  Patterns can be discovered in repetitious books, familiar songs, and on number grids that help with addition.  “Nurtured patterning skills are at the root of the success of many artists, scientists, and professionals in various occupations” (Sparks of Creativity Wiki).  Seeking patterns and building connections across areas of studies will enrich student understanding in my classroom and encourage creativity.

Abstracting:

Abstractions are different representations that hold the same meaning.  Abstractions in elementary school help to yet again build connections.  Many first grade students in my classroom abstract content to gain a common ground.  Their bodies become a stick figure, the word love turns into a heart, and numbers become corresponding blocks.  Nietzsche stated, “The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more you must allure the senses to it.”  Turning big, complex ideas into something that can be felt, manipulated, and communicated will bring meaningful teaching into the classroom. 

Embodied Thinking:

Embodied thinking is engaging your body in the act of problem solving.  Embodied thought can happen whether you are solving the problem of art, music, or math.  Young students are whole body individuals.  Their excitement comes out in jumping up and down, their anger shows up in swift kicks, and love can be felt with a hug.  Therefore, it is important to use this natural form of communicating to solve problems across the curriculum.  In my classroom, hopping on a life-sized number line can solve a complex number sentence and humorous picture books can evoke laughter.  “Mind and body are one, and we must learn how to facilitate and make use of the interconnections (174, Root-Bernstein).

Modeling:

The purpose of a model is to represent an object or idea that is most often too large or too small to grasp.  Using models creates a common understanding between imagination, visualization, and physical representation.  Modeling in the classroom links the skills of perception with abstractions.  In my classroom, students model story problems with Unifix cubes, they tell a tale with puppets, and build maps with the help of Legos.  Encouraging students to model their thinking is a way of making internal thoughts into hands-on creations that can be used as a learning tool by a wider audience.

Playing:

Play is fun!  Play occurs at every age as a way of actively engaging with others in a risk free environment.  Plato enlightened, “Do not…keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.”  Learning can and should be fun in the classroom.  Play is a tool that supports student engagement in such a creative way that learning becomes natural.  I use play in my classroom during Math Workshop to make new learning accessible to everyone through the use of games like War, Bingo, and Sorry.  This way number sense becomes something enjoyable and cooperative.

Synthesizing:

Synthesizing is the act of coming together to gain an insightful understanding across modalities. “No major problem facing the world today can be boxed neatly between a single discipline or approached effectively by analysis, emotion or tradition alone.  Innovation is always transdisciplinary and multimodal” (314, Root-Bernstein).  There are so many puzzle pieces to education, but the focus should not be on individual pieces but the picture as a whole.  All disciplines in my classroom must be connected in order to form a perfect understanding.  The days schedule should not be broken up by traditional standards: reading, writing and arithmetic.  The integration of subjects is key to not only building connections in the classroom but building connections in the brain as well.  “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, the just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while,” Steve Jobs.

A Creative Education:

The competition in education is between tradition and creativity.  Both have a place as learning grows and changes, but only creativity can organically meet the needs of all students.  A synthesized education must start today in all grades but especially at the beginning of this race to enlightenment.  Students just starting school must be shown the tools of perceptions, patterns, abstractions, embodied thought, models and purposeful play so that these skills can be applied now.  This is an urgent task that requires immediate attention for a higher understanding by administrators, teachers and students as a collective whole.  “After creative energy is awakened, it is necessary to protect it.  We must erect barriers against distractions, dig channels so that energy can flow more freely, find ways to escape outside temptations and interruptions.  If we do not, entropy is sure to break down the concentration that the pursuit of an interest requires.  Then thought returns to its baseline state-the vague, unfocused, constantly distracted condition of the normal mind” (351, Csíkszentmihály).

Immediate Sources:

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1996. Print.

Root-Bernstein, Robert Scott., and Michèle Root-Bernstein. Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. Print.

"Introduction." Sparks of Creativity. N.p., n.d. Web. Dec. 2012.

"CEP 818." CEP 818. N.p., n.d. Web. Dec. 2012.