Creativity in education:
initial observations from an ex-artist

“People who are able to do something well can do that thing for a living, while people who are not able to do anything that well make a living by teaching” – George Bernard Shaw (1903)

And yet...

“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge” – Albert Einstein (1931).

Conventionally, teaching is considered a contingency profession, and often diminished to bureaucratic childcare. This view, despite being widespread and one I previously held, hinders efficacious education. It is when we place value on creative exploration and autonomy that we cultivate effective, opportune schooling. I aim to unpick my journey between these two poles to emphasise the importance of creativity in education, and moreover, why teaching itself can be considered an artistic exploit.

When voted most likely to be a teacher in my sixth form yearbook, I was appalled. As a presumptuous 17-year-old, I was adamant I would become an acclaimed artist and academic, not a vessel intended to aid others' achievements. I fled to drama school in the big smoke and studied performance arts, a subject typically seen as pretentiously cryptic in mainstream culture. Cut to four years later, I am a fortnight away from starting my teacher training. So, why the volte-face?

During my undergraduate degree, I was granted space to explore each crevice of artistic expression, and strongly encouraged to delve into the psyche to gain inspiration. I truly was ‘ripped apart in order to be built back up’; my lecturers were devout disciples of attack therapy. I became so deeply engrossed in explorations of the personal that I lost something I adore about art: its ability to acquaint and benefit through shared connection. I did not know how to move forward. When confessing this crisis of artistic faith to my tutor, they reminded me that art is multi-faceted, and that I flourish within communal learning environments. My preordained hostility towards teaching began to be dismantled. Cue a year of working as a cover supervisor and unqualified teacher in desperate hope of determining if I really was going to fulfil my yearbook prediction.

Initially, I existed in a tumultuous whirlpool of guilt for abandoning my artistic calling for public sector routine. No longer was I a defiant feminist art student who smothered themselves in chocolate in the name of sexual revolution, I was a pink-collar worker (can anyone else hear the world’s smallest violin?). However, the reality of working in a low socio-economic UK state school quickly slams you back to earth. I had to teach prearranged lessons designed for instructionism, which centres on didactic teaching from a fixed syllabus, relying on books, memorising, and assessment skill-building. This was a sharp contradiction to the student-focused constructivist practices employed during my degree and international schooling. My creative capabilities were tested; how do you maintain an artistic practice within a stringent, authoritarian system? Subsequently, said practice evolved into one that strives to generate creative spaces which develop inclusive, prosperous education. Teaching does not prevent you being an artist; on the contrary it demands challenging avant-garde thinking to create whilst enduring belligerence. There is an art to teaching.

When establishing the importance of creative classrooms, it is noteworthy that definitions of creativity are significantly pervasive. Habitually, we associate creativity with the arts, but as professor of education Dr Keith Sawyer highlights, “if a school remains instructionist at the core, arts education alone can’t solve the problem”. Creativity should be utilised as a cross-curricular methodology to generate innovative and conducive learning, not limited to subjects traditionally considered ‘artistic’. If we foster interdisciplinary creative skills, such as curiosity, hypothesising, recall, and evaluation, we equip students to conquer the capricious challenges of our rapidly developing world.

Cultivation of creativity is not exclusively fundamental for pupils, but for teachers too. By adopting creative pedagogy, teachers have space to utilise their specific knowledge and lived experience. Practices can develop that engage the capabilities of all students and devise solutions to educational adversity, instead of punishing inaccessibility. For instance, releasing the restraints of ability groups, which are arguably ineffectual as they promote predetermined expectations of achievement. The majority of educators believe that creative approaches are favourable to generate effective learning, but legislative barriers that restrict pedagogical autonomy prevent execution. Dr Sawyer names this “the teaching paradox”. He affirms that making space for creativity in the classroom is particularly challenging because structure and improvisation are perpetually in conflict. How can you teach creatively when faced with mandated constraints?

A pivotal constraint placed upon teaching is the consideration that it is a lesser profession, notably when correlated to jobs considered societally prestigious. This notion is distinct if we compare the UK education model to another, in this case Finland’s. Finnish teachers are regarded with the same esteem as doctors and lawyers. Teachers are required to earn a master’s degree, having been selected from the highest achieving graduates. This correlates with the considerably higher level of respect given to teachers, both by students and educational boards. It is important to recognise that Finland is a significantly smaller country so allows for this selectivity and is not suffering from a shortage of teachers as in the UK. Nevertheless, the significant status given to teaching in Finland results in teachers possessing a large amount of creative liberty in the classroom. This autonomy is apparent in Finnish teachers’ freedom to plan their curriculum independently, and subsequent lack of standardised testing. The UK insists on annually assessing pupils from the age of six and considers the National Curriculum scripture, regardless of its constant permutation. It is evident that the UK’s fixation with assessment and inspection obliterates creative pedagogy. In his 1975 book, Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Foucault emphasises that an obsession with examination results in education becoming “a perpetual comparison of each and all that made it possible to measure and judge”. He highlights that the ritual of exams is a mechanism to assert authority, construct hierarchy, and bolster castigation, writing: 

“It is the examination which, by combining hierarchical surveillance and normalising judgement, assures the great disciplinary functions of distribution and classification.” 

The absence of league table pressure and Ofsted threats in Finland means prosperous teaching and learning is the goal, rather than competition. No child is forsaken because they do not fit the standardised definition of success. Our UK curriculum is enforced through inspection and assessment, meaning there is insufficient space for creative explorations and deliberations, let alone room for individuality and consideration of the lived experience students carry. 

I recognise that the UK has made attempts to cultivate creative learning, most notably the Creative Partnerships programme (2002-11), however, that flagship was sunk by coalition government cuts. We currently reside in a suffocating system of repetitive exams, following a curriculum geared towards box-ticking and elitism, which restricts the teacher’s ability to enrich student experience beyond pass or fail. By establishing space for creativity, we allow interdisciplinary knowledge and individual life experience to inform learning. Children need opportunities to explore and express their own cultures and evolving identities. This perspective is critical if we are to beget inclusive classrooms, particularly for neurodiverse and BAME students whose experiences are belittled and routinely excluded by the current educational model. It is not enough to tell students to ‘be more creative’, we must provide room for teachers to devise ways of learning which enable creative encounters. For instance, when reading a novel, rather than using conventional teacher-dominated lecturing where the teacher deciphers meaning for the class, we should be fostering student-led exploration into the multiplicity of subjective meanings a text can hold. Practically, this could be generated through a comparison of imagery that surrounds the text (i.e. book covers and film adaptations), followed by students making plot predictions that draw on prior knowledge and lived experience.

By giving space to all students' interpretations, we begin to dismantle the established hierarchy of ‘intelligence’ that is prevalent in our classrooms. Strategies such as this are plentiful in teacher resources and are worthwhile tools in the fight for creative classrooms. However, for significant change, we must abolish legislation that projects traditional ideas, such as the superior ‘English literary heritage’. The practical example above is effective  until you ascertain that the novel you are required to teach is a century old and therefore, as seasoned teacher Jane Coles summarises, “unlikely to reflect the diverse cultural traditions and practices of readers in contemporary classrooms.” If we provide teachers with autonomy to choose relatable texts that complement the diversity of their classes and trust them to teach it with creative methodologies appropriate to different learning styles, we manifest positive learning experiences. If students are permitted to individually and creatively explore education, perhaps we would not hear the comment, ‘I hated school, it was so boring’, as often.

The complex debates surrounding creativity in the classroom are considerable, and I recognise my initial observations merely scratch the surface of a long-established discourse. I am keen to learn more, particularly by gaining further teaching experience and practical experimentation. For now, it is the revelation that artistic expression can be found in educational contexts through investigation and problem-solving, that motivates me to change learning from the inside. I have decided to become a teacher because the greatest artistic challenge I have found is to create space for creativity in the face of a system that tries so hard to exclude it.

Frankie Brown is a Performance Arts graduate from the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama. She is currently completing her PGCE in English with Drama at UCL.

Bryony Moores O'Sullivan is a founding member of Chasing Cow Productions and a Theatre Practice graduate from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, who specialises in puppetry, poetry and illustration.