According to Dearborn Public School, when young children engage in expressive art activities, they;

• Can give vent to thoughts and emotions in healthy, growth producing ways
• Gain a sense of accomplishment which helps move them along the path toward self-affirmation.
• Dare to try new ways of doing things
• Develop the ability to make choices
• Grow toward achieving independence and autonomy
• Appreciate the value of tools in human hands
• Learn about the properties of a variety of materials
• Begin to accept and value the work of others as well as their own
• Heighten their perceptual powers
• Grow to meet new challenges with greater flexibility
• Come to appreciate the aesthetic elements in their environment

Why teach creativity?

“Creative competence is like a sport. You can train for it and increase the capacities of yourself and your organization. If you get good at it, you can also transform it into real economic value on a massive scale.”

Read more about how creativity can be harnessed in organisations from Bruce Nussbaum here.

Create the conditions to unlearn

“The world is full of examples of  once regarded “truths” that needed to be “unlearned”: Pluto as a planet, doctors “unlearning” to use a scalpel to perform certain surgeries, world is not flat, etc.  In fact, a review of the scientific discoveries for 2012 reveal a laundry list of some recent “unlearning” in the science community. How about in education?  I wonder, for example, how effective have we been in implementing what the science community has “unlearned” in terms of how the human brain learns into today’s classrooms and schools?”

Read more to find out how you can create the conditions to ‘unlearn’ in your classroom.