Not in all cases. I can say that some schools did not create an enabling environment to bring out creativity in their students.
When we have unprofessional teachers ( those with no educational qualifications), no good pay packages for the teachers, no enough resources for teachers and students to work with among other. These can hinder process of bringing out creativity in students.
It depends on the definition applied to the term 'creativity'; for example creative teaching and learning, creative problem solving or creative artefact production. Reading around the various forums, journals and press reports provides a clear picture of creative teaching and learning generally, but in the UK there has been a worrying shift towards education valued principally as the accumulation of knowledge. See the discussions between John White and Michael Young as examples (e.g., http://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/Images/166279-the-curriculum-and-the-entitlement-to-knowledge-prof-michael-young.pdf and https://www.newvisionsforeducation.org.uk/about-the-group/home/2012/05/14/powerful-knowledge-too-weak-a-prop-for-the-traditional-curriculum/)
The idealistic position (knowledge accumulation) has to some extent led to the demise of some UK curriculum subjects such as Design and Technology, Art and Drama as these subjects are not valued as significant 'pillars' of knowledge and are often not included in the judgements made about the success of schools. The situated and procedural aspect of the knowledge generated within these types of subjects is often either ignored or misunderstood. The creative thinking opportunity provided by these subjects is therefore also reduced.
In his book "Teach Like your Hair is on fire", Raef Esquith discusses teaching sports and the different approaches which can be taken. His preference is to explain the rules and let the students play, say baseball or football, and when needed provided more information about interpretations or formations or technical training, etc. etc. His approach is that if you let them play the game, the game has a chance to teach them how to play the game.
At the Tertiary level, in her book "The Anatomy of Judgement", Minnie Abercrombie a biologist by training, investigates how we learn, how we perceive other people and how we might deal more effectively with our perceptions of others. While teaching medical students she became aware of the unscientific approach many science students adopted to the physical world. In particular she describes how more effective trainee doctors would be if they collaborated when examining a patient instead of trying to conduct an assessment on their own.
Collaborative learning is much more effective in the sciences than being talked to, at or on behalf of students. Some suggestions for more effective and creative ways of engaging with students are:
Collaborative learning and the 'conversation of mankind.' KA Bruffee, 1997.
The Reverse Jigsaw- A Process of Cooperative Learning and Discussion - Timothy Hedeen 2003.
Where's the evidence that active learning works? - Michael 2006.
These papers will give enough sources for you to structure and carry out your own effective teaching program.
I like to give my students a choice of research projects, especially at the graduate level. My choose to do the traditional term paper. But a growing number of students have chosen to construct a research poster and enter it into an academic competition with other universities (either physical or virtual poster competitions)
This depends on the development of the educational system, the level of social welfare, the interest of the Government in developing and empowerment of the generations in addition to the level of social welfare
Excellent contributions by respected RG colleagues. I believe there are schools that are really responsible to bringing the best in their students in making them creative and making good use of their God's given talents but other schools should follow suit.
Do Schools Provide Students With Enough Opportunities to Be Creative?
Generally no. However, some schools / teachers might inject additional resources / training to help students to be more creative.
Also want to share this - recently I'd attended a webinar by Walter Vandervelde, finding his constraint suite / creativity techniques very useful to train us including researchers, project manager or even teacher & students to be more creative. His constraint suite includes the following techniques:
The Frugalizor
Tree of Trade
The Propeller
Casual Constraint Contenst
The River
You can access the above from this website or search from YouTube:
Schools provide opportunities for creativity and diversity. although in government sector teachers have pressure to complete their course within specific time. In private sector there is also same situation as teachers are bound to complete their course in same way.
Students only become creative when instructors demonstrate what they don't know in the field of designing. Then this triggers their creative level as they dig out what is buried in them.
I think - no. Sometimes, the curriculum is overcrowded, sometimes teachers don't think that creativity is so important (''students need to know something printed in the textbook''), sometimes there isn't enough time to deal with creative tasks... Of course, I believe that there are many positive examples, but the common situation is teacher's orientation towards contents and its' interpretation and not to students and their creativity.