Creativity is a subjective thing, generally considered an inherent trait and one of the most associated with “soft” school subjects like music and art class. Either you have creativity or not, right? But is that really true? Can children in particular be taught how to be more creative and that can happen in science class? I think so and here’s why.
Rote learning stifles creativity
In the public school setting, creative responses and solutions are often not appreciated. And it’s no wonder with all the bureaucracy and national requirements that teachers face these days. They are more concerned with getting their children to pass standard tests than encouraging them to think of new ways to tackle old problems. Fortunately, as a homeschool teacher, you can overcome those barriers to creativity.
The biggest obstacle to promoting creativity in the classroom is rote learning – asking your children to simply memorize facts out of context. There is nothing creative about that kind of learning and it can actually be detrimental in the way that it discourages children from thinking outside the box or making decisions for themselves.
Let’s look at an example. If you are teaching astronomy this semester, you may be studying the planets in our solar system which, of course, revolve around our sun. That’s a fact, but pretty boring. Your kids may be memorizing the names and orders of all those planets, again a fact, but not one that excites them. And learning those random facts does not result in good retention because they are not associated with things within the child’s environment.
Exploration promotes creativity
No matter what subject you are teaching in the classroom at home, it can be creative learning if you help them explore new knowledge and allow mistakes to be made. Children are much more likely to get creative when presented with “what if” questions with no obvious answers.
In the astronomy teaching example above, an easy way to get creative is to ask students to create a model of the solar system as they discuss color options based on what each planet’s atmosphere is like. As you do so, have your children explore why or why not humans might one day live on other planets. Ask them about the elements necessary to support life and discuss which planets are most likely to contain those elements. There was a recent scientific discovery of a new planet in the Alpha Centauri system closest to our own, which is very similar in size to Earth. Exploring science news like this opens the door to creative exploration.
When it comes to teaching science, experimentation should be an important aspect of the curriculum. And there are few things better for promoting creativity than the ability to formulate hypotheses and then run experiments to find out if they are supported or false. The less knowledge a child has at their disposal, the more likely those hypotheses are outlandish, but that’s okay. You can hone your knowledge based on facts about the natural world as you progress through the basics of science. So making mistakes is itself an integral part of creativity because it leads to exploring how to get it right next time.
Giving children the answers to each problem and asking them to memorize those facts is one way to teach science, but a more effective way that also promotes creativity is by allowing them to explore knowledge. Help them get excited about the wonders of the natural world and they are sure to come up with all sorts of great new ideas. Creativity can be taught as long as the homeschool classroom encourages it.
