PART B

Creativity in the Classroom

By referring to the video, Catherine Thimmesh expressed her ideas about how do we
commence Thinking Out Of The Box in children learning process. As an author, she was
surprised because in general, pupils are going through a rigid process where ideas are given to
them by the teachers. Meaning that pupils only have to choose whatever answers or idea they
like after being provided to them. She raised her concern about how pupils are unable or not
given chances by the teachers to express their very own ideas; even it will sometimes contradict
with other peoples expression.
In my opinion, the conventional education system nowadays only let the pupils to follow
the rules of thinking only set by the education system. Teachers tend to ask pupils to stay inside
the boxes of thinking, which were created or prepared earlier by the teachers themselves. Those
boxes may be suited to some pupils who have the same ideas proposed by the teachers. This kind
of pupils will forever eagerly waiting their teachers to spoon-feed them with ideas. However, for
another kind of pupils who have their own ideas may seem this situation as an oppression to their
ability to think. They would feel like they are not given chances to speak, to express their
thoughts. After all, what they really want to do is just their creativity is being listened by their
teachers. It is just that. In other words, these pupils are the independent and creative kind of
pupils. The way they feel their teacher is passionate about teaching them is totally different from
the spoon-fed group of pupils. The normal pupils may think that they are being appreciated by
the teachers from getting handfuls of ideas but the creative group of pupils may think that they
are being wasted by their teacher. I think this is why Catherine Thimmesh felt a bit worried about
the current situation in education system and yet we still wanting for the next generation to be
improvised than us.
This is what she said about how todays pupils are being confined into stereotype ideas.
Pupils creativity is being neglected since pupils are put into a condition where creativity is not
nurtured. They just learn to follow whatever ideas presented to them rather than trained to be the
one who founded an idea of something.

By relating this into current situation in our country, educators especially the primary
school teachers should encourage our pupils to be outspoken; with manners for sure. Teachers
should make themselves look friendly to the pupils instead giving them a dictator image when
conducting the lesson inside the classroom. This is what being asked by the new curriculum. The
new method of fun learning that is hopefully can increase and expand the ability of our pupils
creativeness. Teachers must develop their pupils to be brave enough to come out in front of their
classroom and present their ideas without being afraid or ashamed of rejection. The moment the
teachers let their pupils to speak out in front of his classmates, the pupils will immediately feel
proud and gain some confidence inside them. They will also feel that their teachers appreciate
them very much, listen to what are they going to say. Eventually, their ideas will spark and rush
every time they are put into a situation such as brainstorming activities and problem solving.
Catherine Thimmesh also asked her audiences about why is it creativity in the classroom
are so important. When talking about future creations and innovations such as jet packs and
flying cars, she inflicts the audiences about how creativity today is so related to the future. It is
because we are preparing a better future for the next generation. Thus, creativity is a salient tool
to get a satisfying outcome. I believe that she dont want the next generation become stagnant.
She want us especially the teachers to be inspired, to be motivated to accept the challenge and
work together towards the promising future. Hence, there is no other way to be success except by
enduring whatever challenges that will come upon us from every possible direction.
Although she is suggesting that nobody knows what will the future be look like, I think
that we should packed up our pupils with as much as skills for them to be adaptive, to stay fit in
the future world. As for me, creativity will make the person stay and tries to overcome his
problems since he was taught to be brave and not giving up when facing any challenge. He will
try any possibilities to solve some problems or issues not because he wants to prove something
or not but because he was raised to be creative. It can be said that when creativity is in someones
blood, that person is up to challenge and know how to suit in whatever field hes being asked to
stay. By developing a creative generation, we will make any innovation faster upon completion
because there will be efficiency since a lot of creative ideas being shared together to achieve the
objectives.

In next chapter of her speech, Catherine Thimmesh emphasized that creativity is not a
selective talent but more like ability that everyone has. Many people think that creativity is a
gifted ability to certain people only; without them realizing that they are having that ability too.
Creativity inside pupils should be discovered earlier since they were still toddlers. Education
should starts from home as parents are also teachers. Education authorities and organizations
should cooperate and spread the knowledge and techniques to the parents on how to discover and
increase their kids creativeness ability. Furthermore in developed countries, some parents choose
to do home-schooling for their children. If there is no support from those agencies, I afraid that
the children will be left behind and what they may learn at home may be outdated unlike what
their friends learnt in formal school.
If I may suggest, I would like to see a programme where parents and teachers could share
their ideas and generate a solution to enhance the creativity of their children. As for an example,
the Ministry of Education could make a research on how to achieve a creative way of thinking
among the pupils. Related agencies or authorities can get feedback from their respondents and
could tailor a creativity discovery module. Since human are categorized into multiple
intelligences, hopefully with the aid of creativity discovery module will make ones intelligence
far greater than before. This is because I am very sure that creativity is a major thing to help
pupils or anybody to be excelled in any kind of task they may involved.
This is why the speaker also suggested that our education system must inject the element
of creativity into the syllabus. Teachers nowadays are more likely mentors or facilitators to their
pupils. The era of chalk and talk is no more relevant for the current generation. Teacher-centered
learning should now shift into pupils-centered learning due more ideas could be bloomed in a
conducive classroom. Teachers just need to guide the learning process of their pupils rather than
telling to do this and that. Accepting their answers will make pupils feel more confident and they
will not think that their ideas are somewhat small ideas. In the future they will gradually
accumulate their experiences in terms of creative thinking and then able to overcome any
situation or problem given to them.

As for the next speaker, I am also agreeing with his sharing about the new definition of
creativity. Jonathan Tilley in his video said that the definition of creativity stated in Merriam
Webster: Dictionary and Thesaurus is so boring due to the definition hasnt even touch the
surface of the meaning itself. According to the online dictionary, creativity is the ability to make
new things or think of new ideas which is too general for him. Jonathan Tilley then showed a
finding about creativity definition obtained from a research. The respondents had redefined the
meaning of creativity by suggesting that creativity is love, secret, feeling, force, and many more.
The speaker then talked about how creativity is not something we could teach except it is a
natural learning process for a human by experiencing a situation where creativity is needed and
applied. He also added that creativity is individual as it is universal, and is affected by the
environment too. A person who stays in a positive environment will produce the positive
outcomes rather than a person who is living in a negative situation and then shows only the
negative outcomes. Therefore, creativity can be done in a good way or vice versa.
Sacred places also contribute to the creativity process. It depends on the scope of
creativity too. As an example, a sacred place for a writer is the library. It is a suitable place for
the writer to feel motivated and then feels the rush of ideas coming through his mind since the
ambience of the place is more encouraging him. Watching the other books being read by the
readers will motivate the writer to write his book with wonderful ideas. The speaker then shared
his true story about his visit of an remote island in Polynesia wheres the small island is about
being wiped out from the map due to global warming. He shared how sacred place really assist
him to outflow his ideas on preparing a short yet serious documentary of that island. The main
idea here is the speaker wants to emphasize that how many ideas can be obtained during a person
calms and stay in a sacred zone to creatively generate some thoughts.
From my observation, this can be related to the pupils in school too. Teachers have to
play their roles and creatively create a sacred zone to the pupils. Although the pupils only stay
inside their classroom for the whole day, teachers may do something on the comfort ability,
ambient, lighting and many more as long as the pupils feel eager to stay inside their lovely
classroom. Teachers should let them feel how sacred their classroom is.

As for the last speaker, Carol Read explained that there a seven ways to promote
creativity albeit the target group of the students age. Creativity doesnt happen is a stressful
condition but taken place after getting stimulations appropriately. Teacher must get the pupils and
engage them to take part into the activities planned for them. By doing this, the pupils attention
will automatically draw into what are they going to achieve in that lesson or activity. The pupils
also will stay focus on what they are doing since they have motivated themselves earlier during
the engaging stage of activity.
She suggests that to bring out the creativity inside the pupils, teachers have to build up
the positive self esteem in their pupils. Encouraging the pupils will energize them to get involve
inside the learning process. Second way is teachers have to be a creativity model themselves.
This is because pupils are also observing their teachers. Third way is giving the pupils choices so
that they would feel some freedom to express their opinions. Fourth way is teachers must use
questions correctly where the efficiency of the lesson is affected by questioning process too.
Asking simple and clear question for an example could make the pupils feel less stressful since
they know what does the teacher really wants to know from them. Long-winded questions will
only make the pupils lost in space. Fifth way is making connection between all aspects related to
the learning process. Therefore pupils can see the bigger picture of what they are doing. Sixth
way is exploring ideas gained from the earlier process. Doing mind map will make the pupils
understand that the flow of their creativity sometimes must be organized because scrambled
ideas can lead into some problems in the future. For the last method of promoting creativity, she
suggest that a session of critical reflection must be promoted by the teachers, not for looking for
other pupils mistake but to improvise the ideas that were told earlier.
As a conclusion, I can say that as a teacher, we should cooperate to nurture the creativity
inside our pupils. The ideas shared by the above-mentioned speakers are really wonderful and
mind-opening too for me. It makes me feel motivated to provide and be the part of the best
education system the world can have.