Re-Introducing Creative Thinking in the Classroom

As the teaching profession becomes more directed by student driven data and the expansion on
the number of standards students must learn, the practice of creativity is becoming increasingly
lost within the classroom. Creativity is a developed skill in which students think of alternative
methods to reinvent and re-image ideas. However, just because these skills are difficult to
measure does not mean that the education classroom should neglect from using them. Creativity
allows students to actually apply the content that they learned across the standards in much
deeper understanding and inventive ways. Following some of the research of Robert and
Michele Root-Bernstein, there are eight different essential creative skills that must be
reintroduced into the classroom in order for the students to become effective thinkers of the
future.
As a teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology I have the
opportunity to teach some of the most gifted students in the United States. The students are all
college bound to some of the best colleges in America, and are supposed to be the leaders of next
generation of STEM education. However, after applying some of these creative skills that
Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein describe in my own classroom, the students immediately
demonstrated increased difficulty in completing the tasks. I asked the students once to
categorize a group of historical documents through a certain perspective. After they did that I
returned to their table and told them to re-image the documents in a creative new way. Some
students looked up to me and asked I cant think of another way? What even surprised me
more is some groups did not even finish, in which they displayed much frustration due to their
usual success at completing tasks quickly.
Richard and Michele Root-Bernstein describe a similar story in their book Sparks of Genius: The
13 Thinking Tools of the Worlds Most Creative People of Nobel Peace prize winner Richard
Feynman teaching MIT undergraduate students to draw the French Curve. Feynman describes a
similar difficulty of students unable to translate their mathematical skills into application.[1] The
book is riddled with continuous examples of students at post-secondary levels struggling to think
in creative ways. The lack of creativity in the classroom permeates through all levels of our
education system. If our brightest students of the future cannot think of creative new ideas, how
are we to expect them to be innovators in the fields of science and technology?
Our education system needs to transition our classrooms to incorporate creative skills in order to
allow our students to be more successful in the future. I will discuss seven different creative
skills that can be immediately introduced into the classroom. The seven different creative skills
are re-imaging, perceiving, patterning, abstraction, embodied, modeling, and play. Creative
thinking is not limited to these seven skills; however, I wish to use these seven skills for two
main goals. The first goal is to provide teachers a starting point to introduce creative exercises
into the classroom. The second goal is to encourage the education profession to begin the
discussion on how creative thought can be reintroduced into the classroom. In order to show
some consistency in the creative thinking process many of the examples will incorporate the
concept of the American Identity.
Re-imaging is the process in which we take the purpose of an idea or object and provide an

alternative method of using it. Specifically we can further explain this process by looking at
introductory activity of Vj vu. While we often have heard of the idea Dj vu, the process of
taking something bizarre and have it oddly familiar, Vj vu provides a much different approach
where the familiar is turned into the oddly strange. For example, everybody usually has a DVD
around the house; however, we can use that DVD and re-image it into a different format. For
example below, in figure 1.1 we see the DVD in its original format, but in figure 1.2 it can also
be re-imaged to be used in alternative bizarre way as a tool of reflection.

This exercise has practical purposes within the classroom. When students are presented with a
problem, often the solution is discovered through re-imaging concepts and tools that they already
have in their minds and possession.
At times to be able to re-image, requires the ability to perceive a concept or idea in a different
fashion. Perceiving is opening your mind and letting the world it sense the world in an infinite
amount of possibilities. Often students like to perceive the world in one dimension. In a
historical classroom, this often leads students to perceive documents from their modern societal
moral codes. This causes students to see aspects of the documents out of historical context and
develop false claims. It is important for students to continuously search for alternative ways to
perceive concepts and ideas. For example lets look more thoroughly at the use of the Star
Spangle Spangled Banner. Listening to the national anthem before a sporting event invokes a
sense of national pride. There are emotions of joy and respect as people stand united watching
the flag wave. Now perceive the Star Spangled Banner and the historically original flag in a
different context. The flag has holes from ballots, there are bombs bursting in air. The context
is very different. Emotions of fear and war now present a much different picture when hearing
the song and the imagining the flag. Students now have a deeper understanding of the Star
Spangled Banner and the American flag by perceiving it in different contexts.
Using the creative skill of patterning can also further enlighten the story of the original Star
Spangled Banner Flag. Patterning is the ability of organizing and searching for reoccurring
designs. Historians often do this on a macro scale to find patterns across time periods so that
they can provide similar themes across an era. Too often people fail to neglect that his can be
done on a micro scale. If you look at the original Star Spangled Banner Flag and imagine in your
mind breaking it down to all of its elements of stripes and stars, a story emerges. We often look
for what patterns are visible, but fail to see when patterns are interrupted. With the Star
Spangled Banner Flag it becomes apparent that one of the stars is missing from the flag.
Observing when patterns are interrupted allows students to seek out additional research
opportunities to determine why this is. When the students do further research, they would have

determined that Mrs. Louisa Armistead, cut the star out to provide a patriotic honor gift to one of
her friends.
Additionally, the creative skill of abstracting is an effective tool to provide further deeper
understanding of topic. Abstracting is the ability to take a concept of reality and simplify it and
emphasize a character of the whole. At this point, it becomes clear that these tools are used to
complement each other. For example if we continue to evaluate the American Identity. The
American Identity is usually taught within classrooms as a singular concept. It is rarely
abstracted into various pieces, emphasizing a character of the whole. In figure 1.3, the American
Identity is abstracted into its various districts and in figure 1.4 the American Identity is
abstracted into the individual people that make up the American
identity.

acting the American Identity and emphasizing its smaller components, students can now perceive
the American Identity in a country full of division rather than in a whole unified identity. The
follow up questions can then be asked are peoples lives affected more on the micro level
(hometowns, friends, and community) or by what is more often considered the federal
government. Abstracting can often be used to challenge existing ideas, which allow students to
pursue high level thinking.
To further encourage our students to develop creative thinking skills, embodiment, needs to be
re-entered into the classroom. Embodiment is altering your perspective to feel and sense an
object or concept that you would not usually consider to alter. It is not often considered to
embody the American flag, but it has very practical purposes to enhance a students
understanding of the American Identity. Using a thought experiment to embody the American
flag at a sporting events game allows students to understand themes of the American Identity.
By embodying the American flag, one would feel a sense of unity and pride as people surround it
as they sing the Star Spangled Banner. In addition if we can embody a battle flag of a Civil War
battle field, which provides a very in depth story of the soldiers who are fighting. Holes are torn
through the flag as men follow it into battle. This context provides an alternate picture which
enhances their understanding of the topic.
One of the most under represented use of creative skills that are being forgotten in the classroom
is modeling and playing. Modeling is taking the complexity of a concept and simplifying it
through representations or simulations for easier understanding. This can be done in a variety of

different methods. Playing is the action of the students interacting or modeling with the
content. Playing is an action that is often performed in the lower educational level, but is
forgotten as students are pressured to learn the increasingly number of standards. Modeling and
playing have a significant role though expanding the understanding of the content. In order to
model concept students must have complete understanding of the topic to narrow it into its
simpler components. In addition, for a student to play, they must have in-depth knowledge of a
topic to actively engage in dialogue.
In my classroom, I often have the students perform an exercise called Meeting of the Minds[1]
throughout the year. For example, students are assigned historical characters in Antebellum
America. The students are asked to research their character and to embody/play their character
in the meeting. Students will bring questions to ask the group as well ones directed toward
individuals. During this meeting of the minds they must try to determine: What is the American
Identity? By playing student take individual concepts and discusses them in overwhelming
complexity. They begin to understand the relationship between characters as well as how the
American Identity was evolving in Antebellum America. Playing is misperceived as a childish
act, but the reality is that it has a significant place within higher level classrooms by allow
students to actively engage in the complexity of issues.
As discussed, the re-introduction of creative thinking skills into the classroom has a significant
impact in providing students the tools necessary to be pioneering thinkers of the future. The
examples provided, demonstrate how these creative skills can be used to further engage a topic in
addition on how they can be used to complement each other. In essence, classrooms should not
focus on just one of these skills, but use them in combination. It is the exploration of these skills
that allow students to effectively understand a concept way beyond tradition teaching methods,
and allows teachers to cover a broad spectrum of standards that they are required to meet. The
seven skills described are meant to be a starting point for teachers to immediately introduce them
within their classroom, but more importantly begin this dialogue in the educational community
on the place that creative thinking skills have within the classroom. Further exploration of these
creative thinking skills needs to be continued and methods refined to develop their role in the
modern classroom.
References
[1]

-Bernstein. Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen

Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. Print.