1. The Role of Creativity in the Classroom Edris Khamissa www.ehk.co.za

2. Lets see your creative side! On a piece of paper draw a square of nine dot like this Did you think out of the box? If Yes -Well done Mr or Mrs Creative! If No – Don’t Worry Creativity is a skill that can be developed Now see if you can connect the dots with four consecutive straight lines, that is, without taking your pencil off the paper You have one minute to complete the task.

3. The essence of the creative act is to the see the familiar as strange The real magic of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but having new eyes. Students want and need work that permits them to express their autonomy and originality, enabling them to discover who they are and who they want to be What is creativity?

4. Why is creativity vital? No one has a clue about what the world will look like in 5 years’ time and we are supposed to be educating them for it Extraordinary capacities children have for innovation All children have extraordinary talents and we squander them ruthlessly Creativity is as important as literacy and we need to treat it with the same status

5. Creative learning - a learning development or an educational development? Kids will take a chance and if they do not know they will have a go If you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original When children become adults they will be afraid to be wrong Mistakes are stigmatised

6. The stifling of creativity… We are educating children out of creativity We do not grow into creativity; we grow out of creativity-rather we get educated out of creativity Every system of education has the same hierarchy of subjects-at the top Mathematics and Languages, then Humanities and in the bottom the arts As children grow up we progressively teach them from the waist up then we focus on their heads and slightly to one side

7. Academic Inflation Vs Creative Deflation The whole purpose of education is to produce university professors Education system is predicated on the idea on academic ability Education is used to prepare students for industrialised society Education is a protracted process for university entrance Degrees are not worth anything

8. Walking the Creative Path…. We need to radically rethink our view of education. We know three things about intelligence- Diverse, Dynamic and Distinct Creativity is having original ideas that have values Our education has mined our minds We need to educate the whole being