Developing Creative Ecologies in Schools: Assessing creativity in schools.

de Bruin, Leon; Harris, Anne M.

Creativity has a significant role to play in how educational praxis evolves to meet the demands of future workforces and their lifelong learning. There now exists an abundance of discourse activity pertaining to creativity in education that stress nurturing it as an essential yet complex and multifaceted aspect of education. The need to recalibrate creativity in education beyond simplistic notions of accommodating creative industries and domain-centred thinking is stimulated by more holistic and ecologically responsible and responsive organisational and pedagogical practices. This article details findings from a three-year international study of creativity in Australian, Singaporean, American and Canadian secondary schools. A Whole School Creativity Audit that considers school policies, teacher pedagogies, the nurturing of student and teacher practices and processes for creativity, school environments and local/global creative partnerships is posited. Whole-school engagement in cultivating united, interconnected understandings and practicalities, and interdisciplinarity that fosters 'wise creativity' as a holistic ecological approach in schools is identified as a crucial component of a modern education.

CREATIVE ability; SECONDARY schools; EDUCATION

Australian Art Education, 2017, Vol 38, Issue 2, p244

1032-1942

Academic Journal