Creativity and Motivation
Tuesday 9 March 2010
Hello.
What triggered my interest in creativity and language teaching was a study I conducted some years back. I asked some colleagues A. what motivated them to teach and B. what made them stay in this field (given the hardships). I must say I was surprised to see that for many, having a go at designing their own exercises, adapting coursebooks, in other words, being creative, was very important and was considered one of the reason behind their career choice. I was even more surprised when I saw that for some others having a go at being creative in the classroom was their very raison d’etre. I remember Tim, who’s also a sculptor, speaking of his approach to a lesson as being very similar to the way he approaches a new work of art (shaping the reality of things, as he put it). There were some other very convincing, strong comments.
My own idea is that creativity and teacher motivation work hand in hand and that since students are much more reactive to more creative teaching, they’ll achieve better results in terms of their own motivation to learn. Which, will, in turn fuel the teachers’ motivation to be more creative, and so on in a (hopefully endless) cycle.
Have a good day.
14 responses to Creativity and Motivation
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Dear Chaz
Congratulations!
Dangerous thing, creativity in this world of evidence gathering, accountability, assessment of value added etc! Who knows where creativity will end up? — perhaps debunking the above terms or at least taking the distrust out of the current authoritarian discourse and
restoring trust, confidence, joy in the fact that each one of us is a unique and endlessly creative individual, at least potentially.
I want to read your book.
Warm wishes
Robert
Hi Chaz,
I agree that teacher motivation and creativity go hand in hand.
The highlights of my career were periods when I managed to ‘excite’ myself with something new in the classroom. This could be a task, a larger project or a whole course.
Some 10 years ago we set up a complex art and English teaching course at my primary school. The art teacher and me plus the kids was working together for a whole year on the basis of a joint and flexible syllabus. It was compiled around a story we developed together with the kids throughout the school-year. It was real adventure both for the teachers and for the pupils and we enjoyed every moment of it.
I put a huge amount of time, energy and enthusiasm in preparing for the lessons and managing the process. I often found myself sitting at the table at midnight drawing pictures in the class storybook or designing task sheets. I worked really hard but my learners’ reactions and the creativity they contributed to the lessons with gave me new and new inspiration and energy.
Lessons were not ‘lessons’ any more, we were participants of a journey in which we new our destination but the routes we were taking were not pre-determined. We could create our own world which was personal and meaningful to us…
The kids I was referring to above are about 20 yrs old now, most of them studying at universities and learning their 2nd or 3rd foreign languages. When we meet in town sometimes, they happily to recall details of the lessons and the time we spent together…
Lívia
Dear Chaz,
the European Commission published a report recently entitled Study on the Contribution of Multilingualism to Creativity. The report includes recent findings from the neurosciences and reveals that there is an increasing body of evidence revealing ” …a greater potential for creativity amongst those who know more than one language. … even very limited exposure to second language learning is now under the spotlight within the neurosciences. Changes in the brain’s electrical activity may occur much earlier than previously thought. The neuronal structures are highly likely to influence change.”
Now, I am deeply involved in teaching small children, where one of the major issues is whether it really is a good idea to start early. These recent brain research findings give me great motivation in my work. Any evidence that tells me that learning an additional language may bring benefits that go beyond the ability to use the language itself also tells me that I am onto a good thing when I promote early learning. I am saying this to tell you how research in general, and so your new book can help us teachers. So thanks and congratulations. Your book will tell me more about creativity. I am looking forward to reading it.
You can access the report at http://bit.ly/multiling
Best wishes,
Kati
Hi Kati,
thanks for your post and the link.
There’s certainly no shortage of studies on multilingualism, and FLA. It seems to me, though, that the jury is out on so many different issues. Perhaps our policy-makers would do well to read up on recent research: the studies/books I have read so far don’t all lead to the earlier=better paradigm that rakes in so many votes…
Chaz
Hi Robert,
thanks for your comment. I agree: educational systems seem to value standards and conformity over original thinking. We have sacrificed learning for higher scores, we have become assessment machines, and in some cases, we have even managed to replace the most basic, sensible of questions, i.e. What’s good for the kids? with What’s good for the corporations? etc. It’s a sad state of affairs, as I see it. And then we complain about our students’(and the teachers’) lack of motivation. I guess the question really is: what does it mean to be (well) educated? Alfie Kohn has written an interesting book to address this issue. It is clear that the status quo doesn’t promote creative teaching, but it stifles and reduces it to an optional extra. I am very much against this way of thinking, and I know you are too. So, what to do? Quite a few things, I believe: A. de-grading the system is as obvious as it is urgent: schools have placed too much emphasis on extrinsic rewards.B. More emphasis on surprise, inquiry and discovery.Students have creative talents in spades, let’s tap (more) into those. C. Dare. Get out of our comfort zones. We need to take more risks.
In my book, I write about risk-taking as being one key strategy on the path to creativity. There’s no magic wand, of course, but I think there’s a lot we can do.
Cheers.
Chaz
Hi Livia,
many thanks for sharing your experience.
I loved the bit when you say ‘Lessons were not ‘lessons’ any more, we were participants of a journey in which we new our destination but the routes we were taking were not pre-determined. We could create our own world which was personal and meaningful to us…’ I have always looked at a journey as the perfect metaphor for creativity, being on the road, the thrills, the bumps, the many serendipitous encounters, the calm chaos of not exactly knowing what to look for and yet the awareness of being on a quest for something big…
Take care.
Chaz
Hello there Chaz
Congratulations on your new book!
I agree that creativity and teacher motivation are very much connected, but what I also find important is the teacher’s freedom. I can be more creative if I’m free to improvise in class. I’m really lucky that in my teaching situation I don’t have to rigorously follow some curriculum and can afford to often go with the flow. As a young teacher I used to stick to my lesson plan, now I allow myself to go where the group leads and change activities on the spot when I think someting different would suit the situation better.
I don’t think that in my case this transition from a rigid to a much more loose lesson plan happened because of some drastic change in my understanding teaching. No. I simply got more experienced and by knowing more and seeing a bigger picture I could become more daring, and therefore more creative.
Cheerio
Mojca
Hi Mojca.
Thanks for this.
Your comment deals with obstacles to creativity and it raises an important issue, well, two actually.
One: teachers dare to be creative and stray from the true and tried, ONLY if and when they’re supported by the environment. Like you, I, too, have been lucky in that respect in that I have worked for schools that value teaching over testing, don’t adopt prescriptive attitudes and leave the teachers free to experiment and develop, for their own sake, and for the sake of their students. But I’m fully aware we may be the minority. Many others wishing to go down that path may hesitate because their colleagues, management, parents wouldn’t approve. There are no magic wands, but perseverance is what I would advise. Changes in education don’t happen overnight.
Two: the ten-year rule is pretty much firmly established in creativity research: apparently, one can only say something GENUINELY original if they have’ve worked in a given field for 10 years. I think this is true for teachers, too. So what you say about your own experience seems to be in line with research. That being said, I wonder if creativity was formally taught in TT programs, perhaps teachers would start experimenting sooner?
Chaz
Sometimes I ask myself how can I make my students work more effectively.It’s been always weird to realize that the time which I devote to preparation for the lessons is not comparable with the expected results. Then I have to come back to the beginning and think about the factors that caused my activities not as attractive and loved as I suppossed them to be.
So during my teaching years I’ve tried a lot things, using many techniques and methods how to make my lessons and activities funny and interesting not only for the ones who are creating them but also for those who are learning them, as well. I do believe that if you allow your students to modify the implementation of the activities by themselves they will become more spontanous and open to cooperate which eventually can lead to their better motivation.And this the aim of my lessons – to make my students think and speak.
I admire all teachers who haven’t resigned and keep moving on to show the students that creativity is something which we really can develop.
So I thank you, Chaz, for giving us new ideas.
Hello Patia,
many thanks for this.
I also like it when the students misunderstand the instructions and go on to do a totally different exercise than the one you (thought) had asked them to do in the first place! I’m sure it’s happened to you too?
Chaz
Dear Chaz,
BIG contratulations on you new book.I want to get hold of it, to love it, to hate bits of it, to be wowed by other parts, to look out of new windows across
new landscapes to feel and hear the voice of a much cared for colleague.
There is a big thrill in holding your first book in your own two hands. Enjoy, appreciate and love what you have done both for yourself and for your many readers between now and 2030.
Thank you, Mario. REALLY looking forward to hearing about the bits you’ll hate so that we can battle it out bare-knuckles!!
Cheers. Chaz
Dear Chaz,
Here and there I have read about the idea of “getting into flow”, I think that I somehow do manage this from time to time.
How are the ideas of “creativity” and “getting into flow ” linked a) in your own experience, b) in what you have observed in your students and c)in your reading?
Mario ( I am already doing knuckle-hardening exercises !)
Hi Mario, many thanks for this.
Well, creativity and flow are directly linked and operate hand in hand. Creativity is about generating novelty. The process of generating something new is one of the most enjoyable activities humans can experience (enjoyable being a KEY word here). So, writing this book was for me experiencing flow first-hand, but so is playing my guitar, as is for you gardening or cooking, I imagine, apart from writing etc.
According to M. Csikzentmihalyi, we’re in a state of flow when we’re so focused on a task that we manage to block out all distractions and we become totally oblivious of time. So, it’s a very high, intense degree of concentration on a task that is enjoyable and that is in the here and now.
It’s not easy to get the students in a state of flow, but it’s not impossible either, in particular if:
1. We provide them with plenty opportunities to enjoy themselves in class. Csikzentmihalyi said that if educators invested a fraction of their time in making their lessons more fun, the students’ motivation would increase dramatically.
2. If the students don’t have to worry about failure. If they have to think about the potential negative consequences of their activities in class, students won’t be immersed in what they have to do.
3. If, in designing or doing an exercise in class, we manage to strike the right balance between the students’ skills and the challenge we provide. In flow, the abilities need to match the level of challenge required by the task.
A couple of years back there was an interesting study in the ELTJ on flow and students, but i don’t remember much, do you? Anyone out there?
Cheers.