Creativity: Problem Solving and Creative Thinking Skills
Creativity is one of the most important abilities for all people, particularly children. Creative thinking skills bring numerous benefits to develop children’s important abilities and characteristics. However, there are obstacles that hinder the abilities of children to think creatively. This essay will analyse the importance of creative thinking skills for primary school students and propose techniques to teach students to think creatively.
Research shows that children have natural abilities to think creatively and numerous abilities to explore, develop, combine and arrange new ideas. However, traditional teaching techniques hinder their ability to think creatively.
First, rote learning is the most traditional technique of teaching and studying, which hinders children’s ability to think creatively. Learners use their memory to remember information without the use of basic understanding to store information (Collins, 2009). Children easily lose information when they learn by rote. “We now have several generations of Americans who have never memorized much of anything” (Beran ,2004). Thus, rote learning makes children learn by repetition, so they can not think deeply about a topic. Second, outdated teaching methods make a passive environment at schools, which hinders the creativity of children. Research shows that children in traditional classes are much quieter and they may just listen to the teacher passively and are scared to make mistakes (Bettelheim, 2010). Also, the Eastern teacher ignores elements such as inherent interest, emotional engagement, social interaction, physical activity and the pleasure of mastery (Bettelheim, 2010). This causes children to not want to study and they are not interested to think of everything around them.
Primary schools should actively teach creative thinking skills because of its benefits for children. There are many actions related to creative thinking, such as imagination, observation and brain storming.
Research shows that children have natural abilities to think creatively and numerous abilities to explore, develop, combine and arrange new ideas. However, traditional teaching techniques hinder their ability to think creatively.
First, rote learning is the most traditional technique of teaching and studying, which hinders children’s ability to think creatively. Learners use their memory to remember information without the use of basic understanding to store information (Collins, 2009). Children easily lose information when they learn by rote. “We now have several generations of Americans who have never memorized much of anything” (Beran ,2004). Thus, rote learning makes children learn by repetition, so they can not think deeply about a topic. Second, outdated teaching methods make a passive environment at schools, which hinders the creativity of children. Research shows that children in traditional classes are much quieter and they may just listen to the teacher passively and are scared to make mistakes (Bettelheim, 2010). Also, the Eastern teacher ignores elements such as inherent interest, emotional engagement, social interaction, physical activity and the pleasure of mastery (Bettelheim, 2010). This causes children to not want to study and they are not interested to think of everything around them.
Primary schools should actively teach creative thinking skills because of its benefits for children. There are many actions related to creative thinking, such as imagination, observation and brain storming.