“If you want creative children, give them enough time to play and ask questions.”
Anjali
When I was a substituting in high school, I decided to play the same game I use to play with my fourth-grade students. I made a small chalk mark on the blackboard and asked the students to identify it. “It’s a chalk mark on the blackboard,” someone said after a few seconds. The rest of the class breathed a sigh of relief because the obvious had been stated, and no one else had anything to say.
“You all surprised me,” I said, looking around the classroom. “I did the same exercise with a kindergarten class yesterday, and they came up with about fifty different ideas: an owl’s eye, a squashed insect, and so on.” Their imaginations were genuinely running wild.
Even now, many years later, I can vividly recall how much excitement and different imaginations arose.
From kindergarten to high school, we learned to find the right answer, but we also lost the ability to look for other right answers and a lot of imaginative capacity.
Childhood is, by definition, a time for experimentation.
Day after day, the succession of discoveries causes the child to have intense cognitive activity, leading to never-ending stories, “little daring,” imagination, and the ability to believe in fairy tales. Unfortunately, this stage does not last long.
The majority of adults did not have access to adequate education, and the school was to blame. But when does the break with creativity – or at least, the withdrawal – occur?
We want our children to be creative
We want our children to be creative, yet we frequently unintentionally ruin it. Tolerance, patience, openness, and acceptance are all required to encourage creativity. These attributes are frequently lacking in overworked instructors and overburdened parents.
1. Too Much Screen Time
Instead of exploring new interests and cultivating their imagination, today’s children spend all their free time glued to a screen. A child needs time and resources to develop the creative thinking skills that will allow them to discover their own dreams. Shouldn’t we instead invest in providing them with that?
2. Discouraging querries
Young people who think outside the box tend to have a lot of questions. A child’s question that you might find inane may actually be crucial to their developing mind. Never dismiss a child’s inquiries.
3. Constraining the Freedom of Selection
Children learn to follow the rules and do what is expected of them when they are all given the same assignment at the same time in the classroom. Great for memorizing facts and passing tests, but not so great for coming up with original ideas.
4. Accepting only one right answer
Children need to solve problems on their own. When we label one way right and all others wrong, we lose the chance to find what works for each person.
5. Giving Example
When a teacher asks questions and gives examples, it stifles students’ creative potential. Then, the majority of the time, students will use the same example but change the answer slightly.
6. Discouraging Ideas
Young people are constantly inspired to try new things. It’s obvious to us now that some of them are doomed to fail. This is what we tell them, discrediting their idea and all the confidence and optimism they had in it. It is preferable to prompt curiosity and investigation by asking questions. These flaws will probably be found by the kid on her own.
7. Over Burden
Children today are so overburdened with schoolwork that.. every waking moment of the day is filled with an activity, leaving no time for contemplation, for being alone with one’s thoughts or for pursuing an idea.
How to act with the elementary school and high school students
Allowing students to ask questions, develop and test hypotheses, disagree, propose alternative interpretations, and critically evaluate facts, concepts, principles, and ideas is critical.
Furthermore, the teacher must respect the issues raised, whether they are banal and irrelevant or “smart” and well-formulated. Because not every idea comes to the student immediately and spontaneously, the teacher must also give the student time to develop their creativity.
The threat and fear that pervade our schools must give way to the desire to risk, experiment, and manipulate; the fear of failure and criticism that pervade our students must be eliminated. It takes away the freedom to try new things and experiment without worrying about being judged.
We should value student work, contributions and ideas. In general, our greatest tendency is to make negative comments, communicating to the student only the extent of their mistakes, highlighting their failures and incompetence. Very seldom do you hear a teacher say to a student, “How capable you are!” “Great, how original your idea is!” “How well you wrote!”
Must read: How to talk about racism with children
On the other hand, we know that every human being, whether a child, adolescent or adult, has a basic need to be accepted, to be esteemed, to be valued, to see their contributions, efforts, their point of view recognized and valued; of perceiving himself as having some special ability.
Remember that creative teachers can only educate creative students. Therefore, reinvent yourself, renew, review your teaching practice, take courses, and inform yourself… and, in the classroom, give wings to your imagination! This applies to parents too.
Pic credits: Daniel Garcia, Canva
This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla.
This is such an important topic, Anjali. From all the above, I find that giving them ample of offline time is vital for their growth! This itself has become so difficult these days!
Lovely insightful post Anjali. As a parent I wish my kids were creative but their interest lies only in watching YouTube shorts.. as I am writing this my elder daughter is struggling to write a short poem on ‘Mother’ for her school project. I often feel if I have being too lenient with them and guilty too of not spending enough time with them that may help them think beyond gadgets.
What i believe is that we need to give them the space to come with own ideas and then appreciate their efforts. Forcing our wishes on them will no way take them anywhere… they should get the chance to live life the way they want with their unique creative sense.
Parents and teachers both need to find ways to bring out the best in the children and the students respectively.
You have touched a very important topic. Academics is really important but creativity is even more. I am strict with my daughter for studies but I let her play Lego for ample time every single day .
I agree with you totally. Kids these days are just stuck to their screens. We do not give them the freedom to explore, to question, or to learn for themselves.
You are totally right Anjali. Intentionally or unintentionally we adult crushed the curiosity Children are very curios and we adults are not able to give each answers due to various reasons. And then they tend to stick to the screen. We parents need to spend time as much as we can according to our child’s.
How true. Kids can be creative only when their imagination is allowed to run wild and not follow any pattern. That’s what helps them come up with unique ideas.
I simply love your post. In the era of so much competition, kids are losing the fun of learning. So many kids feel the pressure and there is no real desire to have a love of learning. We are to blame for not giving them the space to explore, to fail, and to learn.
You are right, we are not giving time to Child to be creative. Every second child is pre occupied with stuff and now they are not able to channelise their thoughts.
Now days creativity are given importance in many schools on the other hand most of them only want to keep studies as the only thong that a child must have interest in. An idle mind bring up idea and the same I follow with my child I let her being up what she has interests in.
You are absolutely right. When kids are younger, they are so inquisitive and creative. These days they have all information readily available. And education is supposed to hone creativity not crush it.
So very true. There has always been an emphasis on rote learning and less on creativity. Keeping a child too busy is not the best way to hone creativity. Sometimes being bored unleashes it.
Such an important topic to be discussed especially raising this new generation. I think parents should be strict enough and disciplined enough as well for their children to follow. There’s so much ways for us to use our creativity on/off line, we just need to set boundaries for it to be implemented accordingly.
Totally agree with you! Specially the point of quashing queries. Children by nature while growing will be inquisitive as they are learning new things. At such time of parents avoid their queries or do not encourage them to be open about their doubts children will become dull and non creative.
I completely agree with your points. Creativity allows us to view and solve problems more openly and with innovation. Creativity opens the mind. A society that has lost touch with its creative side is an imprisoned society, in that generations of people may be closed-minded. It broadens our perspectives and can help us overcome prejudices.
Loved the topic you chose, Anjali. As children grow, they refuse to dream and wander into fairylands. To some extent, we are responsible for curbing their creativity!
I totally agree with the reasons you have shared why the creativity is getting crushed, screen time is one of the major reason.
Very insightful post Anjali. These days it is very common that all the kids interest lies only in watching YouTube shorts. It is very important to grow the interest and curiosity in kid’s brain and help them to develop their personality in a good way. Nice post.
Sparking creativity in kids is very important but the habits these days severely impact creativity. And thank you so much for specifying the reasons behind it.
Generating creativity in kids is very important to help them learn new things. With a toddler at home this post really helped me in many ways.
You have touched on a very crucial topic, while we all focus on boosting creativity in a child, we tend to forget that sometimes the creativity might be getting crushed by over-pushing and burdening them. And excessive screen time can also harm in a long way. Great post buddy
Creativity needs to be encouraged in children…be it any form of expression like music, art, craft, writing etc. As parents we need to pay attention to what they like and gently point them in thay direction…not shove them into something because it is the in-thing or will help them get better grades. Each kid is different….so immaterial of how good their expression of creativity is they have to be encouraged to pursue it without comparisons to others.
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I agree with your pointers and with the fact that it’s necessary to encourage a child’s creativity.