Foster Creativity in School-Case Analysis

Many educators admit that creativity has become a critical determinant of personal and organizational success (Mumford, Hunter et al., 2007). And they also understand the importance of fostering creativity in schools. However, concerns are raised when creativity training activities are practiced in schools. Many school administrators, especially for those schools that have high standardized tests performance, worried about adopting these training activities they may have to compromise their high standardized tests performance. As a candidate for the head of school, I will recommend following strategies, supported by research in this field, to solve this problem.

This problem was raised partially because there is a lack of reward system that truly recognizes creative efforts in schools. Because lack of this reward system, students could not see other goals besides achieving higher test scores. Without an appropriate reward system students and teachers will not fully understand the meaning of creativity. As Sternberg said creativity is a decision about an attitude toward life rather than a matter of abilities (Sternberg, 2000). Therefore, my first strategy to solve this problem is to create a reward system that promote creative attitude. Little resources are needed for creating this reward system. Neither teachers need extra effort to create a new curriculum, nor is extra funding required from school. In this new reward system, creativity will be considered as one of the criteria for assessing both teachers and students’ performance. Students, teachers and staffs are encouraged to complete their tasks and assignments in dynamic ways rather than one standard form. Mistakes will not be punished as long as creative effort was made. The criteria that measure creativity include novelty, appropriateness, clear and logical presentation, emotionally expressive, cleverness and humour. At the end of each term, one’s creative score will be reported, only the person with...