forever. The present study will apply to a sample of children with ADHD who are fourth and fifth graders because of the possible decrease of creative ability between the age of nine and ten.
Creativity and Education
Half a century ago, in his presidential address to the American Psychological Association (APA) Guilford asked “Why is there so little apparent correlation between education and creative productiveness?” (1950, p. 444). Bloom also projected that by the end of the 20th century, and perhaps even earlier, humanity would find itself facing up to a rapidly changing and unpredictable future (as cited in Torrance, 1965). Moreover, Torrance (1967b) who cautioned the impossibility of foreseeing or envisioning particular problems which would be paramount in the next few decades, asserted that the only thing which appeared to be certain was that the existing ways of viewing life and solving problems would not be sufficient for the future. Therefore, it is imperative that individuals be prepared to accept the creative challenge. In 1967b Torrance stated:
thing are changing so rapidly that we can no longer survive, if we insist on thinking and living in static terms....We can not afford to return to the old ways.... We must accept the creative challenge (p.330).
de Bono (1991) backed Torrance's argument that since all human beings are innately creative, but not all are able to express their creativity, those not able to express their creativity may lack the opportunity or their environment may not facilitate creative growth as it should do (Torrance, 1965). de Bono also asserted that in many countries there is a pressing need to teach creative thinking skills. In his words:
I have worked in 45 different countries with all manner of ideologies and cultures (Protestant, Catholic, Marxist, Islamic, Buddhist, ect.). In all of them there is a great need to teach creative thinking skills for the following reasons:
The provision of life skills is necessary so that individuals can operate in an increasingly complex world: making choices, solving problems, taking initiatives.
In highly competitive industrial societies (and also in developing societies), there is a great need to increase the skills of "operacy". Operacy is the skill of doing. It is a bad mistake to assume that knowing is enough.
In addition to operacy at a general work level, education must provide the entrepreneurs, organizers and leaders that society requires. Such people need a great fluency in thinking skills: in the skills of wisdom and not just cleverness.
In any democracy where individuals have to make choices and assessments, a lack of thinking skills means politics by slogan.
If we do not teach thinking skills, then the only intellectual activity open to the intellectually energetic is to be "against everything" because this requires the least thinking skills. That leads to a society that can only progress through disruption and opposition. (1991, p.5).
Ausubel and Robinson (1969) exposed the nature of rote and meaningful learning. Furthermore, they argued that creativity should indicate a level of synthesis which was based on meaningful learning. Additionally, they clarified the relationship between application, problem solving, and creativity as present in figure 2.3.
It is the school's responsibility to provide students with an environment that develops creative abilities and thinking skills. Therefore, the current researcher argues that since children do need knowledge and skills in order to be able to express their creative potential, it is then teachers' responsibility to provide an adequate base of knowledge and skills for their students. The foundation of this argument is that children cannot develop creative abilities and thinking skills without the basic knowledge and skills of a particular domain, because knowledge and skills are a prerequisite for creativity (Kats and Chard, 1989). For example, most preschool children cannot think of using clothes hangers and table knives in many ways (flexibility) or in an unusual way (originality) because they are not allowed to use these items, therefore, they have little or no knowledge and skill in the use of clothes hangers and table knives (Moran et al., 1983). The above finding of Moran and colleagues study also supports de
Figure 2.3 Relationship Between Application, Problem Solving, and Creativity Adapted from: Ausubel and Robinson (1969, p.72)
Bono's notion that one bad practice of most today's schools is assuming knowing is enough. Instead he emphasized that leaning through doing (or as he named it operacy) is highly important skill to every child to learn and then to obtain knowledge (1991, p.5).
Many theorist and educators have argued that the classroom environment plays an important role on enhancing and flourishing creativity (e.g. Bassett, 2004; Daniels, 1997; Davis and Rimm, 1998; Saracho, 2002; Sternberg and Lubart, 1993; Sternberg and Williams, 1996; Torrance, 1965). They based their argument on the fact that, to flourish, creativity needs a learning environment that provides freedom and encourages students to think in a "noncritical, nonevaluative, and receptive atmosphere where fresh and even wild ideas are safely proposed” (Davis and Rimm, 1998, p. 201). Therefore, teachers should and could value the student's creative contribution to the learning process by encouraging and helping their students to realize that the classroom is full of creative ideas, and that each student plays a valuable role in the teaching process (Davis and Rimm, 1998; Mildrun, 2000; Sternberg, 2000).
A creative teacher who possesses and teaches with a great sense of humour, and more importantly develops personal relationships with his/her students and understands the individual needs of each one of them, will focus on enhancing his/her students' creativity. Through establishing creative student-teacher relationships, the teacher can provide his/her students with instructions, techniques, or teaching methods which enhance creativity (Sternberg, 2000; Sternberg and Williams, 1996; Torrance and Goff, 1989).
Furthermore, teachers should not only have a positive attitude and value the student’s individuality and creativity, they should and could teach their student to value, develop, and strength their creativity. Today, there are many creative
techniques and programmes (e.g. CoRT which used in the present study) which strengthen creative abilities (fluency, flexibility, elaboration and originality). Therefore, these techniques should be implemented and practised in the classroom as well as positive creative thinking traits such as playfulness, humour, risk-taking, and curiosity which should be rewarded and encouraged by the teacher (Davis and Rimm, 1998; Torrance and Goff, 1989).
The current researcher argues that since there are many techniques and programmes put forward to enhance creative abilities, and since most of creativity programmes are highly structured (e.g. CoRT), teachers should be capable of implementing these techniques and programmes in their class easily. Additionally, in every school in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia there is at least one creativity training programme run by a special education teacher who specializes in the field of gifted and talented. Thus the availability of highly prepared and trained teachers who specializes in the field of gifted and talented could and should make use of creativity programmes accessible to every child in the school by offering their support to the class teachers when needed.
The current researcher believes that children should not be rushed when practising creative exercises. Instead they should be provided with the time and space for quiet reflection and thinking (Daniels, 1997; Torrance and Goff, 1989). She also believes that practise and persistence are necessary ingredients of a successful creativity enhancement programme, thus creativity enhancement will take time. Yet, the benefits from enhancing creativity far outweigh the costs.
There it must be acknowledged that there are many instructions, techniques, and teaching methods which have been suggested to develop and strengthen creative abilities, but the main ones as follow:
Attribute Listing: Created in 1954 by Crawford. In this technique students are
asked to enumerate and limit the characteristics of an object to the basic then the students begin to make a series of changes to each characteristic, without any restriction of their freedom.
Check-List: Created in 1957 by Osborn. This technique depends on posing a
group of questions including a wide range of information (e.g. new uses, change, adaptation, magnifying, minimizing, modification, re-arrangement, and relating). Each question requires a specific change in an object, thing, or idea.
Morphological Analysis: Created in 1957 by Zwicky. This technique involves
three steps: first the problem is analyzed into its main elements, then those elements are collected into general categories, and finally those categories related in all possible ways. This technique combines characteristics of both attribute listing and the check-lists techniques.
Forced Relationship: Created in 1961 by Gordon. The aim of this technique is
to produce new thoughts by forming a relationship between two or more things or ideas, where no relationship in reality exists between them.
Brainstorming: Created in 1963 by Osborn. This technique was constructed
for use with groups of six to twelve students, but it may also be used with individuals. This technique aimed to generate a long list of possible creative problem solving solutions by following these three rules:
Elimination of any evaluation or critique of responses while ideas are being generated.
Encouragement of richness and abundance of ideas and acceptance of all responses.
Synectics: Created in 1961 by Gordon. This technique is a complex one which
is founded on a principle with two parts: making the strange familiar; and the familiar strange. The first part includes an analytic process. The second part means perceiving a common object in a way in which it is not usually seen by using a variety of mechanisms based on analogy.
Open-ended Activities: This teaching method is used to remove the fear of
failing that “one” right answer. Open-ended activities which have no right or wrong answers provide for multiple possibilities and risk taking that lead to creativity (Hertzog, 1997, 1998).
Questioning Technique: This technique is vital to encouraging and responding
to intellectual and creative curiosity. Questioning technique encourages independent thought and creativity. Therefore, teachers and students ability to develop effective questioning techniques leads to a deeper creative thinking (Healey, 1990; Hertzog, 1997). According to Gardner (2000) “the purpose of education is not to provide ultimate answers, but to enhance one’s sense of understanding without dashing one’s sense of mystery and wonder” (p. 185). Vail asserted that "by engaging students only in a quest for the correct answer rather than for the interesting question, we condemn them to live inside other men’s discoveries” (as cited in Healey, 1990, p. 259).
Drawing: This technique is used to aid students' abilities of visual thinking by
clarifying the visual images. It also helps students to manipulate, record, and store the visual images. Teachers should provide students with materials and opportunities to interact visually with ideas (Adams, 1986; Brookes, 1996; Tate, 2003).
Most, if not all, the above teaching methods and techniques were developed and considered to be useful and practical tools in aiding creative abilities such as elaboration, fluency, flexibility, and originality. However, some of these methods are more useful than others in supporting a particular ability. For example, check-list technique may impede the ability of fluency because the pre-set questions in this technique limit the spontaneity of responses which needs freedom. Yet, the check-list technique also promotes flexibility because the focus of this method is on creating new ideas within the existing categories in the list. Additionally, some of these methods and techniques are combinations of previous methods. For example, the morphological analysis technique created by Zwicky is based on the attribute listing and check-lists techniques. More importantly, in view of the fact that a greater advantage can be achieved by using all the above teaching methods and techniques, the following models have been developed:
Talents Unlimited (TU).
Creative Problem Solving (CPS).
Future Problem Solving (FPS).
Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT).
Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM).
Purdue Creativity Program (PCP).
Productive Thinking Program (PTP)
For more details about the above teaching methods, techniques, and models see (Adams, 1986; Brookes, 1996; Chance, 1986; Cropley, 1992, 2001; Daniels, 1997; Davis, 1998; Davis and Rimm, 1998; de Bono, 1986; Gardner, 2000; Healey, 1990; Hennessey, 1997; Hertzog, 1997, 1998; Mcpherson, 1964; Osborn, 1963; Renzulli and Reis, 1997; Ritchhart, 2004; Raudsepp and Hough, 1977; Schlichter, 1997; Schlichter and Palmer, 1993; Stein, 1968; Sternberg, 1999, 2001, 2003; Tate, 2003; Tomlinson, 1999, 2001).