Both teachers were asked to identify positive, negative and neutral influences to developing the creativity of students in their professional environment which included department heads or divisional/subject area teachers; school administration; school district consultants, superintendents or director; the Ontario Ministry of Education; other educational organizations; parents; Ontario curriculum documents; other curriculum used; school-based professional development; and school-based professional
development, for example, professional learning communities or action research.
4.8.1
Influences on Teacher A to Develop Creativity
Teacher A indicated that most of the influences to the development of human ingenuity/creative problem-solving in the SHSM-E program were neutral. He spoke of two discouraging influences. Firstly, he commented that school district administration – consultants, superintendents, director – discouraged creativity through their lack of involvement in SHSM-E. He was unaware of a consultant that could assist with environmental education, unlike his coterminous school board which employed a full- time environmental educator. Teacher A received periodic phone calls from a co- ordinator who offered reminders about upcoming certification deadlines and sought advice from him on school board environmental initiatives and practices. Teacher A concluded that there was no programming benefit for him from school district
administration. Meetings of all Specialist High Skills programs offered throughout the school board focussed on program management and were not concerned with improving instruction or creativity.
Secondly, Teacher A had a strong opinion about Ontario curriculum documents. He explained that his questionnaire response, that curriculum discouraged the
development of human ingenuity, was based on a perception that curriculum tends to be seen as “rigid and limiting.” After explaining his reasoning to me, he reconsidered his answer, concluding that the curriculum was designed to be open-ended and individually interpreted by teachers. With more teaching experience, Teacher A believed, came a decreased need for guidance and, subsequently, wider teacher interpretation of the documents. The subtext, though, was that prescribed Ministry documents dictated that “this is what you need to do.” When asked specifically about the role of ministry curriculum in developing creativity and problem-solving, Teacher A stated:
We know we’ve got to cover this and this and this, and we have to meet these requirements and doing it in a way that’s a bit different or unique is going to take more time, more effort, and then I’m not sure that the results are going to be there. So, there’s probably a reluctance to try some of those things because you know you can do it other ways and the end result of what the student gets out of it might not be as rich, but you know you’ve done what you’ve had to do. In some classes to do something that’s novel and unique would be difficult for time, but also for
personalities and class management, that it’s, you know, that I don’t think that there is as many opportunities to do those kinds of things as we’d like to do.
According to Teacher A’s candid comment, changing instruction to include creative strategies would take more time and effort, including potential conflicts with personalities and classroom management, without any assurance of improved learning. Conversely, using the established yet perhaps not optimal methods gave Teacher A the confidence that the essentials would be covered. Finally, creative opportunities were not as numerous as Teacher A would like.
4.8.2
Influences on Teacher B to Develop Creativity
Teacher B found that most influences to developing student creativity were neither discouraging nor encouraging and that there were no outright discouraging influences. Overall, Teacher B found positive influences to developing creativity. The Ontario Ministry of Education highly encouraged the development of creativity, an
inference he made from a workshop, given to teachers from many school districts in various SHSM programs, that promoted developing independent, risk-taking problem- solvers. Teacher B determined that department heads and subject area teachers at his school supported SHSM-E but, contrary to his questionnaire response, they were not concerned at all about creativity.
Teacher B’s discussion of Ontario Curriculum documents proved revealing. He explained that the school course calendar listed the Grade 12 University/College
Preparation curriculum would be taught in the SHSM-E but he was most inclined toward the Grade 12 Workplace Preparation curriculum because it matched his outdoor focus and would not be overwhelming for his current students. Asked if the learning of creativity was effectively incorporated into the Workplace curriculum, Teacher B responded that he did not consider it “a high-end ingenuity course” but that he made some improvements by adding some instruction in creative thinking. Teacher B spoke of a SHSM-E colleague in another school district whose students’ very strong academics allowed for debates, role plays, Problem Based Learning, or “whatever,” implying the use of a variety of creative instructional strategies. Teacher B believed that utilizing
creativity to that extent required “higher-end academic” students. Later in our discussion, Teacher B called into question his own partiality when recalling non-academic students in previous school years who had surprised him with their creativity. With the current class, though, he stated that “it looks more like it’s a hands-on” course. He asserted that, if students could not learn in a more traditional way through rote and structure, then learning could be more fun and interesting, which was strongly connected to creativity. On a number of occasions, Teacher B stated that prime importance was placed on positive work skills and values, such as “punctuality, respect, work ethic” which could not be “undermined or sacrificed” by programming that was “very creative.”