Creative Thinking in Schools

Can creative thinking be taught? Can it be learned? I would argue "no" to both of those questions. Can it be encouraged, facilitated, and nurtured? I believe the answer is yes! I think that the only way to implement a more "creative thinking friendly" curriculum would be to abandon current practices. No more testing of strictly knowledge... that means, fewer standardized exams and fewer mindless busywork homework assignments for a numerical grade. This goes against everything set in place by the No Child Left Behind Act. But what if, by ensuring we don't leave anyone behind, we are actually cheating everyone? Depriving ourselves and our children of the chance to think creatively. What creative thinking requires are more personal projects and posing more thought provoking, divergent questions. We need to measure potential, not accomplishment and then feed that potential the nutrients it requires for vitality instead of starving it by feeding it only facts, dates, and equations. These things cannot be objectively measured, but maybe that is okay. America is a society focused on standardization, but America was founded by people who thought outside of the box, thought critically and creatively, and found solutions to never before encountered problems. This Psychology Today article reflects my thoughts very well: "Why can't this creative process be taught? Creativity is not simply a set of skills. Creativity is not simply familiarity with a set of behaviors or facility with a set of pre-fab strategies. Creativity is not simply a body of knowledge. Creativity only manifests when a person with the right sets of skills and knowledge invents or finds an appropriate problem that cannot be solved using any existing approach, but which is amenable to solution by that person's unique set of experiences. You never know who is going to hit that jackpot. You only know that some people have embarked on the quest."