What is creativity in history?

ABSTRACT

The National Curriculum for History in England (DfE (Department for Education). [2013]. ‘The National Curriculum for England, History Programmes of Study: Key Stages 1 and 2’. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_-_History.pdf, 1) states that the purpose of studying history is to inspire pupils’ curiosity, to ‘ask perceptive questions’ and to learn to investigate them through ‘understanding the methods of enquiry’: ‘how evidence is used and why and how alternative interpretations of the past have been constructed’. Students must also ‘understand connections’ both between and within societies and across time and place. Perhaps not surprisingly submissions of teachers to the Cambridge Review (Alexander, R. [2010]. Children, their World, their Education: Final Report and Recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review. Oxford: Routledge) warned that, forced by constraints of the curriculum, their creativity, expertise and confidence was being undermined. This paper aims to demonstrate that creativity is integral to teaching and learning history in the National Curriculum. Each aspect of historical enquiry is exemplified in the work of academic historians, in research into creativity in children’s thinking and in children’s thinking in history. The paper concludes by identifying classroom ethos and teaching strategies which are a prerequisite for creative teaching and learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Creativity
• enquiry
• defining problems
• open questions
• possibility thinking
• imagination
• risk-taking
• classroom ethos

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.