Training teachers for twenty-first century creative and critical thinking: Australian implications from an international study

Abstract

Creativity in education is currently dominated by discourses pertaining to both a neo-liberalisation of arts education and a more widespread attention to the economic potential of diverse creativities. This study applies new thinking regarding creative educational advancement that is adaptive and critically reflexive to the tasks of reconciling the need for safe, ethical and empathetic learning environments and the production of adaptive and innovative twenty-first century workforces. This study of Australian secondary schools analyses perceptions, understandings and actions, and impediments to creativity in classrooms. This study asserts significant implications for the need to foster effective environmental and ecological approaches to engaging in creative practices in Australian secondary schools. It establishes a creativity index through which school leaders and teachers can routinely measure, develop and adjust their school environment’s, students’ and teachers’ creative skills and capacities, pedagogic practices and assessment of creativity across the ‘education lifespan’.

Keywords:

• Creativity
• creative and critical thinking
• teacher education
• Australian curriculum
• general capabilities