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Abstract
Various factors influence the development of creative potential, including everything from individual differences to the kinds of experiences and opportunities that creators experience throughout the lifespan. When it comes to nurturing creativity in the classroom, the learning environment is one of the most important factors – determining, in large part, whether creative potential will be supported (or suppressed). In short, classroom context matters. It is one thing to recognize that the classroom environment impacts the development of creative potential, it is quite another to understand just what it takes to develop an optimally supportive creative learning environment. This is because many of the features of optimal learning environments are quite subtle and even counterintuitive. In this paper, we discuss insights from the research on how teachers might establish a creativity-supportive learning environment in their classroom.
Notes
1. The July 2010 cover of Newsweek magazine, for example, had the disconcerting headline, “The Creativity Crisis” and included this subheading: “For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining.” The Newsweek cover story (Bronson & Merryman, Citation2010) was based on an analysis of more than 250,000 scores of American children on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking – demonstrating a steady decline in students’ scores starting in 1990 (see Kim, Citation2011). The most significant decline was found in early elementary grade students (kindergarten through third grade).
2. Brown may well end up Big-C, but at this time his work has not demonstrated the long-term legacy that is required (with apologies to Brown for the additional pressure).