Article Link: http://stage.exchangepress.com/article/how-creative-is-your-early-childhood-classroom/5020786/
Our complex world continues to face many problems. In Colorado alone since the start of 2012, we have seen a senseless act of violence in an Aurora movie theatre taking away many lives, as well as thousands of acres of destruction from countless wildfires. And every year millions of people are diagnosed with cancer or other potentially debilitating diseases and conditions, all of which require novel answers and creative solutions. Howard Gardner (2006) discussed the critical importance of a ‘creating mind’: advancing new ideas, questions, and answers to help tackle problems such as these. Solving these complex problems requires future generations to utilize creative thinking abilities.One of our roles as educators is to prepare our students for future success; this means preparing them to be creative thinkers capable of solving problems that do not yet exist. This is a challenge requiring us to re-examine our educational practices and infuse creative thinking skills into our curriculum and instruction.
One such problem was recently highlighted in a Newsweek article “The Creativity Crisis” (Bronson & Merryman, 2010). This article highlighted how important creative thinking is to the success of our country, both to us as individuals and collectively. Suspected factors in the decline ...