Killing Ideas Softly? the Promise and Perils of Creativity in the Classroom

Creativity is a hot topic in education. As such, there is no shortage of insights or suggestionsfor how teachers might incorporate creativity into their curriculum. Wadingthrough these suggestions can, however, be quite daunting. This is because many ofthese suggestions imply that teachers need to somehow radically change their approachto teaching, adopt a new curriculum, or add-on to their existing curriculum. Consequently,many teachers feel that such changes are not feasible and may even come at thecost of supporting students' academic learning.This book provides an alternative. Teachers need not adopt a new curriculum, radicallychange what they are already doing, or attempt to add more to their already overflowingplate of curricular responsibilities. Rather, teaching for and with creativity is often more about doing what one is alreadydoing, only slightly better.The aim of this book is to help teachers understand how they can make slight changes to their own teaching, which can substantiallysupport the development of students' creative potential and result in a more creative approach to teaching. Theinsights and practical suggestions presented in this book represent some of the newest and most promising work being donein the field of creativity studies. This book is unique in that it presents teachers with concrete ideas for how to simultaneouslysupport creativity and learning. A particularly novel feature of this book is that it offers a blend of theoretical insightsand vivid classroom examples to illustrate the kinds of opportunities and challengesthat teachers face when they attempt to teach for and with creativity. As such, thisbook will provide teachers, scholars, researchers, and anyone interested in classroomcreativity with new directions for future research and educational practice.