Nurturing Creativity in International Schools: Step-by-Step Guide

Category: Recommendation

As the world moves towards being advanced and fast paced, being academically strong is not enough for students. Creative Instinct should be inculcated in students. As educational institutions, it is the role of schools to help in nursing creativity in the students. The bigger question here is what it is that schools should do to nurture creativity in the students. To help you out here is a step by step guide on nurturing creativity in International School. We have given a list of simple and effective methods on how the students can be made more creative. Each of these methods has also been explained in detail with important pointers that should be kept in mind. This guide will be very helpful for educators as well as parents.

Ways to Nurture Creativity in Schools

Here is a list of seven ways that can help you improve creative instincts and nurture creativity in students. 

Recognize Students’ Talents

Every student is gifted with a different talents. Some may be good with analytical skills while others may have a better creative understanding. The school can organise talent search shows to help students become comfortable in showcasing their talent in front of a crowd of people. Several intra-class and inter-class competitions can be organised to give opportunities to students who are not confident enough to perform in front of a larger crowd.

If the teachers feel that a student has a particular skill,  it is their responsibility to encourage the student to participate in activities. To support the students in enhancing their skills, the teachers should seek support from parents as well. 

Create a Supportive Environment

Most times even if the students are aware of their talents, they do not come forward and present it. They are scared of either embarrassing themselves or not being good enough for other people to think that they are talented. The teachers should talk to students who are nervous and should put them to work on their talent even more. Seeking support from parents is also a great initiative that the teachers might take.

The parents can explain this to their kids and the teachers at school can help them to improve their skills. Depending on the area of talent of the students, school teachers can teach them new things about it.  For example, if a student is good at Art, the art teacher should teach him/her new techniques of painting and shading. This is a great way of nurturing talent and building confidence among the students. 

Use Interdisciplinary Approaches

To integrate interdisciplinary approaches effectively, educators can incorporate different subjects in ways that allow students to use various intelligences. For instance, teaching math through music or history through art can foster holistic thinking and encourage students to make novel connections. This can be achieved by creating a multidimensional lesson design, where more than one field of study is incorporated into a lesson; for example, using science with the literature to help students in understanding major themes.

In the process, they also develop capabilities of making connections to the knowledge far and above memorizing the subject matter needed to solve a problem, and thinking critically about it. This helps in developing a student's mind to become more and more creative thinkers, critics of problems at hand, and acquire more and solid capabilities of strengthening their problem-solving skills for today's complex and interconnected world.

Encourage Risk-Taking and Experimentation

Encourage activities which challenge students, offer diversified experiences, and develop problem-solving skills, while using art and the body to create a risk taking environment and promote resilience.

By doing different activities that push them out of their comfort zone, they learn to take risks and learn from mistakes. This helps develop a growth mindset that makes them adaptable to new situations.

An example of this could be grouping students for solving real-life problems or having them create an art project from "odd" materials or a multitude of team-building exercises that even call for physical and mental agility. The point is to make students feel safe to try out things, take risks, experiment, or try to experience that their works are greatly valued and even celebrated.

Celebrate Creative Efforts and Successes

Confidence and motivation can be built by the recognition and celebration of student achievement in all areas, not just pure academic topics. It is very important to acknowledge effort and success. They will be motivated when they see that they have done something to be proud of. This will help in removing the fear of failure and making it a supportive, encouraging learning environment for students. It also makes them risk-takers, able to try new things and develop a growth mindset. As you celebrate creative efforts and successes, your students feel empowered to become creative, innovative and confident in a world that highly values creativity and thinking out of the box.

Teach them Experimentation 

Nurturing creativity means constructing activities that enable students to think out of the box, to explore uncertainty and try new things through calculated risk-taking. This is a great way of building up their creative skills and provides a great opportunity confidence building in themselves. For instance, ask for multiple solutions, encourage new ideas, give a framework with room to experiment, share student ideas and learn from each other. In this way, you create a classroom environment where students feel that choosing to take appropriate risks and learning from mistakes are a natural part of learning while building creativity and confidence.

Conclusion

International schools should teach innovation to help students thrive in today's world, and so the teachers must develop a safe and supportive culture that compels students to imagine, to try, and to iterate-to make mistakes and practice troubleshooting. These are some skills students will need to operationalize the ideas in this guide. It mainly comprises the use of multidisciplinary techniques, encouraging experimentation, teaching students to take smart risks and it also involves the identification and valuing of the skills that the students have. These, if done by educators, will empower their students to become confident creative and inventive persons fully capable of thriving in a dynamic world.

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