Creativity

Creativity is receiving a lot of publicity just now but for primary teachers who trained in the 1960s and 1970s it must seem strange to think of it as something new. Creativity was, after all, the very essence of primary teaching for several decades and it began with the Plowden Report in 1967. To understand what is happening we must look back in history and see the changes as part of an educational debate, which has been going on continuously since the beginning of time.

Plato was criticised by some for teaching outdoors. They considered it too informal. Later, schools resisted the idea of teaching in English - Latin was, after all, the language of learning. The debate on how children learn and how we should teach them has always raged and it still continues.

In 1870, when the first Education Act was passed, children were taught in large classes by monitors who were instructed by a qualified teacher (an idea that seems to be in vogue again, judging by the leaked document of which the DfES so vehemently washed its hands). In 1870 creativity was not included, in fact it was actively discouraged. The three Rs was a curriculum brought into existence by the Industrial Revolution, which demanded a literate workforce. Such a thing had never been needed before.

The education debate gathered pace as the century turned, when the new science of psychology discovered that intelligence could be measured. Children began to be seated in rows facing the teacher with their IQs on labels at the back of each row. If you were in the row labelled "80" you knew you were not intelligent. This is another idea that has almost reappeared during the last decades of the 20th century. The philosophy of "test them and label them" seems to be alive and well although you need to replace the letters "IQ" with "SAT" and the labels with league tables to bring it into the modern world.

In the new century's early decades, Piaget caused a great stir by examining how children learn. Teachers of the youngest children were first to act on the new thinking. They had already discovered that very young children don't thrive on a diet of sitting still and being instructed, so after the Second World War the new infant schools opened up their classrooms, rearranged the furniture and began to teach using a topic-based approach that centred on the child rather than the curriculum.

By the late 1950s all evidence pointed to the need for a new approach to how primary schools organised teaching and learning. Research favoured the methods infant schools were already using. The Nuffield foundation designed a curriculum based around new methods of teaching. The new approach was summed up in an old Chinese proverb: "I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand". The new mood culminated in 1967 with the publication of the Plowden Report.

The Plowden Report advocated a theme - or topic-based curriculum in which learning in all subjects was relevant and interesting. It advocated a "child-centred" approach in which the curriculum emanated from the child's previous knowledge and interests rather than being imposed externally. These so-called "modern methods" demanded high levels of commitment and energy from teachers. Desks were replaced by informal groups of tables and the familiar bustle of the primary classroom became the norm.

There was a problem however. Although the Plowden report did not reduce or diminish any curriculum content, the fact was that the rigour of the formal curriculum did become diluted. It was partly because it's difficult to fit formal chanting of multiplication tables into an integrated, child-centred day and partly because such rigour actually fell out of favour. Eminent authorities argued against the teaching of phonics and rote learning of tables. Such knowledge, they argued, would flow naturally from the increased understanding and enthusiasm that resulted from lively children reading "real" books and conducting real investigations. Reading and maths schemes were discarded in favour of graded "real" books and a plethora of maths equipment.

With good teaching all the basic skills were covered and children developed an innovative and creative approach to life. But the new methods did demand expert teaching and too often, children managed to slip through the school system with an inadequate set of basic skills. By the 1980s people had noticed that school leavers were unable to recite number facts in the way their forefathers had - and it was their forefathers who were now in power. A new mood gathered momentum as government ministers hailed a "back to basics" approach. It began as an attempt to put the rigour back into the curriculum but soon the pendulum was swinging violently away from creativity and learning-by-doing.

The introduction of the National Curriculum in 1988 brought back the missing emphasis on core skills and for the first time in the UK, set out exactly what was to be taught. Although teachers were not against this, they feared that the testing regime that was introduced alongside it would have the effect of stifling creativity - a fear that proved only too real. Into this momentum jumped Chris Woodhead, who had once been a proponent of "modern methods". He disliked the milling-about that was typical of any primary classroom and branded it "play". His tenure at Ofsted began a regime of fear and criticism and he probably did more to damage the teaching profession than any other person. One teacher in Peterborough finally took early retirement in 2002 when he found himself drawing the blinds when it was snowing to avoid his class of eight-year-olds being distracted. He said, "there was a time when we'd have dropped everything and gone outside. Maths, English and Art would have followed our return and the work would have been exciting and creative. But all that's in the past now".

The great education debate never stands still, and a new generation of thinkers has noticed that although children leaving school today are better at spelling and reciting number facts than their predecessors, they are less creative. And in a world where 60% of the jobs primary children will do when they leave school haven't yet been invented, there is a dawning realisation that being able to spell isn't going to create those jobs. The industrial curriculum that can be delivered and tested isn't matching the needs of 21st century Britain and it is becoming clear that the creativity we have lost must be re-introduced.

So now, in 2004, the pendulum has begun its return journey. Many of the Plowden teachers who trained in the 1960s and 1970s have left the profession but those who remain never really lost their love of creativity. Together with a new generation of teachers they dutifully follow the scripts in the National Strategies and "deliver" a curriculum to children who will be tested and retested - but they still hold dear the creativity that was once the cornerstone of primary education. They look on with a mixture of amusement and irritation as the new sets of guidelines for introducing creativity in the classroom are published and they could be forgiven a wry smile when Ofsted published its guide to creativity.

The Times Educational Supplement now has regular articles about creativity and on February 27th 2004 it was "The Issue". One paragraph began "Dynamite the curriculum" and told of a school that is "experimenting with a timetable based on projects rather than subjects". How the wheel turns! One teacher, quoted in the TES says, "I've always encouraged creativity. Five years ago that made me a dinosaur; today it makes me innovative".

Probably someone, somewhere, is trying to work out a way of testing creativity so whichever government is in power can demonstrate how much it has improved education. But in the meantime there is an older generation of teachers breathing a sigh of relief and a new generation who are about to have the shackles relaxed. The future, it seems, is bright.