The Professional Side

Building Teachers' Capacity for Creative Thinking

For most of the grading period, one of Mrs. Weaver's students does not do his homework. In her third phone call to his parents about the problem, they say that there's nothing they can do about the issue. They claim that she's not doing enough to teach their son responsibility. Mrs. Weaver finishes the call in frustration. She rubs her temples and declares,"There's nothing more that I can do here. He doesn't do his homework, and there's no parent support. I can't teach him."

Translated, Mrs. Weaver is really saying,"I've exhausted my imagination." She thinks she's tried everything she knows, and she precludes everything she might generate. Is this burnout or just someone in need of a creativity boost?

It's not overtly taught in many teacher-prep programs, but learning how to think creatively is key to not only student success, but teacher longevity as well. Teachers encounter situations every day that require creative thinking. Consider their internal monologues:

• My whole lesson today is based on accessing those three websites, but the school's Internet is down, so what can we do instead?

• Small groups are not working in my class, yet I know they're important for many students' learning. How do I get these students to stay focused on their group tasks?

• I've backed myself into a corner explaining an advanced science concept, and it's not making sense to me, let alone to my students. What should I do?

• Angelica doesn't understand the concept after my explanation, but I don't know any other way to teach it. What will I do?

• I'm supposed to differentiate for some of my students, but I don't see any time to do it.

• My school's electronic gradebook system doesn't allow me to post anything but norm-referenced scores, and I want to be more criterion-referenced in my grades. What can I do?

• Because I'm a veteran teacher, I've been asked to be the rotating teacher using a cart and moving from classroom to classroom each period, so the new teacher can have his own room and not have so much to deal with his first year. How will I handle this?

Given that teaching requires so much creativity and problem solving, it's amazing that we don't spend more time building capacity for such thinking, nor do we require demonstrations of it in our teacher evaluation system.

Consider, too, that teachers are told in multiple ways each year not to think for themselves. In many schools, they are handed the curriculum rather than invited to participate in its creation. They are told of new policies that dramatically change current practices without time or structure to make the transitions carefully. Their opinions on controversial education issues are not often sought by policymakers.

Some schools make the mistake of mandating a scripted program in certain subjects with no op