The business of music: creativity and innovation in the classroom

Stakelum, M. (2017) The business of music: creativity and innovation in the classroom. In: Creativity and Innovation. European Perspectives on Music Education (7). Helbling, Innsbruck, pp. 105-120. ISBN 9783990357514

Abstract

In an essay on teaching for creativity, Robert Sternberg (2010) noted that there were difficulties facing adults whose creative potential has been suppressed by a society that encourages intellectual conformity. These difficulties are particularly pertinent for adults who become teachers and even more so where those teachers work to develop the creative potential of others. Sternberg suggests that it is possible for teachers to prepare their students for choosing environments that are conducive to their creative success. Indeed he highlights this as one of the teacher’s responsibilities, arguing that “teachers also need to help students recognise person-environment fit” (ibid., p.!412). The difficulty is that the education environment tends to favour the development of abilities without reference to their applicability in the future lives of the pupils, with attainment measured by norms of behaviour in a fairly narrowly defined set of parameters and untested for their resilience in the real world of work. Added to this, the physical environment in which education takes place has changed little over the past two hundred years or so, with buildings still identifiable as schools, when all the while the world is changing exponentially, expanding into spaces and places which are virtual and boundless, and which demand skills of collaborationand new ways of working.

Actions (login required)

View Item