Creativity, in all it's definitions, can be viewed in several different ways. While I believe it is the life blood of any progressive organization, it can, at times, be met with resistance. While we all like to feel we are open and ready for change, the fact of matter is that change, which goes hand in hand with creativity, can often produce fear and apprehension.
If creativity is limited to how a particular teacher does their own job, then it can be invigorating to the teacher and the student. Once it involves others, the issues above come into play and often will leave the creative teacher frustrated and defeated, stifling any future attempt to bring fresh ideas to the classroom. I have seen this happen repeatedly in both the business and educational sectors.
I know that in my situation, creativity is encouraged and supported. Since we are not governed by state regulations, we have more flexibility in how the material is taught in each classroom. But we still fight some of the issue mentioned above. So how do we incorporate change and creativity in our classrooms effectively? Here are some suggestions I have learned over my career in business and education.
1. Involve your administrator very early in the process. If you have his/her support, it can greatly facilitate the idea you have for your classroom. If you can not get their support, try and convince them of the benefit to the educational experience, which will only make their job easier and is a positive reflection on them as well.
2. Implement your changes in phases. If the idea you have is too large to implement in one step, break it down and implement smaller phases. This also gives those involved an opportunity to observe how effective the initial phases are and, if successful, will allow any subsequent phases to be implemented quickly.
3. Be sincere and humble when discussing your ideas. Don't try and be the one that is always blazing trails. Encourage and help other teachers implement some of their idea's as well. Fostering a team environment will only help in any future idea's you may have.
4. Be patient and diligent. If your initial idea's are not approved or don't work, learn from them and keep trying. Not every idea is good one, but it may be one that can be tweeked, by you or a coworker.
Glenn, I think your last point may be the most important. Being patient and diligent is truly important, especially when one of your ideas gets shot down. Many times a person who doesn't agree with an idea doesn't mean it wasn't a good idea to begin with. Pass it along to other people in your field, even if in other schools if necessary to get the appropriate feedback you need to tweak your idea or go back to the drawing board.
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