Connections To Creativity

This is my 26-year brilliant nephew Khaldoun or Kal whom I love and miss so much. We lost him October 2016 to cancer. He left his twin brother.

I take all my positive energy and motivation from him as I remember his final wishes to live life through love and forgiveness. Khaldoun was an avid reader, an animal lover and a beloved person. He read many many books in philosophy, psychology and education. Sharing his knowledge with friends, Khaldoun was influenced by the Lebanese poet and writer, Gibran Khalil Gibran that he read most of his poetry. Khaldoun was a family-oriented person. I loved his permanent smile and contagious laugh.

Creativity had become part of my own personal daily life practices as I’m using the information, skills, and tools with my family, neighbors, friends, facilitating groups, when collaborating with colleagues at work, and my students. I’m more flexible now on managing challenge and change after taking this one of a kind course with a unique teacher whom I really cherish and appreciate so much. Thank you for making this course very vivid. During the week of the course I learned to get to know myself more as a wife, a mother, a teacher, and a student.

I now know more about my strengths, my potentials and how to put them to work as effectively as possible across many tasks and challenges. It allowed me to help my family and everyone around me more. I put myself in place of my son, my daughter, my husband, my family members as well as my students. I believe that all people have strengths and talents. My role is very important in helping them to recognize, develop, and use all these tools throughout their lives. I will help them become critical thinkers and creative problem solvers. I’m able to look at things more creatively now. It is through creativity that I now bond more with my family and students.

My own definition for creativity:

• Being able to generate tangible things like an invention for example or intangible things as ideas from already existing ones or the making of completely new ones starting from scratch.

• Creativity can also be making connections, or generating solutions.

• Another definition for Creativity is the process of generating unique products by transformation of existing products.

Source

http://www.cpsb.com/research/articles/creativity-research/Educational-Implications-Creativity-Research.html

My rationale for creative learning/creative problem solving:

• Creativity involves all aspects of life for all ages. I believe that creativity starts from when we are babies until we die. I believe a baby learning how to survive in his mother’s womb is being creative.

For creativity to exist, it needs The Four P’s:

Person: A teacher as a creative leader.

Press: A classroom environment that nurtures creativity. This applies to teachers and students. For teachers to be creative the school needs to give them space and freedom to innovate and improvise. Then these teachers can teach students in a creative way which leads to creative learners.

Process: The thinking stages, the procedure, creative problem solving approach that can be used to practice creative thinking to solve the problem or create a new solution. Clarify-Ideate-Develop-Implement.

Product: Students who are capable of creative thinking, if my vision is to teach students to be creative. It is the result of the creative process, the solution and the creative change.

My List of Character

Traits a Creative Learner Must Have

1. Thinks out of the box

2. Critical Thinker

3. Problem Solver

4. Playful

5. Mindful

6. Imaginative

7. Committed

8. Rebellious

9. Original

10. Fluent

11. Flexible

12. Clarifier

13. Developer

14. Ideater

15. Implementer

16. Facilitator

17. Observant

18. Proactive

19. Compatible

20. Deferred judge: who withholds on the findings until connections are being made and novelty develops

21. 21st century learner who is taught by a 21st century teacher who attends a 21st century school.

Creativity is an important aspect of me as the creative teacher.

My Comfort Zone was an assessment in class and I got to know more about myself. This is my psychological state where it feels familiar to me. I now learn to step out of my comfort zone and try doing new things. I’m trying to make new choices even though I’m not comfortable with some of the choices, but then it is a sign that I’m growing in learning. I always believe that for each of us to grow in learning it is okay to make mistakes. The idea is to learn lessons from our mistakes.