Passionate-Teacher

Education. We know we need to change. We watch documentaries about it, people post on Facebook and tweet about it. Yet how do we move from behind the screens to actively make the changes we so desperately agree with? Have we become too safe where we are? Are we subconsciously afraid of changed?

We all have our own creative power but we are not using it. How many of us say we are not creative?

A close friend of mine said as much for years despite me seeing the potential she had. This year though, something changed. She started to believe that she was capable of being creative and the transformation has been incredible. Somehow all her creativity and passion for education that lay dormant, began to surface. She saw a need for an innovation and creativity co-ordinator at her school! So instead of waiting for the role to be created, she decided to take action. She wrote an astonishingly brilliant letter for why this role was necessary for our school to ‘move forward’ along with an extremely detailed job description and presented it to management. They were inspired. I am in awe of her creative initiative and it is shifting perspective at our school. Are there other such niches? Could I do something like that? Staff are now actively looking to make changes. All they needed was one innovator to lead the way.

Somehow we have lost the ability to trust ourselves, especially in our creative (innovative) abilities. Maybe it’s less about trust and more about comfort. So, how can we begin to change by moving forwards in education. By trusting ourselves and not being content to continue with our current circumstances when we see there is a need. To do this, we really need to look to each other for support.

The Innovator’s Mindset and the online #IMMOOC group is helping many to shift their focus and to nurture passions. They are a small group fighting to help each other to bring together ideas of how we can transform education. I acknowledge, we cannot hope to start changing the bigger issues immediately, but we can start with something small: within our classroom, our school, ourselves.

Perhaps before we can move forward we first need to talk about change and creativity and define what they actually mean.

Change is about making something different but it is a difficult term to put into practice and a frightening one for many. “Maybe the fear is that we are less than we think we are, when the actuality of it is that we are much much more,” (Kabat-Zinn, 2013). Yes, indeed. We ARE so much more. This is why I also feel we need to define creativity. I do not believe it solely means to pick up a brush and paint like Van Gogh. Rather, I see creativity as innovative thoughts. Creative doesn’t have to belong only within The Arts. Instead it is in everything we do in education. It is the generation of ideas. It is the construction of new paradigms. It is the conceiving of ideas. For are these not also associated with creativity?

There have been continuous and rapid changes in the world around us that have been highly creative in different fields. Why then, has education basically remained the same for more than a century? We cannot change the direction of the river; we need to let it flow its course. Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote: “You can’t stop the waves but you can learn the surf,” (Hodges, 2012). In education, we have not allowed the river to flow, nor have we tried to surf the waves. Instead, have tried to build a dam in order to keep things the same.

We need to fracture the dam wall we have constructed. Let’s begin to surf the tide and allow the current to flow. It all starts with a few courageous educators, like the #IMMOOC group, to start a conversation around active change, curiosity and innovation. It is our responsibility to keep the dialogue open. For it is only when we support each other that transformational change is truly possible and once again we begin to believe in our creative (innovative) capabilities.

 

References:

Hodges, D. (2012). The Little Red Book of Teacher’s Wisdon. USA: Skyhorse.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2013). Arriving at Your Own Door:108 Lessons in Mindfulness. UK: Hachette.