by Gael Rebu ‘24

Creativity is often a characteristic of lessons given to elementary school students. The younger students are able to express themselves through the work they do in class, whether through drawing pictures, watching interactive videos, or writing stories. Younger students often have the autonomy in choosing how they present their understanding of a topic in their assignments. As these children grow up, transitioning to middle and high school, the frequency of opportunities to be creative diminishes. While a more sophisticated format of assignments are usually needed for more rigorous topics, the loss of creativity in lessons has caused many high school students to feel trapped and under-stimulated during lessons, and ultimately not retaining the lesson’s purpose.

While reverting back to coloring pictures and writing sentences on lined paper may not be the best direction to take for high school students, more creative and open instruction could be a great option for older students to flourish in the classroom. By giving students open-ended questions that allow for more creativity as opposed to multiple choice when teaching a subject, students have the opportunity to truly show their knowledge, not just their test-taking abilities.

Rote memorization has been proven to be scientifically ineffective. Encouraging students to process information as they learn by putting what they’ve learned into their own words is one of the best ways to ensure that what’s being taught is retained. Oftentimes when students focus on memorization, they end up forgetting that information in the long term; throwing away what they just memorized to make more room for other content. With open-ended questions students are better able to articulate their thoughts when they answer a question and show how they got to their conclusion. In turn, that also helps teachers see where a student is struggling, allowing them to then make more specific comments for the student to recognize their mistake and fix it. Giving students the opportunity to “show their work” in assignments helps them better develop their ideas when solving a problem, pushing them to use reasoning skills, critical thinking, and overall to be more adept at forming original ideas.

Providing students with more choice as to the types of assignment they submit is another excellent way to reintroduce creativity into the classroom. Students are able to find an outlet to express their ideas or thoughts on a subject and better develop those ideas to solve a problem. Giving students the freedom to submit assignments in different formats like video, paper, computer, audio, and digital helps students better enjoy whatever assignment or project they have been given. By allowing for more creativity, students can find unique ways to answer the questions and show their understanding of the subject matter. Having students complete engaging activities related to what they are learning not only helps them understand the lesson, but also how it relates to their own experiences. By implementing school environments that allow for more creativity, schools will produce more intelligent and inspired students, as opposed to the many lackadaisical ones they’re producing now.