Teacher and Student Notions of Critical Creative Moments in Swedish Classrooms

The aim of the study was to explore Swedish classrooms and to identify creativity related moments occurring in ordinary classes and discuss these with teachers and students. The moments were individual actions, interactions between classroom participants or creative ideas/products arising in the classroom (by teacher or student) that were deemed to be either associated with creativity in a positive or negative way. Two observers visited each of the two classrooms on four different occasions in different types of classes (different subjects). The lessons were videotaped and the creative moments were identified by the observers during the live observation sessions and during repeated video reviewing. The teachers and students were shown short videos of a collection of creative moments and were asked to comment on them. The results demonstrated that teachers were positive towards creativity as a phenomenon and did appreciate or at least tolerate creative moments (positive) as they arose naturally in the classroom (e. g. students playing with words, joking, taking creative breaks playing with pens, rubbers and rulers). Students were of the opinion that the positive creative moments facilitated learning. Teachers were not conscious of what strategies and methods possibly could be creativity squelchers. Teachers were neither aware of active strategies for stimulating creativity in the classroom and in actual school work. The participants believed that management or pedagogical methods identified to be conducive for creativity in the literature, such as self-initiated learning and student participation, could be used to a larger extent than was done today. Students were by both teachers and students (themselves) considered to being able take more responsibility for their learning and learning environment then admitted hitherto. Conclusion drawn is that there is a dearth of knowledge in Swedish schools of how to work with the development of students’ creativity.