8. Creativity

The eighth requirement for a learning classroom is the element of creativity through innovation and design.

One thought experiment I examine with my Year Seven Critical reasoning class involves the limits and shape of the imagination. In Part One of the experiment, I ask the students to imagine a monster. Exploring the results, we examine the notion that each monster tends to be a composite of frightening ideas, for example multiple eyes/appendages, slimy scales etc.
Identifying those students having particular creative flair, I ask the students to each imagine a colour they have never seen before. The impossibility of the proposition indicates that the imagination is brought to bear via the faculties of our senses ie. we cannot imagine what we have not in some way experienced.

While many students are disheartened at losing the supposed omnipotence of the imagination, the thought experiment does appear to show the true shape of creativity as innovation and design. It would also appear that creativity is indispensible to a constructivist education approach. The 'horror movie' sketch also shows the powers of critique capable via the imagination.