I am currently studying a course in Leadership and Management, towards my (eventual - hopefully!) masters. As part of the course I've been required to write an on-going journal and set of notes, discussing various leadership ideas etc. This one's all about individuals' originality and creativity, something of which as an English teacher I try to constantly promote, and as I person I wholeheartedly enjoy. Here's my thoughts.
Creativity is a fascinating area of research and discussion, both from a professional teaching point of view, and as a prospective leader. As a student myself I always gravitated towards the more creative arts: I always found drama, English and music to be the most rewarding as they were centred on expression and ideas. Indeed, I found an inherent freedom in these as they weren’t always ‘right’ answers (as in Science or Maths), only ideas and unique ways of expressing these; this I found exhilarating. In fact, I remember being somewhat annoyed as I went into my GCSEs that my English essays were marked by a set criteria; to me that seemed to go completely against the point of ‘English’ in the first place. I wanted my essays to be marked on individual and creative merit, not simply on whether I’d stuck a semi-colon in there and capitalised my pronouns.
As an English teacher, much of my practise is centred on this principle: I encourage the sharing of ideas; I often have short role-play and hot-seating starters and I encourage pupils to be as creative as they can in their writing. I try to emphasise creativity first, with the ‘ticking the right boxes’ second. In a way, I guess I want them to share the passion I have for creative expression and freedom. I believe English can encapsulate creativity in a way that some other subjects simply cannot: language itself can be seen as a ‘living organism’ - constantly changing and evolving, and I think being able to capture creative and original thought and cement it into words is one of the most valuable tools a person can have.
Sir Ken Robinson’s speech on creativity wonderfully captures this ideal; he very articulately illustrates how important creativity is within children is, saying controversially that we ‘educate children out of creativity.’ In many ways I believe he is right, although this is somewhat of a sweeping statement.
Firstly, (broadly speaking) I think that we do educate children out of creativity; as teachers, much of our practise is taken up with ensuring that pupils ‘tick the right boxes’ in order to achieve their grades: we teach them that ‘this’ will earn them a low mark, and ‘that’ will earn them a higher mark: in doing so we limit the freedom of choice and therefore impede their creativity. I completely agree that this can have a detrimental effect: pupils with a wildly-creative and original mind may over time ‘learn’ by rote that they must tame this in order to get the grades. Clearly this should be addressed.
Yet I do not whole-heartedly agree with this statement. I think that suggesting creativity supersedes academic ‘control’ is wrong and misleading. Yes, many hugely influential people within their fields (Mozart, Newton, Einstein, for example) demonstrated natural creativity and originality from an early age, but I would argue that creativity alone did not make them influential or successful at all. Surely channelling their creativity through their own academic control is what allowed them to do so. Newton’s taking of an apple falling on his head and applying this to the laws of gravity was clearly an act of creative genius. Yet had he not studied and understood the basic scientific principles then surely he would not have been able to successfully channel this creativity into anything relevant or useful. Newton used his creative and scientific prowess to arrive at such an analogy: without both, either would have been left redundant.
In the classroom, therefore, I think that creativity and control are equally important: it is no good having creativity without control, in the same way that it is of little use having control without creativity. In English, I feel that this is a fine ‘juggling act’; I am constantly aware as a teacher that I should neither discourage pupils’ creativity nor their overall control.
I think that it is a fact of life that people must learn to ‘tick the boxes’ – there is always a ‘standard’ by which organisations and people operate; an order of control and hierarchy by which we are judged. Sadly those who are truly creative and original - those who shun the ‘box-ticking’ of society - are often seen as (at best) eccentric and (at worst) insane.
I therefore believe that as teachers and professionals we are right - to a certain extent – to ‘educate people out of creativity’, because creativity is rarely worth anything unless it can be applied to the logic and convention already in trend. In fact, it can indeed become detrimental to success, recognition and achievement. We must all learn to channel our ideas into useful application.
Likewise, Sir Ken Robinson also goes on to say that ‘children are not afraid to be wrong’ and that if ‘we’re not afraid to be wrong, we’ll never be original.’ I do fundamentally agree with this principle, although anyone teaching a Year 9 class will know that children are actually quite afraid to be wrong (or indeed, right) when in front of their peers. Originality, then, is often about speaking your mind despite the prevailing crowd; this ideal perhaps defines many notable leaders and their actions also.
A large degree of leadership research seems to centre on the notion of ‘transactional’ verses ‘transformational leadership: the difference between identifying and maintaining the ‘status quo’ within a group of individuals (transactional) and inspiring and stimulating them (transformational); to me, this seems a perfect analogy between the notions of ‘control’ and ‘creativity.’
I believe transformational leadership is a more ‘creative’ style of leading: the idea of treating each person within your team as an individual; motivating, inspiring and challenging them; putting forward new ideas and acting as an inspirational vector (Bass 1994) seems to closely align with the notion of creativity and originality. Whereas transactional leadership, on the other hand (that is, rewarding good behaviour and punishing negative action, ensuring that the job is done correctly and taking corrective action if necessary), strikes me as being very much a ‘controlling’ type of leadership: systematic and methodical.
I therefore believe that whilst transformational leadership might well be seen as more of an ‘ideal’ leadership style (certainly one which I am personally more interested in), that maintaining an element of transactional leadership is also a necessity in order to be an effective leader; just as creativity may be weakened by lack of academic control, so too - I believe – can a transformational leader be weakened without a solid grounding in a ‘transactional’ foundation and understanding.
A creative and inspirational leader might well be original and challenging, but they will fail to gain respect and authority without being able to ‘tick the boxes’ and demonstrate they can maintain the ‘status quo’ within a school setting. Truly transformational leaders, then, must encompass both practises; two seemingly contrasting notions but nevertheless equally-weighted ideas.
Acknowledging and pursing both should be seen to be a more preferential - and an ultimately more successful - means of educational leadership, therefore.
Ken Robinson's speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&feature=related
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