"If you hear a voice within you say, 'You cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and the voice will be silenced." - Vincent Van Gogh

Know

How do you nurture and sustain creativity in your personal life? Are there rituals or activities you engage in that make you feel more connected to your creative self? Are there individuals who inspire you to be creative? What are some things that spark your creativity?

How about your professional life? What elements of your work environment make you feel creative? Is it freedom to plan experiences and use materials? Is it supportive coworkers and supervisors? Is it guidance and constructive feedback? Is it sharing concerns, ideas, and brainstorming solutions when situations arise? Is it relationships with children and families?

Educational psychology professor James Kaufman has identified eight elements of the work environment that cultivate creativity. In the Explore section of this lesson, you will have an opportunity to reflect on these elements as they relate to your personal experiences in the preschool classroom.

What Does It Mean to Be a Creative Preschool Teacher?

What are some of your own views about being a creative preschool teacher? Pause for a few moments to think about this.

As you have read in this course, creativity is a crucial part of the human experience. The ability to think creatively helps us rise to challenges, overcome obstacles, and create opportunities. Creativity is important because it demonstrates openness to new experiences. These experiences include having a good imagination, experiencing and valuing feelings, trying new things based on individual interests, and having a curious mindset (Kaufman, 2016).

In Lesson One, you had an opportunity to explore some of your own views on creativity. This lesson extends this exploration by encouraging you to think about creativity in your workplace and ask yourself what it means to be a creative preschool teacher.

In your work in a preschool program, you are responsible for creating meaningful experiences that incorporate creativity throughout the day. Being a creative teacher can be expressed in different ways. Here are some ideas of how to express creativity:

• Use everyday materials that might seem useless to spark creative work in your classroom
• Solve space constraints to create supportive learning environments for you and the children in your classroom
• Follow your curiosity
• Allow yourself to make mistakes
• Try out new things
• Be willing to accept new or different perspectives
• Embrace diversity

See

Watch the following video to hear a preschool teacher reflect on how her own creative interests influenced some of her classroom activities, and why it is important to value creativity when working with preschool children.

Do

Creativity helps you become part of a workplace community that feels welcoming, energetic, and nurturing. It helps you engage children, families, and colleagues in a range of meaningful experiences. Consider the following when engaging with children, families, and colleagues in your program.

Engaging with children:

• Bring your own creative interests, questions, and experiences to your classroom and share them with children during center time, circle time, outside time, fieldtrips, or any other time you think is appropriate.
• Demonstrate interest and excitement when working with children. Inspire children to be curious and creative by demonstrating these attributes yourself! Play with the possibilities and experiment alongside the children.
• Use children’s backgrounds, experiences, and interests as inspiration for ideas about creative activities in your classroom.
• Cultivate a climate of inquiry and love for learning in your classroom. Encourage children to pose questions. You do not always need to have the answers. Invite children to discover answers to fascinating questions or problems with you.
• Display children’s three-dimensional constructions, creations, and artwork. You can use simple frames to display artwork at children’s eye level or hang artwork throughout your classroom environment using rope, ribbon, and clothespins. Seeing their artwork displayed encourages and inspires children to be creative and gives them a sense of pride in their work.
• Demonstrate respect for children’s values and opinions. Your example will set the tone for how children view themselves and for how they treat each other.

Engaging with families:

• Families can be your program’s window into culturally responsive experiences. Invite families to share art, music, food, and celebrations that are meaningful to them.
• Invite family members to come to your classroom and share with children some of their own creative endeavors or to observe and participate in some of your creative activities.
• Ask families to donate everyday household items they do not need to your program to support the creative experiences of children.
• Encourage families to nurture exploration and creativity at home by explaining the developmental benefits of activities and offering simple ways to extend some of your classroom and school experiences.

Engaging with colleagues:

• Share your interests and talents with colleagues during staff meetings, lunch breaks, or in-service days, and explain how these interests drive some of the experiences you create for children in your classroom. Get to know the people who you work with on a personal level.
• Exchange ideas with colleagues about experiences that foster creativity. Invite a colleague to come to your room, observe some of your activities, and give you feedback. Offer to do the same for your colleagues.
• Ask a coach, trainer, or administrator to come and observe your classroom so they can offer feedback about your use of creative experiences and materials.
• Acknowledge colleagues who are doing great things, who offer you guidance and constructive feedback, and who inspire you to strive for excellence and creativity.