A risky business: creative learning in education

Abstract

This paper explores the challenges that professional educators encounter as they endeavour to engage learners creatively. The recent change of government offers an opportunity to revisit assumptions about creativity that have been enshrined in policy, and evidenced in practice through such programmes as Creative Partnerships. Early indications of new coalition government policy suggests an increasingly constrained and measured curriculum and an approach to pedagogy that is less open to creative approaches to learning. Concomitantly pupil and student ‘voice’ have acquired a degree of status, arguably as a measure to assure quality and frequently framed within a discourse of ‘value for money’. Of rather less importance is ‘voice’ when it is framed within the context of being listened to, nurtured, encouraged to take risks, supported in managing uncertainty, learning from failure, and critiquing the learning process. This paper argues that if learning is to develop and flourish, it is possible that institutions which provide teacher education need to be increasingly receptive and responsive to the processes that learners find more personally and professionally engaging. This paper introduces a small scale qualitative research project that aims to explore education students’ ‘voice’ and their experience of creative learning at university. Preliminary findings are presented and suggest that adopting a more sensorial and embodied approach to teaching and learning energises and invigorates the process. The discussion is used as a springboard to provoke reflections on creativity, personal epistemology and emergent professionalism.

Keywords: creativity, student voice, learning, professional development