Creative Pedagogy is the science and art of creative teaching. It is a sub-field of Pedagogy, opposed to Critical pedagogy. "In its essence, creative pedagogy teaches learners how to learn creatively and become creators of themselves and creators of their future."
Disambiguation
Creative Pedagogy should be differentiated from Creative Education that is usually associated with teaching creativity as a subject. Creative Pedagogy, on the contrary, can be applied to ANY subject, whether it is Math, Science, Language, or Economics and Finance. To some extent, one can state that subject does not matter, methodology does: that's why the introduction of creative methodologies changes the process of teaching/learning.
Definition
The founder of Creative Pedagogy, Dr. Andrei Aleinikov, defined it in the form of formula of invention – a strict word pattern used to describe inventions for patenting in technology: The concept of Creative Pedagogy got noticed and cited by numerous educators - see external links below. The authors of Encyclopedic Dictionary not only included an article on Creative Pedagogy, but also commented on its unusual form – the formula of invention.
The goal of Creative Pedagogy is to transform ANY subject class into a creative teaching process that would produce creative learners – much more efficient learners than those produced by traditional school. This transformation of the traditional class is called “creative orientation.”
Discussion
A typical objection to the introduction of Creative Pedagogy is the following, “Every pedagogy is creative.” Some obvious counter examples to the word “every” are the so-called rote learning or, for instance, teaching by physical punishment - both very far from creative pedagogy. Despite the slogans and inspiring practices of the great educators of the past like Jan Amos Komensky, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Rudolf Steiner, Lev Vygotsky, Maria Montessori, Anton Makarenko, etc.), despite the wishes of parents and guardians, the type of pedagogy depends on the requirements of the society. Creative pedagogy states: "Certain periods of history required certain pedagogies. History of education shows that the type of pedagogy usually depends on the needs of the society. All these types of pedagogy can be dominant at a certain time, but they do exist and coexist in contemporary education as well. This century, however, has been many times called the century of creativity and innovation, so as society matures, there are more and more creative people, and the need in educating such people is becoming more vivid." The emergence and growth of the Creative Class is a reality. That's why there appeared Creative Pedagogy as pedagogy aiming at the upbringing of a creator capable of meeting the constantly growing complexity and accelerating development of the society. Creative Pedagogy generalized the research in the field of creativity and put it into the classroom to improve the teaching/learning process. Creative Pedagogy is the result of applying the studies of creative process to the education process itself. As The Encyclopedia of Creativity article on Humane Creativity states, "Creative Pedagogy, as a trend in science, generalizes and explains everything from music and art classes to creatively-oriented courses so thoroughly gathered and precisely described by Alex Osborn." Creative Pedagogy generalizes: The next natural step after the creation of Creative Pedagogy was to check whether the theory and practice of creative teaching is teachable. Creative MetaPedagogy – the science and art of teaching teachers how to teach creatively appeared in 1990–1992.
Some examples of the first Creative Pedagogy applications
By 2006, Creative Pedagogy and Creative MetaPedagogy in the form of numerous programs for teachers, managers, educational and business leaders, spread from the US to Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, and Thailand. In Russia, where it was published first, it also received further development as "collective creative pedagogy" by I.P. Ivanov. A very interesting statement about the goal of creative pedagogy can be found in the work of TRIZ specialists B. Zlotin and A. Zusman, "Creative pedagogy is an attempt to replace the battle between the teacher and students with the child's struggle for self-perfection. The teacher is the child's assistant and ally in this struggle." Creative pedagogy borrowed from TRIZ one of its most powerful methods - Ideal Final Result to create the model of Ideal Education, Ideal Teacher and Ideal Learner. Progressive journals popularize and develop the ideas of creative pedagogy. Innovative schools, like Skolkovo School, Novosibirsk, Russia, build their new programs on creative pedagogy principles. The term Creative Pedagogy becomes well spread - it is used for monograph titles and programs names. The concept is studied and taught at the university level. Finally, the new encyclopedia, dedicated entirely to creative pedagogy and titled Creative Pedagogy Encyclopedia is being produced under the leadership of V.V. Popov. The recently published article "Creative Pedagogy" in the Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship, describes the principles, methodologies, and models of creative pedagogy mentioned above. It also graphically presents how creative pedagogy together with the neighboring concept of creative andragogy create the common area that can be named Creagogy.
