Embedding Creativity in Teaching and Learning

by Howard Cannatella

Introduction

Creative teaching ranges from the view that creativity is necessary for a changing knowledge economy to a more individualized view that encompasses a person-centered approach. None of these views are advanced in this essay, as I feel that there are important weaknesses in taking either position. Instead, my main purpose is to discuss how certain kinds of creative activity can substantially transform educational practice without necessarily succumbing to any of the above conceptions of creativity. My educational approach to creative activity relates to one aspect of Alasdair Macintyre’s, After Virtue; the notion that creativity only flourishes via a devotion to a particular practice. For such practice to flourish it has to immerse itself in a type of personal address that revolves and combines in various ways what Maurice Merleau-Ponty refers to as “self-others-things.”