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English to Spanish: Cultivating Creativity in the Classroom General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: Education / Pedagogy
Source text - English Charles Duell, the U.S. patent commissioner of 1899, reputedly said that everything that could be invented had been invented. The belief was clearly mistaken. Since then, the products of human inventiveness have grown exponentially. We live in creative times, ceaselessly innovating and devising novel solutions in both living and non-living systems, and all this achieved, most likely, by those taught using a standard educational model. But have we not arrived at a similar juncture to Duell — can we be any more creative and, if so, should creativity be cultivated in the classroom?
Notably, while creativity is often valued in principle, it is clear that much of education is focused on standardised testing and memory recall. In Bloom’s classic taxonomy of learning outcomes, remembering information (knowledge) is the foundation stone in his hierarchy of learning outcomes. However, higher-order learning outcomes are also desirable: beyond memory of information we should seek to cultivate comprehension, analysis, and evaluation skills — and at the top of the hierarchy Bloom places synthesis, which implies creativity and possibly the creation of some new knowledge or other artefact of culture. Without synthesis and the creative push to constantly create something new, cultural evolution would cease. While not all creative products result in positive evolutionary outcomes, we nevertheless depend on the creativity of people to help us survive, adapt and flourish — and yet we somehow continue to devalue mastering the teaching of creativity in schools. Even at University, where the goal is to prepare students to be independent and innovative contributors to society, creative impulses are often stifled by a continuation of the didactic approach to teaching that dominates primary and second level education.
Currently, federally mandated education programmes in the U.S., such as No Child Left Behind, and increased accountability in the U.K. and Irish education systems have inspired much debate around the role of creativity in education. Many involved in the debate believe that, in the push for better grades, creativity is considered to have no place in the classroom. This is the view generated as a result of endorsing the standard educational model. Perhaps implicit in this view is that the standard model has delivered and we will continue to be creative regardless of dedicated creativity instruction.
In Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom, Beghetto & Kaufman have collated essays from creativity experts, primarily from the U.S., who disagree with this view. Over the course of nineteen chapters, a case is made for the need to cultivate creativity and the standard model of education is questioned. The standard model is described as a transmission and acquisition model: knowledge (i.e., facts and procedures) is transmitted in increasingly complex chunks by teachers in a regimented and structured manner. Students are obliged to acquire, memorise, and later recall this knowledge in an examination context. It is argued by the authors, that the by-product of this model is a creativity deficit in students, who ultimately fail to reach their full potential. The essayists, realising that teachers and school administrators are under considerable pressure to conform to the policy, programme, and financial constraints of the standard education model, provide arguments to support their beliefs in support of cultivating creativity in the classroom.
[...]
Translation - Spanish En 1899 Charles Duell, comisionado de la Oficina de Patentes de Estados Unidos, afirmó, según dicen, que todo lo que podría inventarse ya se había inventado. Una creencia evidentemente errónea. Desde entonces, el fruto del ingenio humano ha crecido de forma exponencial. Vivimos en tiempos de creatividad, constantemente innovamos y concebimos soluciones novedosas tanto en sistemas vivos como no vivos. Todo ello conseguido muy probablemente por aquellos que aprendieron con el modelo educativo tradicional. Pero, ¿acaso no hemos llegado a un punto crítico similar al de Duell?: ¿podemos llegar a ser más creativos? Y de ser así, ¿debería cultivarse la creatividad en las escuelas?
Aunque en principio se valora la creatividad, es obvio que gran parte de la educación se basa en exámenes estandarizados y en la capacidad de memorización. Bloom diseñó una clasificación jerárquica de los resultados del aprendizaje en la que recordar información (conocimiento) es la piedra angular. Sin embargo, también son deseables resultados a un nivel superior: más allá de memorizar información, deberíamos buscar cultivar la comprensión, el análisis, la capacidad de evaluación y la síntesis (en la cúspide de la jerarquía para él), lo cual implica creatividad y posiblemente la creación de nuevos conocimientos u otros artefactos culturales. Sin la síntesis y sin el impulso inventivo para crear constantemente algo nuevo, no habría evolución cultural. A pesar de que no se obtienen resultados evolutivos positivos de todos los productos creativos, seguimos dependiendo de la creatividad de las personas para ayudarnos a sobrevivir, a adaptarnos y a florecer, y aún así en cierta forma continuamos infravalorando profundizar en la enseñanza de la creatividad en las escuelas. Incluso en la universidad, donde el objetivo es preparar a los estudiantes para que sean individuos independientes y aporten su creatividad a la sociedad, los impulsos creativos se ven reprimidos con frecuencia por esa continuidad del enfoque didáctico en la enseñanza que domina la educación de primaria y secundaria.
Actualmente, los programas educativos establecidos por el gobierno federal de Estados Unidos, como No Child Left Behind, junto con una mayor participación del Reino Unido e Irlanda en los sistemas educativos han sido inspiración de un gran debate sobre la función de la creatividad en la educación. Muchos de los interesados en el debate creen que, en el empeño por conseguir mejores notas, la creatividad no tiene cabida en el aula. Esta es la perspectiva generada como resultado de respaldar el sistema educativo tradicional. Quizá implícito en esta visión está que el modelo convencional ha cumplido y que nosotros continuaremos siendo creativos independientemente de la formación dedicada a la creatividad.
En su libro Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom, Beghetto y Kaufman hacen una recopilación de ensayos de expertos en creatividad, principalmente de Estados Unidos, quienes discrepan de esta opinión. A lo largo de diecinueve capítulos, se argumenta la necesidad de cultivar la creatividad y se cuestiona el modelo tradicional de educación. Este referente convencional se describe como un modelo de transmisión y adquisición: los profesores trasmiten conocimientos (hechos y procedimientos) de forma reglamentada y estructurada en bloques de información cada vez más complejos. A los estudiantes se les obliga a adquirir estos conocimientos, memorizarlos y posteriormente recordarlos en el contexto de un examen. Los autores sostienen que el resultado de este modelo es un déficit de creatividad en los alumnos, quienes en última instancia no logran desarrollar su máximo potencial. Asimismo, conscientes de que los profesores y los directores de las escuelas soportan una considerable presión para ajustarse a las limitaciones económicas, al programa y a la política del sistema educativo tradicional, proporcionan argumentos en los que basan sus opiniones a favor de que se cultive la creatividad en el aula.
I am an English into European Spanish translator currently based in Madrid, Spain, where I settled after having studied and lived both in UK and Ireland. I specialize primarily in legal/business and medical translations and also in the education and tourism fields. I also translate non-fiction books.
I have been serving different clients for over 10 years (law and architectural firms, publishing houses, translation companies and international aid organizations); and also teach English and Spanish privately. As freelance translator, I have created my own personal commercial brand: ¿Me lo traduces? Translating Knowledge, and also have created a blog where I post articles that I translate into Spanish and that I find are really worth reading.
When not translating at the computer, I can be found doing some activities for a local Time Bank Program, practising yoga or doing some research about other fields of interest as neuroscience, dermatology, Buddhist psychology or Oriental traditional medicine.
I like helping people communicate, finding solutions and better ways of doing things. I like people and making things easier.
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