As classrooms become more creative places so too should staffrooms, particularly collective ones. In fact this concept argues that they (creative staffrooms) might sometimes precede or at least be developed coincidentally with creative classrooms. Furthermore, the tools, techniques and methodologies taught and applied in the creative classroom should be shared theoretically and practically in the staffroom.
Young (and older) people (Including of course teachers) are innately creative but there are some suggestions that education systems suppress this. Making such suggestions is to use a broad tar brush and initiatives like this current OpenIDEO challenge are far more helpful and hopeful in outlook.
Young people also respond to influence: certainly at the family level and the peer level but also from teachers (at all educational levels).
The premise of this idea is that inspiring and fostering creative confidence in teachers can be a catalyst for osmotic inspiration of creative confidence in the young people they influence and indeed in the wider community with which they interact.
Bea Z puts it more elegantly and succinctly in her Teaching Parents Creative Confidence concept "creating opportunities for adults to learn about creative confidence is key...so they can model the behavior with their own kids and/or students"
How might it work? Here are some suggestions.
Staffrooms and staff meetings are often naturally fairly creative places and processes anyway, but they can be destructive too: so maximise the former and minimise the latter by creatively stirring the pot.
Introduce some structured creativity to the staff room and to staff meetings:
- Challenge the staff/faculty to develop a culture of creativity and unity –
one person / one staff / one school – but perhaps subtly and pervasively rather than brazenly;
- Create a special noticeboard (or devote a part of the existing noticeboard physical and electronic) to
>> Post challenges (incidental or momentous) to be solved and space for ideation – start small and when necessary spread it out onto the walls -
>>>What purpose do the noticeboards serve and what do they look like?
- Develop a creativity corner devoted to a range of creativity tools and techniques, books and resources
- Introduce a creative segment to staff meetings – start with once a month (two or three per semester) but aim for once a week;
- Make it virtual as well as real utilising the staff area of the school website, creating a private Google+community, using Facebook, LinkedIn – whatever tools are available and appropriate;
- Extend the reach – :involve parent teacher organisations and selectively open the virtual space, involve the student leadership and develop partnerships, give these partnerships a presence and voice in the wider community, encourage similar initiatives in feeder schools and peerage schools, partner with community organisations and interact with business;
>>>an example from California College of the Arts and IDEO it doesn't have to be this big but maybe school community discussing space re-purposing.
- Involve the whole school – add specific creativity curriculum (class challenges), incorporate creative culture into existing curriculum (subject challenges), add creativity to school assemblies and develop whole of school challenges.
- Create a Local OpenIDEO Chapter with the school as a focus - (see link for the earlier challenge concept) and link it to OpenIDEO Junior / Open IDEO for Kids
- Be inclusive and handle failuresensitively and positively.
There are many roles in a creative community – it is not just about those with the ideas!
Develop flexible methodologies – ones that work for your school/faculty – document them and enculturate them but always be open to change.
Above all – have fun doing it!