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Fostering Creativity: The Preschool Teacher

This lesson highlights the significance of being a creative preschool teacher and provides insights on how to promote creativity when engaging with children, families, and colleagues. A key learning point is the importance of self-reflection and collaborative, supportive relationships.

Objectives

Reflect on what it means to be a creative preschool teacher.
Brainstorm ideas to support families in promoting children's creativity.
Identify how to creatively engage with children, coworkers, and families.

Learn

"If you hear a voice within you say, 'You cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and the voice will be silenced." - Vincent Van Gogh

Know

How do you nurture and sustain creativity in your personal life? Are there rituals or activities you engage in that make you feel more connected to your creative self? Are there individuals who inspire you to be creative? What are some things that spark your creativity?

How about your professional life? What elements of your work environment make you feel creative? Is it freedom to plan experiences and use materials? Is it supportive coworkers and supervisors? Is it guidance and constructive feedback? Is it sharing concerns, ideas, and brainstorming solutions when situations arise? Is it relationships with children and families?

Educational psychology professor James Kaufman has identified eight elements of the work environment that cultivate creativity. In the Explore section of this lesson, you will have an opportunity to reflect on these elements as they relate to your personal experiences in the preschool classroom.

8 Aspects to Cultivate Creativity

Adequate freedom	Adults need the ability to make personal and professional choices. Though choices can sometimes seem limited, are there some situations with which you can make choices about what goes on in your early care and learning setting? For example, how about choosing materials, or organizing experiences based on the interests of the preschoolers in your classroom? What about making recommendations about guest speakers or classroom visits?
Challenging work	Working with preschoolers can sometimes be challenging. As you have been reading in this course, however, challenges are often opportunities for us to come up with creative solutions to problems. Welcome challenges as ways to learn more and strengthen your professional skills.
Appropriate resources	We all need tools and resources to do our jobs. Appropriate resources (like planning tools, resource libraries, classroom supplies, and time for planning, reflection, and support) are prerequisites for feeling creative. It is important that you have the tools you need to do your job.
A supportive supervisor	We can all identify individuals in our lives who served as mentors, who have inspired us to achieve great things, or who have provided guidance and support when we faced challenges or difficulties. It is important that you have opportunities to regularly meet with your supervisor to discuss what goes on in your classroom and to brainstorm, if necessary, solutions to problems. These exchanges are vital to your professional development and allow you to learn and grow.
Diverse and communicative coworkers	One of the great benefits of being a member of a team of individuals at work is that you get to know people who engage in similar professional activities with you, who may have similar interests as you, and who may be dealing with similar issues, concerns or challenges in the workplace. Getting to know your colleagues enables you to build connections and friendships that will help you feel motivated and stronger. You can inspire others and be inspired by your colleagues!
Recognition	Positive, creative ideas and efforts should be recognized. In the same way your supervisors acknowledge good efforts and ideas, you can recognize colleagues or supervisors who help inspire and lead your team to success.
A sense of cooperation	Creative spaces are collaborative spaces. People should feel safe to share ideas — even ideas that they do not think will work. Team members can support one another and their creative ideas.
An organization that supports creativity	You are not alone in the quest to cultivate creativity. A truly creative workplace operates coherently at every level. Your entire team should prioritize and recognize creativity.

What Does It Mean to Be a Creative Preschool Teacher?

What are some of your own views about being a creative preschool teacher? Pause for a few moments to think about this.

As you have read in this course, creativity is a crucial part of the human experience. The ability to think creatively helps us rise to challenges, overcome obstacles, and create opportunities. Creativity is important because it demonstrates openness to new experiences. These experiences include having a good imagination, experiencing and valuing feelings, trying new things based on individual interests, and having a curious mindset (Kaufman, 2016).

In Lesson One, you had an opportunity to explore some of your own views on creativity. This lesson extends this exploration by encouraging you to think about creativity in your workplace and ask yourself what it means to be a creative preschool teacher.

In your work in a preschool program, you are responsible for creating meaningful experiences that incorporate creativity throughout the day. Being a creative teacher can be expressed in different ways. Here are some ideas of how to express creativity:

Use everyday materials that might seem useless to spark creative work in your classroom
Solve space constraints to create supportive learning environments for you and the children in your classroom
Follow your curiosity
Allow yourself to make mistakes
Try out new things
Be willing to accept new or different perspectives
Embrace diversity

See

Watch the following video to hear a preschool teacher reflect on how her own creative interests influenced some of her classroom activities, and why it is important to value creativity when working with preschool children.

Being a Creative Preschool Teacher

Listen as a preschool teacher talks about bringing some of her own creative interests in the classroom.

Do

Creativity helps you become part of a workplace community that feels welcoming, energetic, and nurturing. It helps you engage children, families, and colleagues in a range of meaningful experiences. Consider the following when engaging with children, families, and colleagues in your program.

Engaging with children:

Bring your own creative interests, questions, and experiences to your classroom and share them with children during center time, circle time, outside time, fieldtrips, or any other time you think is appropriate.
Demonstrate interest and excitement when working with children. Inspire children to be curious and creative by demonstrating these attributes yourself! Play with the possibilities and experiment alongside the children.
Use children’s backgrounds, experiences, and interests as inspiration for ideas about creative activities in your classroom.
Cultivate a climate of inquiry and love for learning in your classroom. Encourage children to pose questions. You do not always need to have the answers. Invite children to discover answers to fascinating questions or problems with you.
Display children’s three-dimensional constructions, creations, and artwork. You can use simple frames to display artwork at children’s eye level or hang artwork throughout your classroom environment using rope, ribbon, and clothespins. Seeing their artwork displayed encourages and inspires children to be creative and gives them a sense of pride in their work.
Demonstrate respect for children’s values and opinions. Your example will set the tone for how children view themselves and for how they treat each other.

Engaging with families:

Families can be your program’s window into culturally responsive experiences. Invite families to share art, music, food, and celebrations that are meaningful to them.
Invite family members to come to your classroom and share with children some of their own creative endeavors or to observe and participate in some of your creative activities.
Ask families to donate everyday household items they do not need to your program to support the creative experiences of children.
Encourage families to nurture exploration and creativity at home by explaining the developmental benefits of activities and offering simple ways to extend some of your classroom and school experiences.

Engaging with colleagues:

Share your interests and talents with colleagues during staff meetings, lunch breaks, or in-service days, and explain how these interests drive some of the experiences you create for children in your classroom. Get to know the people who you work with on a personal level.
Exchange ideas with colleagues about experiences that foster creativity. Invite a colleague to come to your room, observe some of your activities, and give you feedback. Offer to do the same for your colleagues.
Ask a coach, trainer, or administrator to come and observe your classroom so they can offer feedback about your use of creative experiences and materials.
Acknowledge colleagues who are doing great things, who offer you guidance and constructive feedback, and who inspire you to strive for excellence and creativity.

Explore

What aspects of your work environment foster your creativity? In the Learn section of this lesson you were introduced to eight elements of the work environment that have been identified to cultivate creativity (Kaufman, 2016). In this section, you will have an opportunity to reflect on how some of these elements foster your own creativity at your workplace.

In the Creativity in My Work Environment activity, brainstorm how the elements cultivate creativity in relation to your personal experiences in your own work environment. When you finish, share your reflection with your trainer, coach, or administrator.

Creativity in My Work Environment

Consider what four elements support your creativity at work

Required: Complete and review this document with your trainer, supervisor, or administrator

Apply

In this section, there are two attachments with sample letters you can send to children’s families with information about creative experiences at school and home. As you read these letters, think about what you share with families of children in your care about creative experiences in preschool.

Art at School and Home

Use this family letter to communicate how art benefits children's development

Dramatic Play at School and Home

Use this family letter to introduce ways creativity is fostered through dramatic play

References & Resources

Beghetto, R. A., & Kaufman, J. C. (Eds.). (2016). Nurturing creativity in the classroom (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Kaufman, J. C. (Ed.). (2016). Creativity 101 (2nd ed.). Springer Publishing Company.

Pelo, A. (2016). The language of art: Inquiry-based studio practices in early childhood settings (2nd ed.). Redleaf Press.

Robinson, K. (2009). The element: How finding your passion changes everything. Penguin Group.

Trawick-Smith, J. W. (2018). Early childhood development: A multicultural perspective (7th ed.). Pearson.

Zevin, J. (2013). Creative teaching for all: In the box, out of the box, and off the walls. Rowman & Littlefield.