Incorporating creativity in school has risen as a hot new topic among educators and students alike.  The speech “How schools kill creativity” by Ken Robinson has received over 29 million views, more views than any other Ted Talk.  The voices fighting to keep art classes in public schools are getting louder.  In the midst of all this public discourse, Masters hosted a discussion and conference asking the question, “Can you teach creativity?”

Head of School Matt Ives opened the conversation with a short opening speech, covering topics such as grades, the insistence from colleges and employers that they want creative kids, and classes at Masters that are attempting to foster student’s creative abilities.  As he ended his introductory speech, Ives said, “A good teacher knows you should never tell the students what you think the answer is before the Harkness conversation begins, so I’m not going to tell you if creativity can be taught yet.”

A small group of seniors and faculty met at a Harkness table in the middle of the Great Hall, as other seniors, parents, faculty and administration watched them discuss.

The conversation started in a non-traditional manner, where students at the table shared a time they were exceptionally creative.  Senior Peter Nadel talked about how English teacher Caroline Dumaine’s class taught him to be creative in non-traditional ways such as analytical essays.  Senior Kaan Solakuglu said that he learned to be creative in Algebra Two, by figuring out ways to solve problems on his own.  Senior Margaret Dupree said that creative challenges she’s faced in Executive Committee have involved figuring out ways to get people excited and work with the set constitution.

A number of ideas and thoughts arose during this conversation.  Acting Head of the Art Department Cheryl Hajjar talked about how teachers need to work on noticing process rather than product.  Multiple people mentioned flaws in the regular education system to develop creativity.

CITYterm math and Urban Core teacher Erik Johnke said, “What we do very often in school is teach students how to memorize ideas, but not how to have ideas.   If you asked members of the audience when they felt creative, my guess is that it was out of school.”

The largest topic however, was definitely grading and how it works as an obstruction to creativity.  “When I get a paper back, the first thing I do is flip to the back page to see the grade,” said senior Jonathan Pang.  “The comments are the part the teacher actually spends time on.”

Johnke then added to this and said, “I don’t think Lewis and Clark would have done very well if they were graded every couple miles.”