Unlocking creativity.

Under the right conditions, all children can become more creative thinkers and problem solvers. In this program, students learn strategies for innovative thinking while unlocking "the secret of the volcano."

How do we help children expand their creativity? During the past 25 years, educators have designed many instructional programs in an effort to develop the creative potential of preschool and primary school children. Reviews of research on the effectiveness of these programs, however, are discouraging; most programs did not appear to produce a notable increase in children's creative abilities (Mayer 1983). This lack of experimental support gives rise to doubts about the extent to which instructional techniques can improve creativity.

Before accepting this skeptical conclusion, however, let's examine five assumptions - ideas I believe are limiting and misleading - shared by many of the methods that have not proven effective.

* Children are blank slates; they have no ideas or opinions about creative strategies and must be taught how to be creative.

* Creativity is a unique mental skill; thus, learning this single skill will boost creativity. For example, brainstorming - perhaps the best-known creativity technique focuses on the abundant production of unusual ideas in order to promote innovation.

* Children who are instructed with artificial materials (such as puzzles and riddles) are able to spontaneously transfer creative strategies from the training environment to everyday situations. For example, Covington, Crutchfield, and Davis (1966) based their training on detective stories that children solve by applying a given strategy; they hoped that students could apply the same strategy in real-life situations.

* Children will learn to think creatively if they …