Out of Limitations Comes Creativity

Niels Rösche, Belgium

Niels Rösche is a teacher trainee at University College Leuven-Limburg. His current professional interests are basketball, sports, music and literature. He enjoys working with people who are motivated and don’t back down from a challenge. E-mail: niels.rosche@student.ucll.be

I used to be a lifeless child in class. I mean, during the breaks and subjects like PE, I was an active and happy pupil, but in class I was often quite bored. Let me take you back to the roots of this problem. When I was 6, my parents took me to the doctor for an intelligence test as I was showing signs of being highly intelligent. I scored a 138, I was gifted. In the early stages of my school life, I was eager to learn new things, to explore and find solutions (creatively) in school, as well as at home. This however, faded away quite quickly. The matter at school was far too easy and I just wasn’t challenged enough. I tried to do this at home, but that didn’t last long. This resulted in me becoming quite lazy and uninterested in high school. I was never challenged to find solutions for problems, I was never challenged to use my creative mind to look at things differently. Going to college, I did not even know how to study or what to study, nothing interested me anymore. I was literally lost and had nowhere to go.

Creativity is such a crucial aspect in our current society and I find it very sad that I was never challenged to use my creativity to solve problems (I was not challenged at all). Hence why I have a very strong opinion on this matter.

Creativity, an ability that helps one through his/her life, often described as ‘a way out’. When challenged in life, people tend to use their creativity to overcome their challenges. This is exactly why we should train the creativity of our pupils as much as possible. It’s simply something you can’t live without. We should try Looking at things from a different perspective. Because in life the only way forward is too keep seeing things from a different perspective. This is why pupils should have the ability to use their creativity in every single lesson. From writing, to speaking to drawing. But most importantly we have to give our students the opportunity to think in their own way because every mind is different. A creative mind is very versatile, but it needs to be active otherwise it will slowly die. Then, when facing problems later on life, you’ll just have your common sense to get out of your situation. As a result, you’ll get stuck in places, you don’t want to be stuck in.

Now back to our title “Out of limitations comes creativity”. This is something I absolutely want to apply in my classroom. I want to challenge every student in my classroom in their own way and I want them to use their creativity to find a solution. In other words, trap every pupil between 4 thick, high walls. And let them do the thinking, let them get out of there, each in their own, individual way. Cause that’s a different aspect of creativity, everybody is different and so is their creative mind. Give pupils limitations, challenges, but don’t give everyone the same challenge. Not every mind will be able to overcome every challenge.

My final statement is about the dreamers, pupils full of creativity but who don’t get the opportunity to express that. Teachers often get quite annoyed with these kind of pupils, but don’t know that it’s actually their fault that these pupils are not paying attention closely. All that these pupils want is a way out, in which they can express themselves.

Let pupils dream, show them life, let them experience life from different perspectives and let them use their knowledge and creativity to overcome the challenges that you and life in general have to offer.

Do all of this inside your classroom and your pupils will be able to LIVE outside your classroom.

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.