The Development of Creative Thinking in Adolescents

by Nigel Hilton 

Creativity tends to decline, as people age. A study conducted by the UK government proved this. It described how, as early as 8 years old, students are already losing their ability to think in "divergent or non-linear ways," which is a key component of creativity.

The study tested 1,600 children. Of those tested aged 3 to 5 years old, 98 per cent showed the ability to think in divergent ways. Meanwhile, only 32 per cent of students aged 8 to 10 showed they could think in divergent ways. In students aged 13 to 15, only 10 per cent could think divergently.

The Reason for Diminishing Creativity

One of the reasons students slowly lose the spark of creativity could be the intense pressure to conform as they grow older. While teens can be impulsive in other areas of their life, in academic circles, they tend to be rule followers. By fitting in, they avoid doing things that may draw attention to themselves or avoid situations that may lead them to make public mistakes and therefore, cause humiliation. As they continue to restrict themselves, though, their creativity diminishes.

However, there is a tremendous potential to foster creativity among adolescents. Because they can already understand symbols, they're able to use and manipulate them abstractly. What's more, they can formulate and test hypotheses on their own. Jobs at international schools in the Philippines require more than surface-level teaching. So, use the post as an opportunity to teach your students to think more creatively by doing the following things:

A case can be made that there are 8 steps of target teaching to achieve creative schooling. Schools can foster creativity by abandoning the factory model of learning and working with the actual psychology of the child. This involves, giving children space to grow and removing exams until primary education.

1. Avoid making them feel not smart enough

Learning should be challenging enough to stimulate your students' development. You have to ensure that what they're learning is difficult and interesting enough to engage them, but easy enough so they do not become too frustrated. This prevents them from becoming bored with the subject. They also need to see that what they’re learning is worth their time so that they do not lose interest.

For adolescent students, the feeling of not being smart enough to learn something can be an instant and total turnoff to learning. But with manageable challenges, there's space for both critical and creative thinking.

2. Encourage experimentation

When giving projects or problem-solving tasks to your students, ask them to try several different methods on solving or accomplishing them. Then, ask them to reflect on what they found to be the best or most effective way of doing it.

As an educator, you know that some approaches may not work. In spite of that, allowing your students to discover methods on their own fosters creative thinking. They'll discover that if one method does not work, they can try another, something that's perhaps more out of the box.

3. Ask open-ended questions

It is commendable when your students excel because they've memorized information from books. Objective questions, such as true or false, multiple-choice and fill in the blanks are a great way to test this particular skill. However, these questions do not allow any room for creative thinking because there are definitive answers.

So, ask subjective, open-ended questions instead. Questions like these allow your students to access their feelings and attitude toward the problem, together with their understanding of the subject. Because they're not limited to the textbook definition of things, they can think more creatively to arrive at the answers they want.

By using these strategies to foster divergent thinking, you're encouraging them to question the typical way of doing things. This may be the spark that they need to pursue and invest in more creative endeavors that will help them succeed.