Arts education provides a platform to develop and apply creativity. The
importance of creativity and creative thinking in education cannot be denied.
David Skorton (2009:para 2) states that the arts are “disciplines [which] nurture our
creative instincts”. Creativity requires divergent and convergent thinking. (Bronson
& Merryman: 2010: Para 2; Sternberg: 2006:87) These are the basic processes of the
creation of arts. Through creative activities, students transform ideas and combine
them to create new pieces of artistic work. An example from this International
School is in Grade Four, where small groups of students take a poem and transform
it into a piece of instrumental music that demonstrates mood.
Researchers (Craft: 2002 and Elliot: 1971 cited in Craft: 2003:118; Robinson: 2009:
57) view imagination and creativity as separate concepts. Robinson (Ibid) believes
imagination is an internal process and that underpins every unique human
achievement. It is this internal process which allows us to create. When observing
a Kindergarten class in ‘free play’ in kitchen space at school, the children exhibited
both imaginative and creative play. This relates to Egan’s theory, that we can only
construct worlds we already know. (quoted in Bergmann: 1998: 270) This is also
demonstrated in the role playing of children in Drama with Grade Five students
who,
created an entire ‘news’ show based on their learning about weather and
the body system. There was a funny weather segment, an interview, a
nutrition specialist, commercial with healthy snacks that the students had
created. They role played the different parts.
(M. Ostiguy: Interview: 2010)
 


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