Understanding 21st Century Skills:  Creativity

The completion of the first full week of Online School merits celebration across the GWA community.  Working together, students, parents, faculty, and staff have shifted the delivery of GWA’s education experience in ways that reconceive for everyone what it means to be “in class,” how to structure time and efforts, and the opportunities to maximize learning.  Key to the success of that shift is enhancing and utilizing an important 21st Century skill: Creativity.

Flexibility and adaptability help to find comfort with ambiguity amid the rapid changes of 21st Century life.  Creativity takes people further, giving an advantage over others merely surviving in these times. With creativity, people develop original ideas that foster opportunities and enhanced flexibility one can use to address problems ranging from “How can I get today’s class assignment when my home internet is down?” to “How can we protect the world from whatever virus pandemic follows COVID-19?”

Creativity makes innovation possible, which in turn helps solve VUCA problems - those that are volatile, unpredictable, complex, and ambiguous.  Especially in such cases, thinking in new and different ways beats raw intelligence. Creativity also improves engagement, something so important in these early Online School days as students and teachers look for creative ways to participate without spending all day looking at their computer screens.  With more creativity, people can prepare better for a future of unknowns and can find more avenues toward self-fulfillment and happiness. Best of all, creativity is not innate: people can practice the skill to learn it and strengthen it.

Since starting Online School on March 18, creativity has swept GWA’s virtual campus with teachers using it for designing lessons to engage students accessing them home instead of sitting in a classroom; students finding new resources to complete assignments and new ways to collaborate with peers; and parents searching for the household balance between responsibilities of job, school, and home.  As Online School continues for the coming weeks, the creativity it fosters across the community will prove a useful skill long after everyone returns to classes on campus. Next week’s GWA Weekly will feature some wonderful examples of creativity flooding Online School activity!