Multiple Creativities Put to Work for Creative Ecologies in Teacher Professional Learning : A Vision and Practice of Everyday Creativity

Abstract

In this chapter, we argue for a new vision for teacher professional learning based on the diverse creativities as practice which catalyzes educational change in whole-school contexts. We argue that it is possible (and preferable) to expand improvements to teacher education and professional development beyond neoliberal notions of “workplace readiness” and toward an environmental, ecological, sustainable education for lives worth living. This creative ecological approach considers the entire context and community of various stakeholders.

Applying a case study approach, we analyze teachers’ published assignments in a blended in-service teacher education course entitled “Everyday Creativity.” We take an applied Discourse Analytic perspective and devote special attention to narratives. We argue that teachers’ self-reflective course assignments, as well as their reports on their experimental and exploratory follow-up projects, can be considered narratives through which they discursively reconstruct not only their professional identities but also their perceptions of creativity in their whole-school ecologies.

Based on the theoretical framework and case study, we define everyday creativity as a manifestation of real-world learning which gives a rhizomatic understanding of how diverse creativities intra-act and are embedded within the creative ecologies of school. Finally, we indicate the potential of the concept in the renewal of education in general and teacher education in particular.