CREATIVE LEARNING

An innovative method that will make use of theatre techniques in order to make more attractive the teaching of the school subjects in the elementary school

Introduction

Creative learning (Clear) aims to become a useful tool for all those involved in the educational process and provide material for significant experiments at school.
CLEAR addresses mainly to teachers and concerns primary education. It has theoretical and practical character.
It attempts to redefine philosophical and pedagogical concepts such as learning, creativity, imagination, and suggests ways so as the school become a field of creative forces and fertility source for teachers and students.
It aims that the school become a space vivid and attractive so that the teacher and the student, can love and support it. The student could link the knowledge with the pleasure and the teacher could reassess its role in the educational process. The teacher-student relationship can reveal its true meaning and magic power.

The goal is the school community to become a creative interaction field where both individual advancement and collegiality will be promoted equally.

CLEAR

focuses especially on the relationship between drama and learning.

THEATER

as the meeting place of diverse forms of artistic expression, gives the child the opportunity to explore its inclinations and interests, to unfold its personality. As an activity, eminently collective, it favors the socialization of the child making the child an “addict” to the communication and team spirit.

CLEAR

can be an alternative for children with learning difficulties, who are unable to respond to the traditional teaching methods and as a result, they placed in the margin of the educational process.

CLEAR

and its creators put a great deal: that drama can work as an effective method of teaching all kind of courses. Maybe not as exclusive method, but as an option, so that the learning process can become colorful, charming and funny.

CLEAR

is one of those ideas that need the right conditions to thrive.

CREATIVITY

Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others. Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative:
Needfor novel, varied, and complex stimulation.
Need to communicate ideas and values
Need to solve problems In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective.
Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives. the ability to generate alternatives or to see things uniquely does not occur by change; it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown.
Characteristics of the creative personality:
1. Creative individuals have a great deal of energy, but they are also often quiet and at rest.
2. Creative individuals tend to be smart, yet also naive at the same time.
3. Creative individuals have a combination of playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility.

LEARNING

4. Creative individuals alternate between imagination and fantasy at one end, and rooted sense of reality at the other. 5. Creative people seem to harbor opposite tendencies on the continuum between extroversion and introversion. 6. Creative individuals are also remarkable humble and proud at the same time. 7. Creative individuals to a certain extent escape rigid gender role stereotyping. 8. Generally, creative people are thought to be rebellious and independent. 9. Most creative persons are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well.

We define learning as the transformative process of taking in information that—when internalized and mixed with what we have experienced—changes what we know and builds on what we do. It’s based on input, process, and reflection. It is what changes us. Term coming from Greek philosophy and history culture. Education usually holds two meanings: the narrow one is the school education. The broader one is, according to the ancient Greek beliefs, the creation of a good, decent, conscious citizen as well as the creation of a culture which equals the spirit of the cultivate human. As Richard E. Mayers mentioned learning is the relatively permanent change in a person’s knowledge or behaviour due to experience.
This definition has three components:
1) the duration of the change is long-term rather than short-term;
2) the locus of the change is the content and structure of knowledge in memory or the behaviour of the learner;
3) the cause of the change is the learner’s experience in the environment rather than fatigue, motivation, drugs, physical condition or physiologic intervention.” Learning also is the complex psycho-physical function of familiarisation and assimilation of knowledge and development of skills. The learning process requires the use of a complete methodology that involves all aspects of the person’s personality (physical, mental, emotional).

EDUCATION

The act or process of imparting or acquiring general or particular knowledge, developing skills, for a profession or the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life. Formal education occurs in a structured environment whose explicit purpose is teaching students. Usually, formal education takes place in a school environment with classrooms of multiple students learning together with a trained, certified teacher of the subject. Most school systems are designed around a set of values or ideals that govern all educational choices in that system. Such choices include curriculum, organizational models, design of the physical learning spaces (e.g. classrooms), student-teacher interactions, methods of assessment, class size, educational activities, and more

TEACHING

TEACHING Teaching is the on purpose and by planning transfer of knowledge that aims at the students’ education. Teaching is the teacher’s supply of knowledge, is the student’s introduction to the current culture, is the exercise of the physical and mental powers and skills within the educational system

The fact or condition of being aware of something or of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association. Acquaintance with or understanding of a science, art, or technique the fact or condition

Pedagogy is the discipline that deals with the theory and practice of education; it thus concerns the study of how best to teach (transfer the knowledge). Spanning a broad range of practice, its aims range from furthering liberal education (the general development of human potential) to the narrower specifics of vocational education (the imparting and acquisition of specific skills). Instructive strategies are governed by the pupil's background knowledge and experience, situation, and environment, as well as learning goals set by the student and teacher

KNOWLEDGE

PEDAGOGY

LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS

Education is considered to be necessary for the physical, emotional and intellectual development of man. For this reason, the functioning of the means (the learning environments) that educate the man is considered to be vital. These means are: The natural environment, the family, the school, the church, the mass media, the society and the state.

The natural environment plays a vital role in the learning process. The climate, the ground, the weather, not only do they affect our emotional and physical world but also give us the first substantiated examples. Within our natural environment we can find the basic learning structures (biological, mathematical, chemical, social etc.) and it offers us plenty of stimulus and for this reason the environment is an endless source for learning. Consequently the kind of the natural environment we live in (forests, heat, lack of green etc.) can affect not only the quantity of learning but the quality as well.

The natural environment

The family factor plays a very important role because it is the first and the basic cell of social life. The child formulates its first attitudes towards the social situa- tions in the family life. The child is affected by the parents the family circle and familiarize the human relationships and tests its first social behaviors and know- ledge. The first foundations for its character and personality are put in the family.

The family

The mass media are an integral part of our life from the first steps of our life. Their power as a learning environment is found in their presence at children’s life daily and for many hours every day. As a social means it is considered to have the most powerful effects on society’s members because it affects directly and indirectly on every level of personal and social life, on language (supports, or formulates linguistic forms), on religion, on arts, science, on economy, on morals.

The Mass Media

Schools and every kind of educational institutes exert a very decisive effect on the children not only through the people that are involved in the teaching process (teachers, students) but also through the organization and the way of life of their members. The educational philosophy (a result of state and social philosophy), the educational relationships and the material taught (to what extent it applies to the children’s needs and society’s needs) affect the learning process decisively. School is the first organized, basic educational cell within which the learners adopt or question the knowledge the acquire.

The school

Although these two terms are strongly interrelated, they have two different aims. Religion refers to the philosophical level offers answers to philosophical and existential questions. Church teaches the principles and morals not only of religious life but also social life and formulates specific views and attitudes. Depending on the philosophical frame of each religion, we have different emphasis on learning and education. Christianity kept the faith on the power and meaning of education that the ancient Greek had. According to the priests the teaching of the Christian beliefs plays an important role by affecting and altering the person’s beliefs. Christianity also stressed the importance of the person’s responsibility. To the extent that church affects learning by its organisation and its teaching of morals on every level (social, intellectual, emotional and philosophical), it consists a very powerful learning unit.

The Church-Religion

Aristotle was the first to recognize the main characteristic in man’s nature: that he is a “political animal”. Man can only live, create and survive within the society’s limits. Politics as the utmost art in action ensures the people’s bliss and in theory it defines what is this bliss. The effect of the state of government is placed within this frame. All the social structures (and therefore the educational structures as well) reflect in a way the kind of the governmental system and vice versa (liberal, authoritarian). A liberal, democratic environment creates a way of life that respects the personality of a developing person. On the contrary an authoritarian environment resigns the family and every social element to the state, supports the authoritarian relationships between the children and the parents and is in favor of a despotic domination. The state and governmental system as well as the politicians of a country have a great impact on the development of the youth’s personality. The state affects education and school system with its laws. It intervenes dynamically and in many ways, directly and indirectly, not only as a carrier of certain beliefs as to what education is and which its aims should be, but also as an indicator as to how the teachers, the students, the parents should function and what attitude they should have.

The State

When we refer to society as a means of learning what exactly do we mean? What is the society? Society is the total of people, their relationships, of institutions, of principles and all the factors mentioned above (state, family, church etc.). By the term Society we mean a big, autonomous and organized form of people and social groups that affect each other in the frame of a common culture within the specific geographical limits and has common goals and interests. The child’s personality is a product of a slow but steady development that is being affected by all the social factors. Family is the most important unit, the centre of the social influence. Within the family the first conceptions are developed. It is the social laboratory to work on beliefs and principles. Then the school comes to reinforce and develop these influences. The system of government together with the Mass media and Church are also vital factors that help the children achieve their goals and prepare them for the successful adaptation in the society.

The Society

LEARNING ENVIROMENT

People have spent a great deal of time in the classroom, beginning in kindergarten and extending for years beyond. The learning environment in the classroom is vital to student success and impacts students in many ways. A negative learning environment, or setting that adversely affects student learning in many ways, such as low student achievement, poor behavior, student anxiety, or depression. The Physical environment in the classroom: The use of space includes how furniture is arranged and organized, how materials are stored and maintained, how clean the classroom is and the overall color and brightness. Bright posters, organized spaces and cooperative learning arrangements help. Students need a clean, bright, organized space to strengthen learning experiences. The psychological environment is how students feel about their learning. A calm atmosphere helps students to learn, both intellectually and socially. The students react negatively when they feel things are unfair, unclear or are worried about getting in trouble. The instructional environment is the setting for all teaching. She plans her instruction to make sure her students are able to comprehend by using different teaching practices, such as lecture, hands-on activities, cooperative learning groups and plenty of games using theater, role playing, narrating. All these various and different methods make the school an attractive environment and the students to be focused, engaged end efficient.

IN SCHOOL

CREATIVE LEARNING

The creative learning process as a method at the teaching of the curriculum brings back the real dimension and the real purpose of education; the one of searching and understanding knowledge in order to use this knowledge in the real context of the everyday human life.
The CLEAR offers inexhaustible variety of human situations that are imaginative (they are within the frame of imagination, “as if “ situations) in which a need is created to use knowledge provided in school. Working within a frame with content and not using itemized, isolated, repeatable exercises and activities we move away from sterile, repetitive learning towards more human, experiential situations that give life to the trapped in the books knowledge.
Knowledge is closely interrelated with action and interaction. The children interact in a safe environment where knowledge is tested and at the same time they create something they are interested in. It is their creation and they take full responsibility for that.

Why?

DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL

The ulterior aim of the creative learning process is to enable the children to develop an opinion for matters that concern them. This is happening through the reflection period in the classroom where we think back and discuss what happened in the process. The emotional involvement that characterises these activities is the element that leads us to the critical thinking. HOW? The student acts and reacts to the imaginative situations with will and judgement and tries to solve his/her problems and answer his/her questions. At this point the intellectual involvement appears as well. Sometimes the child, alone or with the help of the teacher and the classroom reflection, within the particular situation is able to see similarities with other similar situations, s/he is able to recognise the general, the universal. Having already been through the process of thinking of what s/he should do in a situation or what s/he would like to do or what s/he is forced to do or what is needed to be done (because of the situation not because of the teacher’s pressure), s/he is responding actively; s/he has moved from the passive attitude of listening and not reacting to a more active involvement. S/he faces knowledge actively, s/he analyses and criticises, identifies possible implications, enters dynamically the process of taking decisions, understands himself better in his own decisions. The most important thing to remember is that from the particular that the children live in the classroom, they can see the universal and therefore apply their way of thinking.

THINKING