Creativity, Curriculum and Young Children: Mathematics

This article discusses the role of creativity in the mathematics curriculum for young children. It explores the most noticeable features of creativity in the curriculum, such as time, space, and flexibility, open-ended questions, and categorizing agency. The article also highlights the importance of creativity in boosting social learning, acting as tools of reflection and representation, and facilitating integration. Additionally, it provides pedagogical practices that educators can apply to influence creativity in the mathematics curriculum, including being fellow learners, incorporating relevance to learning, using reflection and critical evaluation, and creating an ethos and associations. Overall, the article emphasizes the essential components of creativity in linking different dispositions present in the mathematics curriculum.

Running head: MATHEMATICS 1
Creativity, Curriculum and Young Children: Mathematics Paper
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Creativity, Curriculum and Young Children: Mathematics
Introduction
According to recent literature on creativity in education, two particular contexts have
garnered significant interest with regard to policy and exploration – creative teaching, and
educating for ingenuity. While the former is predominantly teacher-centered, the latter is based
on the enhancement of creativity in classrooms by inspiring students’ imagination. Chappell
(2011) posits that teachers’ values, despite being the center of the learning process, should
manifest during learning in the right context, and using tasks that could be translated
meaningfully for the education of young children, particularly in the field of science and
mathematics.
1. Most Noticeable Features of Creativity in Mathematics Curriculum
In relation to the early childhood education in Australia, the following are the most
prominent aspects of creativity in the mathematics curriculum.
1.1. Time, Space, and Flexibility
Creativity is assured in the mathematics curriculum through the proper allocation of
spaces in-between exercises to allow for some degree of uncertainty (Craft, 2011). Flexibility,
another commonly held feature, dwells not only on the teacher’s capacity to remain receptive to
the unexpected, but in their willingness to allocate enough space and time for young children to
discover and test different outcomes with the acknowledgement on a properly structured support
system. The emphasis on availing sufficient time and space during exploration ensures that
teachers can nurture their instructional practice of possibility thinking during creative interludes.
For example, the curriculum allows teachers to create specific times and spaces during the
learning process to discover their environment, the learning resources availed to them, and

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requires them to practice problem solving during actual mental play. During mental play,
however, learning exercises afford the use of open adventures and exploratory learning to
empower young children to take learning risks, and push boundaries (Canning, 2010).
1.2. Open-ended Questions, and Modelling Intrigue
The curriculum similarly integrates open-ended questions to encourage transferable and
deep thinking between learners, and to help them restructure the problem in a manner that would
be more relevant to them. Studies show that this feature enhances metacognition, resulting in
heightened levels of understanding (Chappell & Craft, 2011). In addition, a teacher who
similarly sharpens their creativity by questioning their perspective and knowledge influences a
similar attitude in young learners, thus leading to the development of intrigue (Craft, 2011).
1.3. Categorizing Agency
An important feature in the creative learning process is the development of a profiling
agency and a sense of individuality using which a young child gets into the practice of learning
for their personal benefit, as opposed to acquiring knowledge for their teachers and parents. This
feature therefore cultivates individuality, self-drive, and self-control (Dezuanni & Jetnikoff,
2011). In this way, the curriculum allows the teachers to not merely set open-ended tasks during
creative interludes, but also categorize them into groups orchestrated by themselves, and steering
the learning process using their own ideas. For instance, to facilitate the development of agency
and independence, teachers are instructed to use reverse questioning to pose the question back to
the young learners. The children then pick up the important aspects of the dialogue, including the
environment of collaboration, and utilize the unstructured group discussions to nurture individual
originality. By allowing children’s unstructured collaboration, scientific understanding, and
proper task-management concepts may be understood (Hyvonen, 2011).

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2. The Importance of Creativity in the Mathematics Curriculum for Young Children
Mathematics is common in a majority of children’s impulsive play. Teachers who have
grasped this pattern often find themselves in a better position to provoke deep thought and
understanding in mathematics using play and creativity. Instructors are also highly likely to
showcase, and encourage the children to use their playfulness, inquisitiveness, and critical
thinking in their entire learning process (Lau & Cheung, 2010).
2.1. Boosts Social Learning
Creativity is arguably more often an intrinsic activity. According to Hyvonen (2011),
even moments of solitary creativity can replicate cultural, social, and educational contexts, in
accordance with the rules stipulated by the learners. By involving others in one’s creative
process, opportunities tend to unfold, especially when children interact with counterparts that are
more experienced and knowledgeable in comparison. Collective creative processes therefore lead
to joint meaning making during group explorations through which children can relay their own
understanding, while acquiring information from the perspective of others. Social interaction
during creative processes, thus, supports and rectifies any challenges that may have been
encountered in learning, allocates opportunities for innovation. Such outcomes lay the
foundation for proper mathematical thinking (Lin, 2011).
2.2. Act as Tools of Reflection and Representation
Lau and Cheung (2010) established that nearly 80% of children’s play and creative
processes involve mathematical ideologies. In fact, the range of mathematical ideas in early
childhood learning include free play, play with numbers, and play using ideologies that have
been introduced by their instructors. Teachers who facilitate play and general creativity can
therefore easily build on curriculum content using their common games. However, despite the

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fact that general playing without structured supervision may not influence mathematical
development, it propositions rich possibilities that could help the young children either reflect or
represent mathematical concepts using ideas that stem from creatively structured play. Creativity
is thus a tool for natural curiosity, and may be used to establish mathematics as a social activity,
rather than a subject that seems inapplicable in everyday lives (Lin, 2011).
2.3. Tool for Integration
Creativity is sometimes describes as a what-if approach to normal thinking; it is a venue
through which desired outcomes may become possible. This definition implies that creativity
encourages an environment in which more than one right answer can exist. According to Banaji
and Burn (2010), creativity is a general sense of possibility, control, and aptitude of the learner.
Young children can therefore use it to integrate their individual experiences and understandings
by borrowing from past experiences, connecting the creative process across these occurrences,
and representing their outcomes in different ways that explore possibilities in ways that are
meaningful to them. Ultimately, since mathematics is ideally based on the comprehension of
different connections and probabilities, and fact-finding, the concept of creativity and
mathematics share a lot in common (Paddiakov, 2011).
3. Cases of Pedagogical Practices that Educators Should Apply in Influencing Creativity in the
Mathematics Curriculum
3.1. Instructors as Fellow Learners
Teachers ought to stand back during learning to influence the involvement of possibility
thinking. This strategy generates different outcomes depending on the position of the instructor
during the learning process, be it as a silent observer, or as an active team member keen on
understanding the nature of the learner’s commitment. For example, by being slightly removed

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from the situation, though highly attentive, the teacher is able to gather information on any
unusual expectations among the learners and suggest ideas that could remedy such behaviors. On
the other hand, those who are more vocally involved could act as agents of intrigue, thereby
enabling the young learners to either become decision-makers, or learners that use their creative
time to explore and test (Bonawitz, et al., 2011).
3.2. Incorporating Relevance to Learning
According to Simonton (2011), relevance in teaching mathematics through social,
personal, and emotional experiences is vital in early childhood development. Creative teachers
should, thus, have the ability to aid the children in seeing the value behind their learning process,
particularly through lesson plans that encourage practical applications, and links their daily
routines for the aim of developing metacognition. Similarly, teachers may also make learning
more creative and interesting by including children’s previous knowledge, such as, by merging
their social and language skills, and by availing enough encouragement for emotional support.
For example, teachers may employ the use of dramatic narratives and story boards to engage
imagination and creativity in learning mathematics.
3.3. Using Reflection, Feedback, and Critical Evaluation
Teachers who tend to use creativity in learning more easily identify and encourage
creativity in their students, and makes the appreciation of an inherent act a motivator of itself.
Regardless of the fact that the young children may have expressed similar ideas before, be it in
drawing or verbally, teachers who place emphasis on a child’s way of thinking encourages the
child’s metacognition, including their desire to seek help in better understanding other concepts.
Teachers should also inspire learners to account for their failures and successes by helping them
understand the possible non-linear angles of the creative process. This practice instills self-

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reflection and critical analysis which enables both student and teachers to find pleasure in their
best works of creativity (Macmillan, 2009).
3.4. Ethos and Associations
The difference between creative philosophies and creative teaching practices in the
classroom barely exists. There is a strong link between creative learning and an encouraging
atmosphere because, as evidence suggests, there is evidence purporting that creativity mainly
flourishes in situations where the instructor has a strong belief in the concept, and avails
emotional security when needed. Teachers should therefore develop a secure ethos in their
creative practice, such as, instilling creative and playful engagement, speculation, and intriguing
fact-finding (Craft, 2011).
Conclusion
Essential components of creativity among young children includes non-literal methods,
probability of choice, and the likelihood of numerous outcomes depending on the proficiency of
the learner in the subject. These characteristics, dominant despite the content of the creative
process, can spur a form of habitual thinking useful in linking up different dispositions present in
the mathematics curriculum.

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References
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