Article

Little c creativity:
A case for our science
classroom: An Indian
perspective

Gifted Education International

28(2) 192200
The Author(s) 2012
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0261429412442853
gei.sagepub.com

Subhash Chander
University of Delhi, India

Abstract
The number of day-to-day challenges has increased at every stage of life, particularly in
developing countries, and therefore there is a crying need for a search for solutions.
Education plays an important role in providing correct direction, and science education
can prove crucial in achieving this goal. Solutions to individual as well as societal problems would be within our reach if learners were equipped to be creative problem solvers
in their daily lives. Science education provides immense opportunities for creativity as
the nature of science is inherently creative. This study attempted to find a realistic connection between the little c creativity of individuals and science education through
a heuristic study with a small group of secondary school learners that tried to develop
little c creativity in the science classroom. Evidence revealed that science teaching, if
done properly, could develop reasoning skills, curiosity, open-mindedness, critical thinking and problem-solving attitudes, all of which are necessary ingredients for the fostering
of little c creativity in learners.
Keywords
Science education, problem-solving, creativity

Introduction
In a dynamic society like India, day-to-day situations are becoming more and more complex. As children grow, they face more adverse challenges. But our society still likes

Corresponding author:
Subhash Chander, Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi, India, Delhi, 1, India
Email: subhash3010delhi@gmail.com

Downloaded from gei.sagepub.com at Universiti Utara Malaysia on May 30, 2016

Chander

193

quiet sea and not the roaring beautiful stormy waves. And therefore, education for
creativity which calls for diversity, individuality and unusual talents remains a distant
dream (Maitra, 1993: 34). In schools, our examination-centered approach does not
allow teachers and students to prepare adequately for the challenges they are going to
face in the future outside the classroom. The increasing rate of change in the societal
complexities demands individuals to be more creative. Creative contributions to society
are as important as individual endeavours.
Bohm and Peat (2000) urged for a general creative surge in every sphere of life.
Encouraging youth to be creative becomes an important aim of education, and to accomplish this aim, teaching science creatively can be very helpful. Craft (2001: 95) defined
creativity as a persons ability to come up with new ideas that are surprising yet intelligible, and also valuable in some way. Creative thinking is the process of sensing gaps,
disturbances or missing elements; forming ideas or hypotheses concerning them; testing
these hypotheses; and communicating the results; and possibly modifying and retesting
the hypotheses (Torrance, 1969).
Creativity can be viewed generally as big C creativity and little c creativity. The
first refers to the extraordinary creativity displayed by geniuses with special gifts; the
second refers to more ordinary, everyday creativity, displayed when an individual exhibits personal agency and self-direction (Craft, 2001: 46). Most people and the majority
of us are not official artists, but we constantly make use of creativity that is creativity
in everyday life, solving everyday problems (Simonton, 1999).
There is a belief that creativity can be taught (Murdock, 1998) and to develop
creativity, a child needs a stimulating and nurturing environment, understanding
adults, freedom of exploration and encouragement to face challenges (Maitra,
1993: 52).
If we are able to foster little c creativity in our students, it will change their whole
approach towards life and will help them face challenges effectively. Science education
at all levels is equipped to foster little c creativity, if delivered in a true spirit.
Science is a combination of a body of knowledge and a set of process skills
(Martin et al., 1994: 59) and attitudes, but in our system of education it is only the former that is dominating all aspects of science teaching. Students attitudes towards science are determined by the way it is taught in schools. Students view science as a
collection of facts and theories that need to be memorized, not as a way of life; hence,
science education has lost its relevance in contemporary Indian classrooms. Creativity
requires risk-taking, openness, fortitude (Piirto, 1999), and self-confidence (Sternberg,
1988, 2003), all of which science teaching can develop easily. Science develops reasoning skills, curiosity, open-mindedness, critical thinking and a problem-solving attitude that ultimately produces scientific approaches in the learners. All aspects of
human life are influenced partially or completely by the knowledge, understanding and
application of science. The technological development of any country is based on science, but it also creates environmental damages. For judicious use of natural resources,
which are depleting, we need individuals who are problem solvers and can take measures that will influence society positively. Thus, it is important for schools to develop
the creative potential of students so that they can come up with solutions for societys
problems.

Downloaded from gei.sagepub.com at Universiti Utara Malaysia on May 30, 2016

194

Gifted Education International 28(2)

Context of the study

Little c creativity and science
Anna Craft developed the concept of little c creativity in 1996. According to her, little
c creativity focuses on the resourcefulness and agency of ordinary people, rather than
the extraordinary contributions and insight of a few. To relate the concept of little c
creativity with goals and outcomes for school science, it is important to consider how
the teaching of science takes place in Indian classrooms. In India, science as a subject
is taught at elementary, secondary and senior secondary levels. At the elementary level,
it is part of environmental science. This is the period during which much can be done to
help children develop curiosity and reasoning. But their curiosities about many myths
are not encouraged; instead, they are curbed and questions remain unanswered. Activities conducted do not cater to the requirements of the elementary students level, so
there is hardly any curiosity left. Activities fail to excite the students because they are
either below their level or too complicated for their intellectual age. Even when these
activities are interesting, teachers fail to utilize them properly because of ignorance or
lack of training.
It is important that teachers create an atmosphere where a student is able to construct
his or her own knowledge and become an independent learner.
By nature, children are normally curious; their curiosity motivates them to discover
their environment in their own way. The new concepts children learn tend to generate
curiosity for acquiring new process skills, and these skillsets are important for new learning. Thinking critically and using information creatively helps students learn how to
learn by making observations, organizing and analysing facts and concepts, and giving
reasons for expecting particular outcomes when evaluating and interpreting the results of
experiments and when drawing justifiable conclusions. They should be able to predict
what will happen when the conditions of a phenomenon in nature change.
However, students in Indian classrooms are more focused towards examinations,
which require them to remember concepts and definitions rather than understand their
relevance in daily life. Instead, they should learn that science is tentative, not absolute,
and that it is evidence orientated, speculative and creative. Science in school is treated as
something that is absolute and students are hardly acquainted with the evidence orientation of science. Although a quest for scientific inquiry is an essential component of learners of science (Nathan, 1971), students do not try to find the evidence in their daily lives
because they are taught in such a way that they treat science as something that is beyond
their experience.
Few challenges are given to the students in science classrooms in situations where
they could find out the solutions for themselves. Science teaching provides many
opportunities to develop skills that can help students become creative problem solvers.

Research design
The first step in this study was to understand the current situation in science classrooms,
so different types of schools were selected for observation, i.e. both state-run and private
schools. A private school was taken for the second stage, which catered primarily to

Downloaded from gei.sagepub.com at Universiti Utara Malaysia on May 30, 2016

Chander

195

middle and lower sections of the society. Seventh-grade students were selected for the
study and a pre-test, based on one of the units in their science book, was taken. The unit
selected was Sound and a classroom intervention was planned. Relevant classroom
experiences were designed and implemented by the author to foster little c creativity
among the students. The students were given opportunities to explore, solve problems,
analyse, evaluate and create. An evaluation was conducted to see how far the objective of the study (i.e. fostering of little c creativity) could be achieved on the basis of
qualitative and quantitative data collected from students and teachers. About eight
lesson plans were developed (each lasting one hour), covering the following concepts
related to sound:







sound and noise;

different types of sound;
causes of sound production;
loudness and pitch;
sound waves; and
musical instruments.

Most of the lessons were activity based, followed by discussion. The lessons were
designed and implemented so that the students could explore and explain concepts, and
on the basis of that were able to expand their ideas. Special care was taken to include
those aspects that influence the development of little c creativity. Students were
encouraged to think critically and independently with the help of these activities. Some
of these activities were:





exploring different types of sounds in their environment;

recognizing sound produced by their sources;
developing different categories of sound produced on their own; and
developing musical instruments on their own using locally available material.

Evaluation
To explore how useful the classroom strategies were, the author evaluated the development of the students continuously on the basis of their classroom interaction, regular
assignments and creative products they produced after each session. A post-test was conducted to get some idea about the improvement that had taken place in the students written
presentation of ideas and attitudes towards science. At the end of the sessions, the teachers
of the students involved were interviewed to gauge their ideas on any foreseeable change
in the behaviour of the students.

Analysis and interpretation

Though science classrooms observed in both state-run and private schools differed in the
methodology used and their classroom practices, they reflected a general pattern in terms
of the assumptions of science teachers regarding the nature of science and an overall
approach to science teaching. The following are the major observations:

Downloaded from gei.sagepub.com at Universiti Utara Malaysia on May 30, 2016

196










Gifted Education International 28(2)

Science teachers generally did not use activities in science classrooms.

Those who used activities as a mode of teaching did not plan and implement according to the level of their students.
The teachers rarely gave attention to individuals while performing activities.
None of the teachers used any innovative method or technique to teach science.
There was generally low participation by the students.
The teachers rarely tried to pose problems to the students while teaching science.
All science teachers used textbooks as the main source of classroom interaction,
rarely using any other source. Assignments given were mostly based on textbooks.
Teachers rarely encouraged their students to be inquisitive or to relate the concepts
learned to their day-to-day lives.

To examine the effectiveness of the learning strategies used in the classroom to foster
little c creativity and to see how much improvement occurred in the students
responses, a statistical analysis using pre-test and post-test results was conducted. The
t-test was used to analyse the pre-test and post-test. The obtained value of the t-test was
14.75, which was significant at both the 0.05 and 0.01 levels, which indicated that
there was a significant improvement in the performance of the students. This indicated
that the learning strategies used in the classroom were successful in terms of achieving
the objective. Providing experiences and opportunities to students that allow them discover their own resources and find their own solutions is very important for the development of little c creativity. The classroom processes thus play an integral role in
fostering this aspect of an individual. The following observations are helpful:





questions asked by the students;

suggestions and answers given by them;
the way they perform their activities in the classroom; and
the kind of observations they made during classroom processes.

Observations made by students during classroom interactions and questions asked

thereafter would not be new to their science teacher, but it will reflect their inquisitiveness that is essential for the development of little c creativity.
Previously, the responses of the students were based on their textbooks. So, it was
very encouraging to see that the students level of participation increased from day one.
On the very first day, the students were supposed to listen to sounds in their respective
locations of the school. Most of the responses given were common except a few, which
included:





the noise of an electric current passing through a high-tension wire;

the noise of the wind;
the noise of somebody breathing; and
presenting the whole problem in a very different way by grouping similar kinds of
noises into different categories and subcategories.

The students were encouraged to ask questions and make comments whenever they
wanted. Initially, many students never asked questions but, gradually, with more

Downloaded from gei.sagepub.com at Universiti Utara Malaysia on May 30, 2016

Chander

197

freedom provided to them, and with more awareness about the stimuli in their own
environment, some of them started to ask questions in the class. The questions asked by the
students reflected the depth of their understanding. Some of these questions below might
not be new to us, but for the students these formed the basis for expanding their horizon:
While discussing the different kinds of noises, the questions raised were:




Why does the voice of an individual change with a sore throat?

Why do our voices change as we grow old?
Do the birds hear the sound the same way as we do?

Suggestions and answers given by the students were better indicators of their understanding of the concepts. They needed freedom and assurance from their teachers to
give suggestions. Activity-based learning provided them with many opportunities to
ask questions as they faced problems at every step. This made them think and helped
them go beyond their fixed schemes. For the author, the suggestions and the answers
were indicators of little c creativity. There were many such indicators observed by the
author in the classroom processes, some of which should be mentioned:





While undertaking the activity of naming different sources of sound, one student
said, We can go to the rooftop of the school; as it is on the fifth floor we will have
different kinds of sources there.
When discussing different types of sound, one student said, Why not have every student mimic different types of sound which he can observe in his or her locality?
One student wanted to create some instruments, which would help those who are
unable to hear. This shows the students sensitivity towards issues related to the
concepts.
While observing the sound made by hitting test tubes that were filled with different
levels of water, one student suggested, We can change the sound by using oil instead
of water. Although the importance of the liquid as a variable in the sound is questionable, the way it was being discussed in the classroom gave a new dimension in
understanding the concept.

Within one week, the students had collected different items from their homes metal
boxes, cardboard boxes, plastic sheets, rubber bands, strings, bottles of various kinds to
make musical instruments. While making the musical instruments, students faced
many problems, such as how to make a base for the instruments or how to vary the
pitch and loudness and, above all, how to produce some kind of musical sound from
the collected materials.


One student made a guitar that appeared to be a copy of an original guitar she had
seen. But, while making the upper portion of the guitar where she was required to
tie the wires, she came up with a different solution from the original model.
A similar kind of problem was faced by a student while making a drum using a box
and plastic sheet, as the sheet was very loose and was not creating any musical effect.
The student used small sticks to tighten the plastic sheet.

Downloaded from gei.sagepub.com at Universiti Utara Malaysia on May 30, 2016

198

Gifted Education International 28(2)

The most significant example of student creativity came when a student used the
articles, originally meant to be used for making musical instruments, to make a gun.
He used rubber bands and wooden material to make a toy gun, which used rubber
bands as its bullets.

The above examples showed how the students started to see things in a different light
and were able to come up with innovative ideas.

Major findings of the study














An effective science teaching programme offered learners the opportunity to experiment with the natural world around them. A science programme based on the true
nature of science gave the students opportunities to explore and understand. This
helped them develop little c creativity.
Giving due importance to the development of science processing skills in the classes
helped in the development of positive attitudes such as persistence, curiosity and
problem solving, which are the basis for the development of little c creativity.
Science teaching helped the students to investigate and construct information
themselves.
With the development of little c creativity, the students became more enquiry
orientated. They tried to seek information and find reasons for the representation
of the regularities of their environment.
With the development of little c creativity, the students tried to understand the
connection between different variables that they observed in their daily life.
Using activities in science classrooms helped the students in their conceptual
understanding.
The regular teachers observed a significant improvement in the attitude of the students
in their science classroom, especially their participation in classroom processes.
The students realized that the teachinglearning processes in their science class were
very different to those in classes of other subjects as they were given more freedom to
explore with more learning experiences.
The level of participation increased when activity-based and problem-posing
methods were used regularly in the classroom.
The students were able to implement the concepts learnt in classroom in their
everyday lives.

Conclusion
Science, when taken as something which is not absolute but which is evidence orientated, provides students with many opportunities to seek evidence in their daily life. All
scientific knowledge has an inventive character to it. A reasonable position on a number
of scientific ideas is that in varying degrees we have discovered something about the
natural world (Clough, 2007).
The eureka experience comes only when the students feel excited about their
learning, feel wonder while learning, and create their own new world of discoveries,

Downloaded from gei.sagepub.com at Universiti Utara Malaysia on May 30, 2016

Chander

199

some of which are milestones reached by their predecessors (Maitra, 2000: 103). When
the teaching methodologies of science encourage students to be speculative, it helps
them to be creative in, and outside of, the classroom. When science teaching poses
challenges to the students, they try to find solutions themselves that develop a positive
attitude towards everything they do. The basic nature of science caters to the development of curiosity, which intrinsically motivates students and develops lateral thinking
to find answers themselves and to be divergent in their approach (de Bono, 1970). When
they go through the experiences in the science classroom in a proper way, they develop
qualities that are the basis for the development of little c creativity. Thus, it becomes
critical to base science teaching on the intrinsic nature of science, which asks for inquisitiveness, curiosity, flexibility and freedom to explore and experiment.
Science learning and developing little c creativity complement each other perfectly.
With the development of little c creativity students develop an enquiry-orientated attitude. When they develop an attitude to search for novel ideas, they try to understand the
regularities of their surroundings by connecting different concepts. Students going
through proper science processes realize that they are able to come up with new understanding and representation of their surroundings. They are in control and are able to
improvise with the available materials and variables, and they make connections with what
they see and feel in their surroundings. Fostering little c creativity is a task that should be
part of the science curriculum and the teaching of science.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or
not-for-profit sectors.

References
Boden M (1998) Creativity and knowledge. In: Craft A, Jeffrey B and Leibling M (eds) Creativity
in Education. London: Continuum, 95102.
Bohm D and Peat FD (2000) Science, Order and Creativity. Oxford: Routledge.
Clough M (2007) Teaching the nature of science to secondary and post-secondary students: questions rather than tenets. Pantaneto forum, issue 25. Available at: www.pantaneto.co.uk/issue25/
front25.htm (accessed 23 April 2010).
Craft A (2000) Creativity Across the Primary Curriculum. London: Routledge.
Craft A (2001) Little c creativity. In: Craft A, Jeffrey B and Leibling M (eds) Creativity in
Education. London: Continuum, pp. 4561.
Craft A (2002) Creativity and Early Years Education. London: Continuum.
de Bono E (1970) Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity. London: Ward Locke Educational.
Lynch MD and Harris CR (2001) Fostering Creativity in Children. USA: MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Maitra K (1993) Gifted and Talented. New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House.
Maitra K (2000) Giftedness in Action. New Delhi: Kanishka Publishers.
Martin RE, Bexton C, Agner K and Gerlovich J (1994) Teaching Science for All Children. USA:
Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Murdock M (1998) The effect of teaching programmes intended to stimulate creativity: A disciplinary view. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 47(3): 339358.
Nathan SW (1971) Teaching Science Creativity. New York: Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Downloaded from gei.sagepub.com at Universiti Utara Malaysia on May 30, 2016

200

Gifted Education International 28(2)

Piirto J (1999) Talented Children and Adults: Their Development and Education. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Simonton DK (1999) On creativity and intelligence. Available at: http://talentdevelop.com/
articles/OCAI.html (accessed 26 April 2010).
Sternberg RJ (1988) The Nature of Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sternberg RJ (2003) Creative thinking in the classroom. Scandinavian Journal of Educational
Research 47(3): 325338.
Torrance EP (1969) Guiding Creative Talent. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Author Biography
Subhash Chander is Assistant Professor of Education at Lady Irwin College, University
of Delhi. He obtained his MSc (Physics), MEd and Ph.D. (from Central Institute of Education, Faculty of Education) at the University of Delhi. He has taught physics at secondary and senior secondary levels and is currently lecturing on children with special needs
and the methodology of teaching of science at Lady Irwin College at the University of
Delhi. He is currently a member of a project, funded by the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Ministry of Human Resource and Development, that is developing enriching science kits.

Downloaded from gei.sagepub.com at Universiti Utara Malaysia on May 30, 2016