The Power of Creativity: An Innovative Metaphor-Based Critical Literacy for Our Time

• In Event: Roundtable Session 29
  In Roundtable Session: Creativity, Complexity, and Engagement in Arts-Based Educational Research: Implications for Social Change

Abstract

Much educational practice and policy pivots on the notion of creativity, both in teacher practice and student performance, but creativity itself eludes definition. What is it? In this paper I propose an innovative critical literacy that focuses on metaphors for creativity, arguing that the value and meaning of any educational concept can be best understood by examining the metaphors people use to evoke it. Common phrases like “thinking outside the box” (a container metaphor), “having a breakthrough” (a frontier metaphor), and “getting writer’s block” (a journey metaphor) are used as examples. I argue that the survey and analysis of metaphors for creativity is foundational for educational research aimed at understanding creativity in teacher and student experience.

Author

• Adrian McKerracher, The University of British Columbia