2.3.4: Creativity and Games In the past creativity was seen as pertaining to a gifted few, rather than to the many. Today in every educational context this idea has been transformed, and it is now widely accepted that all people are capable of creativity. With this in mind, circus education is founded on the belief that creative potential can be found in every child. Or better, in every child and every teacher: we cannot teach creativity if we don’t teach creatively! On the one hand we strive to develop and foster students’ own creative thinking and behaviours. We have endless opportunities to do this with circus arts, because in every discipline and technique, we can discover infinite ways to do a trick as well as, potentially, infinite new tricks. In addition to the multitude of skills within circus, there is also the trans-disciplinary character of circus: music, dance, theatre, improvisation, physical theatre and other arts have long been an integral part of the artistic baggage of circus. And we need to take full advantage of these to push and foster the curiosity, creativity and artistic potential of students. On the other hand, since students’ creative abilities are most likely to be developed when the teacher’s creative abilities are engaged, it is up to the teacher to constantly re-invent imaginative approaches to make learning more interesting, exciting and effective. In the words of the American psychologist R.K. Sawyer: "Creative teaching occurs when a teacher combines existing knowledge in some novel form to get useful results in terms of facilitating student learning”, Sawyer (2011)10. For a Learner-Centered circus teacher this means creating new exercises, warm-ups, improvisations, circuits, innovative methods, tricks, material, and most of all, new games.
10
Sawyer, R. K. (2011). A call to
action: The challenges of creative teaching and learning. To be published in Teachers College
The educational power of games is no longer a secret. Today, thanks to the efforts of great pedagogues, philosophers and psychologists, such as Spencer, Huizinga, Caillois, Freud, Winnicott, Piaget, Montessori, Vygotsky and many others, we can say that games are fundamental for the emotional, cognitive, motor and relational development of the child. It is finally recognised that games are one of the most authentic, creative sources of learning. Following Caillois’ thinking, one of the most interesting aspects of games is the implicit duality of two parts: ‘Paidia’ and ‘Ludus’11. All games move between two opposites: on the one hand, paidia (improvisation, absence of rules and restraints, fun) and ludus (rules and effort). In this contraposition, as we can see between play and game in the English language, we can also find the essence of Learner-Centered education, that seeks to promote freedom and creativity within a clear and broad framework of rules.
Record.
11
Caillois, R. (1961). Man, play
and games.
In this setting, through play and challenges, a child can learn from those who possess more skills. Learning skills socially and through play can reduce the frustration which can result from more structured learning.
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LEARNER-CENTERED LEARNING CIRCUS EDUCATION THROUGH LCL METHODOLOGY
