Challenges in Maintaining Creativity in Creative Children and Strategies to Overcome Them

 

Creativity is an essential skill that allows children to think innovatively and express themselves uniquely. However, maintaining creativity in creative children is often challenging due to various internal and external factors. Several problems hinder their creative growth, but with the right strategies, these obstacles can be overcome. Problems in Maintaining Creativity Academic Pressure: Schools often emphasize structured learning, standardized testing, and memorization, leaving little room for creative thinking. The pressure to excel in exams may cause children to focus more on grades than on creative exploration. Lack of Encouragement: Many parents and teachers prioritize traditional career paths over creative pursuits. When children's creative efforts are not appreciated, they may lose motivation and confidence in their abilities. Fear of Failure and Criticism: Creativity involves taking risks and experimenting with new ideas. However, fear of making mistakes or receiving negative feedback can discourage children from expressing themselves freely. Over-Scheduling and Lack of Free Time: Involvement in multiple structured activities, such as tuition classes and competitive sports, can limit the time children have for unstructured play and imagination, which are essential for creativity. Digital Distractions: Excessive screen time, social media, and passive entertainment can reduce deep thinking and hands-on creative activities. Instead of creating, children may become passive consumers of digital content. Limited Exposure to Diverse Experiences: Creativity thrives on new and diverse experiences. A monotonous routine and lack of exposure to different cultures, environments, and artistic expressions can restrict children's imagination. Emotional and Mental Barriers: Stress, anxiety, and societal expectations to conform can prevent children from thinking freely. Low self-esteem may make them hesitant to share their creative ideas. Strategies to Overcome These Challenges Encourage Open-Ended Learning: Schools and parents should provide opportunities for exploration and problem-solving rather than rigid memorization. Create a Supportive Environment: Appreciating children's creative efforts and providing constructive feedback can boost their confidence. Promote Risk-Taking and Mistakes: Teaching children that failure is a part of learning can help them overcome the fear of judgment. Allow Free Play and Unstructured Time: Reducing overscheduling and allowing time for imagination and creative expression is crucial. Limit Digital Distractions: Encouraging hands-on activities like art, music, and storytelling can help children engage actively in creative processes. Expose Children to Diverse Experiences: Traveling, reading, and engaging with different art forms can inspire new ideas and expand their creative thinking. Support Mental Well-being: Encouraging mindfulness, self-expression, and emotional support can help children overcome stress and self-doubt. Maintaining creativity in children requires a balance between academic learning and creative freedom. By providing the right environment and encouragement, parents and educators can ensure that children's creative potential is nurtured and sustained.

PRINCIPLES OF FRAMING CURRICULUM

 

PRINCIPLES OF FRAMING CURRICULUM

1. Principle of child-centeredness: curriculum should be framed according to the actual needs, interests, and capacities of the child. That means a curriculum should be child-centric as the modern education system is child-centered.

2. Principles of civic and social needs: man is a social being. He/she lives in a society. Modern Education aims at both development, of the individual and society.

3. Principle of integration: the curriculum should not be split up into watertight academic subjects. Various subjects included in the curriculum at a particular stage of education should be integrated and correlated with many others subjects as well as with the real-life experience of the students.

4. Principles of flexibility: in order to serve the varying needs of the individual on the one hand and society on the other curriculum should follow the principle of flexibility and dynamism.  it should allow desirable change and modification of its content from time to time in order to keep it up to date.

5. Principles of creativeness: Education not only conserves the past experiences of humanity but also helps an individual to develop his innate potential. This aspect should be taken care of during the framing of the curriculum.

6. Principle of utility: at the time of curriculum construction utility instead of special knowledge or logical sequence should be the base. Only that which is useful for society should be included in the curriculum, and that which is not useful should be excluded, however, important matter it may be.

7. Principle of relating to community life: our curriculum should be original, and related to community life. It should allow the student to come into close contact with the life around him.

8. Principle of conservation: Man has conserved experiences very carefully for better adaptability. Education is regarded as a means of deserving the cultural heritage of humanity. The school serves two-fold functions in this regard- preservation of past experiences and transmission of experiences.

9. Principle of individual difference: the curriculum should be framed in such a way that every individual can have the opportunity for self-expression and development. The curriculum should be based on the psychology of individual differences, which can meet the complexities of a modern democratic society.

10. Principle of activity: curriculum must be based on the principle of learning by doing. It should involve the students in different types of mental and physical activities.
11. Principle of vision: a society can never be static in any way. it has to go ahead with time. While constructing a curriculum for children, the future needs of society must also be taken into account.

12. Principle of utilization of leisure: a variety of subjects such as games and sports, fine arts, music, etc. are to be introduced in the school program to utilize leisure time.

13. Principle of forward-looking: The aim of life-centered education is not limited to the present life situations in the family and society. Hence, education must prepare the child of shouldering future responsibilities. So in framing the curriculum we must take into consideration the future needs of the child as well as the needs of society.

14. Principle of preparation for living: The children should know the various activities of the environment around them and how these activities are enabling people to meet their basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, recreation, health, and education.

15. Principle of preparation for the world of work/vocation: The community needs skilled workers and professionals in different professions and occupational fields. So the curriculum should be framed in accordance with this need. The curriculum should able to guide and prepare the students for the future world of work.

 

NECESSITY OF CURRICULUM

 

NECESSITY OF CURRICULUM

1. Curriculum provides a solid frame or a structure to an education system or course and has an end goal that teachers/curriculum planners set for their students to reach.

2. Curriculum provides a boundary about what to teach and what not to teach in a school for a specific stage and specific grade.

3. It defines the method and techniques to be used by the teacher for the student's holistic development.                                                                                                         

4. It describes the various evaluation processes to be followed for assessment.

5. It is a guideline for the students, teacher, and the other stakeholders related to the school by following which the education system of a school can run successfully.

6. A well-built curriculum can act as a reagent for developing a positive attitude towards other religions, castes, gender, etc.

7. It can also act as a means for developing moral and ethical values among the students to make them good citizens.

8. Curriculum helps to organize the subject matter in a logical and psychological sequence as per the child's demands and needs.

9. A good curriculum is a reflection of that nation and society.

10. Good curriculum organizes the selected content in simple to complex hence making the education system systematic.

11. It provides work experience and vocational education to the students. Thus making them skilled for the future work environment.

12. It ideally serves as a time management and organizational tool as well; by setting an agenda ahead of time. Teachers and students have the opportunity to prepare for future reading and assignments.

SCOPE OF CURRICULUM

 

SCOPE OF CURRICULUM

The scope of the curriculum includes the knowledge, skills and values, and students' experiences needed to achieve the set educational goals. It consists of the experience or subject matter or content to which the learners are exposed. The content of every field of learning is so vast and is expanding at such a rate that it is impossible to cover any field in its entirety. Some hard decisions must be made as to what content should be selected for inclusion in the curriculum and what limitations will be placed on that curriculum.
The matter on the basis of which the scope of the curriculum is framed:

A. Socio-economic condition of the nation:

It is one of the dominant components for framing curriculum. The policy of education and its objective depends on the social and economic condition of that nation. The economic and social logical structure drives the framework of the curriculum. For example, the Indian education curriculum is a reflection of the democratic nature of the nation.

B. Socio-cultural element:

The culture of any nation is the bearer and carrier of that nation’s heritage. That is why sociocultural elements are given immense importance during defining the scope of the curriculum. It should reflect in the curricular and co-curricular activities.

C. Social needs:

It is the responsibility of the nation to fulfill the social needs of its citizen. The nation includes those needs in its education system through the curriculum. Hence these needs are given value during deciding the scope of the curriculum.

D. Peoples's religious consciousness and beliefs:

The religious consciousness and beliefs of the people have a great impact on the education system of a nation. Their religious consciousness and beliefs should be taken care of during defining the scope of the curriculum.

E. In and out of school experience:

School is the miniature of society and society frames some objectives for its citizens. One of the main goals of education is to implement those objectives through the education system in school. While defining the scope of the curriculum a balance should be made between the lives of a student in and out of the school. The students must able to relate the school experience with that of their daily life.

F. Dynamic Education system:

The curriculum should be changed and developed and new content or subject can be incorporated keeping in mind the changing society and its needs.

G. Use of human resources:

During preparing the scope of the curriculum one should keep in mind the availability of human resources related to education. Human resources available should be utilized at the optimum level for the benefit of the learners.

H. Physical/material resources:

The curriculum should be designed on the basis of the other resources available. The state should inform the curriculum developer about the availability of the resources.

I. Budget/financial resource:

Money is one of the important aspects of designing and framing a curriculum. It also serves as an important scope. Someone could not plan a curriculum without knowing how much money she could manage to run that particular curriculum.

J. Variety of the school:

All schools' structures are not the same. Their ideologies are different. Even the contexts are different in many cases. Hence while designing the curriculum the schools' requirements and other aspects like the position of the school, school type, ideology, etc. are needed to be taken care of.