Teachers as readers and writers of poetry : a workshop

Abstract

In order to cultivate creativity among young people, it is imperative to identify how teachers can achieve this effectively. Samuel Hope maintains that “If we want to develop creative potential in schools, we must want the necessary structures and means for its development as much as we want the results. A number of major adjustments are required” (39). One of the most fundamental adjustments that needs to be made is for teachers to position themselves as creative practitioners. This is because the cultivation of students’ creativity is to some extent dependent on teachers’ own efforts to engage in creative thinking and teaching: “creative teachers are such, precisely because they have made a conscious effort to be creative—they have, in other words, decided to be creative” (Pugliese 15). Positioning oneself as a creative practitioner is no mean feat, and teachers require plenty of support to do so effectively. Poetry workshops that merge reading and writing have the potential to provide such support. They develop teachers’ creativity by targeting the relevant knowledge, skills, beliefs, and attitudes that they require in order to position themselves as creative practitioners.