Launch Conference of the European Year of Creativity and Innovation 2009

1. The Impact on Education
Launch Conference of the European Year of Creativity and
Innovation 2009
7th January 2009, Prague
Michael Wimmer

2. Creativity as the new magic word ?
Raymond Williams: “Culture is one of the most complicated
words“
Niklas Luhmann: “Culture is one of the most terrible words“
And what about “creativity“?
Its main characteristics: Contradictory definitions in the
reference literature. Inflationary use in everyday life. Weak
empirical base.
What are the communalities, what are the particularities?
Do we replace one unclear, ambiguous term by another?

3. What we have in mind when we are talking about
• Creativity
Traditional meaning („creare“): expression of numinous grace and arbitraryness, an
emanation of artistic and religious mysticism
The main representative: the artist of the 19th century as man (sometimes also
women) of genius
The mass: educated alongside the concept of a „well-rounded personality“, equipped
with applicable intelligence, well adapted, without any internal and external conflicts
The associations of today: effective communication, lateral thinking, originality,
ingenuity, problem-solving, leadership, questioning, controversal thoughts
Weak theoretical foundation: Creativity as the little sister of intelligence
Caution! Fostering creativity might produce disputatious,
inconvenient, troublesome people

4. What we have in mind when we are talking about
• Innovation
It is about the creation of something new
(„innovatio“); it can be defined as application of
„creativity“
In the context of the development of products and
services
Dominance of entrepreneurial aspects – What
about social and/or cultural innovations?
Importance of the organisational frame („closed“
or „open“ innovations – innovative success relies
on the relationship between organisations and its
environments
Particular relevance in vocational training

5. The European Resolution invites us to
• Provide an environment which is favourable to innovation
• Highlight openness to cultural diversity as a means of fostering intercultural
communication and promoting closer links between artforms, as well as with
schools and universities
• Stimulate aesthetic sensitivity
• Raise awareness of the importance of creativity, innovation and
entrepreneursip
• Promote education for mathematical, scientific and technological skills
• Broaden access to a variety of creative forms of self-expression
• Raise awareness in- and outside the labour market, that creativity, knowledge
and flexibility are important in times of rapid technological changes
• Promote design as a creative activity up to the protection of intellectual
property
• Develop creative and innovative capacity in private and public organisations
through training

6. Living in a changing world
• Rapid economic, technological, political, social und cultural changes
• Decline of the old industries (with their value system)
• Increasing immaterial character of products and services („Mediatisation“,
„Aesthetisation“, „Culturalisation“)
• Increasing competition combined with decreasing social safeguarding
• Increasing need for making use of the full range of human capacities
• Increasing need for „creative“ labour forces
• Increasing heterogenity of national populations
• Increasing unproductivity of national education systems

7. The traditional education is based on
• Putting the institution first (which can never be creative)
• Making children learn the same things at the same time
• Dominance of academic skills
• Searching for weaknesses of the child
• Early selection – social desintegration
• Creativity limited to particular subjects on the margins of the curriculum
• Weak basis for giving evidence of quality and success
• Alternative concepts („reform pedagogy“ exist since more than hundred years)
©Schulmuseum Bad
Leonfelden

8. Contemporary education is based on
• Putting the child first or No child left behind
• Entitlement of each individual‘s excellence
• Searching for the strength of each child - Making use of individual talent
• Fostering individuality und particularity
• Making use of (intercultural) diversity
• Fostering social mobility and integration
• Implementation of new methods of teaching and learning to develop
• Confidence, self-esteem, communication, motivation, comittment,
enjoyment

9. Towards new concepts of creativity
In the interests of the (old) industrial economy and of academic
achievement, we have succumbed to a partial form of education. We have
vasted and even destroyed a great deal of what people had to offer because
we couldn‘t see the value of it.
Therefore we need a new conception of human resources.
This is what the ideas about creativity are pointing at.
It is fundamentally a question of ecology (All Our Futures)
How to differentiate between creative products, processes and
persons?

10. When talking about creativity…..
we talk about social inclusion
„There are many misconceptions about creativity. Creativity is not a
separate faculty that some people have and others do not. It is a function
of human intelligence.“
we talk about school development
„Creativity is a balance between freedom, authority, skill and speculation. It
can be taught, but you have to loosen up the system to let it happen. You
can‘t have creative learning without creative teaching.“
we talk about diversity in democratic societies
„Creativity is the freedom to constantly see things from a different
perspective.“

11. What has happened up to now
- 1998 Conference “A Creative Culture” in Bregenz during the First
Austrian EU-Presidency
- Report “All Our Futures”
- 2001 Conference “A Must or a Muse” in Rotterdam
- Since 2001 Culture-School-Network of civil servants from education
and cultural administrations
- 2005 Recommendations of the European Council on key
competencies for lifelong learning
- 2006 Conference “Cultural Education in Europe: A Contribution for
Creativity,Participation and Innovation” during the Austrian EU-
Presidency
- 2008 European Year on Intercultural Dialogue

12. What will happen next
- 2009 European Year of Creativity and Innovation
- 2010 Follow up of the Lisbon Agenda
- 2010 UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education
- A manifold variety of new approaches to transform the national school
systems according to the comprehensive societal changes

13. Some positive examples
which try to combine creative and cultural/artistic dimensions
- Creative Partnerships/Arts Award/Arts Mark/Find Your Talent/England
- Kulturelle and Kunstsinnige Forming/ The Netherlands
- Kinder zum Olymp!/Kultur.Forscher/Germany
- KACES: Korean Arts and Cultural Education Service
- Austrian Culture Service/KulturKontakt/EDUCULT Austria

14. Towards evidence based policy
- UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education, 2006 in Lisbon
- The WOW-Factor Global research compendium on the impact of the arts
in education, 2006
- French Ministry of Education and French Ministry of Culture: The Impact
of Arts and Cultural Education, 2007 Paris
- Creative Partnerships: ofsted - initiative
- Brain research
- Project Zero/Howard Gardner/Ellen Winner:
Multiple intelligences/Studio
Thinking/Habits of Mind
- EDUCULT: Cultural Education Counts!

15. What research made evident
- Creative Development
Partnerships between schools and cultural institutions are effective in
developing in pupils attributes of creative people
- Applying Creativity
Cultural education enables the development of good personal and social skills
(effective collaboration, maturity in their relationship with adults,…)
- Young Professionals
A significant number of pupils were motivated to work directly in the creative industries
- Standards Achieved
Students improved in achievment in areas such as literacy, numeracy and information and
communication technology
- Personal Development and Well-Being
Improvement of pupils‘ motivation to actively take part
- Sustaining and Achieving
Arts and Cultural Education has long lasting effects
(Fe in changing cultural attitudes)

16. Recommendations or Creative learners need
creative teachers
- Leadership and management
- Implementation of new teaching
and learning methods
- Making use of arts and culture
- Opening up education institutions: Organisation of partnerships
- Documentation, monitoring and evaulation
- International exchange and co-operation

17. Creativity is core, not peripheral.
Creativity is about thinking, not just about feelings (observation,
envision, expression, reflection).
Creativity is another way to understand the world, as important as the
scientific way.
Creativity cultivates habits of mind, not just craft.
„The imagination in its loyalty to possibility often
takes the curved path rather than the linear way“
John O‘Donohue