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Creativity in the classroom: Schools of curious delight, third edition.

Article Excerpt
Starko, A. J. (2005). Creativity in the classroom: Schools of curious delight, third edition. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-4791-X, x + 499 pp., $45.00 (paperback)

Generally, a book in its third edition has made a contribution to the field and established its merit. Both of these are true for Creativity in the classroom, which is a rare example of book that is both a solid review of the theoretical and empirical research on its topic and a practical application book, in this case, one that elaborates on how creativity can be taught in school systems. The stated goal of the book is to help schoolteachers incorporate important aspects of creativity in the daily activities of classroom life. The author wants to help teachers better understand the creative process which should allow them to choose content, plan lessons, organize materials and grade assignments in ways that help students develop essential skills and attitudes for creativity (p. viii). This book achieves these goals even though, at times, the book borders on providing so much information that the reader can easily become over saturated.

The book is broken into two main sections. Part one includes four chapters. Chapter one reviews the different definitions of creativity concentrating on two features: originality and appropriateness. Together, creativity is a novel form of thinking that is not imitation nor is it typical of other people's responses; at the same time the creative solution is appropriate to the task at hand. Chapter two contains a review of the basic theories of why people become or work toward becoming creative. The chapter includes sections, in this order, on cross-cultural studies, psychoanalytic, behavioral, humanistic, social-cognitive and system approaches to creativity. The social cognitive and systems approaches, which concern mostly contemporary empirical research, are particularly well done....