Creativity in the teacher’s view

definition and use in professional practice

Abstract

Creativity has historically presented a high number of definitions. To investigate the concept that teachers have about this characteristic becomes important given the fact that the scientific literature has shown the importance of these professionals for the development of creativity in school. The sample was composed by 20 teachers, 10 from public school in the Joao Pessoa / PB city (2M and 8F) and 10 from Campinas / SP (6F and 4M). Participants answered a questionnaire containing three open questions that sought to investigate how these define creativity, if consider themselves creative in life and if they use the creativity in the classroom. The results indicated that most teachers (80%) rated themselves as creative in their personal and professional area. They said that use the creativity in the classroom through the use of various creative strategies. However, for these professionals this characteristic is related to the idea of innovation and ability to create something new, agreeing with the common sense view, demonstrating the lack of knowledge about the construct. These results are worrying if we consider that the teachers rating themselves as creative, but do little to stimulate the creativity of their students as they have not know the definition of the concept and its forms of stimulation in the classroom.