Creativity matters... From the Associated Press.

Seattle -- Applicants for even the most technical jobs need more than good grades and the ability to understand complex problems, says a group of business leaders who want to add another essential to the list of things kids learn in school: creativity.

The article raises the question, "Can you even teach creativity in the classroom?" The simple answer: If you allow it and if you encourage it. If you keep children's hands folded neatly on their desks, it won't happen. And we show how this works every day in the Wisdom of the Hands program and at Clear Spring School. Perhaps one day the world will awaken. There are risks. People with creativity can be like loose cannons. We can fire off in all directions and can be the faulty administrator's worst nightmare.

I am reminded of an art teacher friend, Jack, who was told by his new principal that he was expected to maintain quiet and order in his classroom. Jack calmly replied, "Let's go to your office so I can submit my letter of resignation right now." The principal, facing the challenge of hiring a new teacher at the beginning of the year backed down, leaving Jack the room he needed to work. You can't have creativity in schools unless you allow space for it and allow your teachers to model it. Jack uses movement and dance in his art classes to loosen the children up for creative work.

According to Bob Watt, vice president of government and community relations at Boeing: "We make our living imagining things that never before existed. Creativity is at the heart of what Boeing does."

But at the heart of all education is the teacher. There are three things that have to happen in American schools for creativity to blossom. 1. Reduce class sizes to allow teachers to engage in greater depth with the needs of their students. 2. Reduce the emphasis on testing. Teaching to the test and close adherence to a scripted curriculum deprives the teachers of their much needed creative engagement with subject materials. 3. Restore the arts (including woodworking) as the center of school activities. If you need an example of how this works, the current leader in PISA testing of academic performance is Finland. For 150 years, since the time of Uno Cignaeus, inventor of Sloyd and founder of the Folk Schools, Sloyd hand crafts have been compulsory for all children in Finland. And it makes a difference.