‘What you risk reveals what you value’: fostering creativity in primary physical education

Creativity has become a buzzword in UK culture in the twenty-first century and is in increasing demand across many spheres. In education, its usage is often generic and has become ever more widespread as it has found its way into a plethora of government documentation pertaining to primary schools over the last decade. However, with a continued focus upon a performativity discourse, creativity continues to be underdeveloped in primary schools, even in areas such as Physical Education (PE), which has great potential for fostering creativity due to an endless range of movement possibilities. Using Nicholson's model (Enhancing creativity, in R. J. Sternberg, Ed., Handbook of creativity; Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999 Nicholson, R. 1999. “Enhancing creativity”. In Handbook of creativity, Edited by: Sternberg, R. J. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  [Google Scholar]) for creative enhancement, this paper examines key issues that concern the development of creativity within primary PE and seeks to construct some ‘real’ recommendations for how this could manifest itself in practice.     

INTERGENERATIONAL DIALOGUES: A TESTED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM FOR CHILDREN

Children's attitudes about growing old and about the elderly themselves are in large part influenced by negative images projected by the media and through lack of actual experience in interacting with older people. To counter this situation and to provide an opportunity for positive attitude shift, an educational program has been developed for 10‐ and 11‐year‐old students. Growing Up — Growing Older is a developed unit of instruction relying on a package of software including films and printed support materials. A strong experiential component is provided through structured intergenerational dialogues, facilitated by visiting older volunteers.

The program was field tested using both a treatment and control population. Survey methodology was used to determine pre‐ and post‐experience stages of attitude awareness and understanding of the elderly. Although the study population did not demonstrate the level of negative attitude we had anticipated from the literature, post‐experience testing indicated a positive shift. More significant is the demonstrated increase in level of awareness of aging issues and of older persons as a result of the educational experience. Finally, the treatment population increased significantly the percentage of old people they interacted with outside the classroom. This increased familiarity and awareness of the elderly can be expected to continue to produce attitudes based more on fact than on fancy.     

In Good Faith: Schools,religion and public funding

In Good Faith: schools, religion and public funding, MARIE PARKER-JENKINS, DIMITRI HARTAS & BARRIE IRVING, 2005 Aldershot: Ashgate, 254 pp., ISBN 0 7546 3351 9 £16.99(pb), 0 7546 3350 0 £55 (hb)     

Scholarship and ideology in education policy studies

Devolution and Choice in Education: the school, the state and the market, GEOFF WHITTY, SALLY POWER & DAVID HALPIN, 1998, Buckingham: Open University Press. £15.99, 170 pp., ISBN 0 335 19711 6     

Evaluating a Tutorial Program Containing Volunteer Subjects

Student teachers enrolled at Kansas State University and Northeastern State College (Oklahoma) in the spring of 1967 were compared on (1) maintenance of philosophic orientation, (2) adherence to teaching attitudes, (3) reaction to student-teaching, and (4) performance on related criteria. The GNC Scale of Logical Consistency in Educational Ideas determined their philosophic orientation. The Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory determined their attitudes toward potential teaching situations. Comparisons were made before and after student teaching by institution, teaching level, and sex. GNC, MTAI, and ACT levels, methods and student-teaching grades, and grade point averages were tested for intercorrelation.

K. S. U. students were more logically consistent and empirically oriented in their ideas about education before and after teaching participation. Teaching attitudes were best maintained by the elementary students in both institutions. N. S. C. students showed greater intercorrelation among all the criteria. Low logical consistency by N. S. C. students may signify disagreement between theoretical and practical educational views. Maintenance of teaching attitudes by K. S. U. elementary students suggests variable effects of professional courses. Agreement among academic and educational criteria by N. S. C. students suggests a greater unaminity of educational ends and means.     

Thinking skills: The question of generality

This paper examines the question of whether there are useful general thinking skills. It offers a working definition of 'thinking skill' and identifies ways in which this concept has been over-applied. Thinking skills, used across domains, are not inevitably weak as a result of the generality-power tradeoff. Admitting that thinking skills require domain-specific knowledge for their application, it is contended nonetheless that there are general thinking skills that involve substantial amounts of domain-independent knowledge. These skills usually address 'generic thinking tasks', common mental challenges that people face in many practical and intellectual endeavours, including the 'domain of practical affairs'. The educational implications of these findings are discussed.