Creativity is not just for kids.

A new course in the BEd in Adult Education program began this semester focusing on creativity for the adult learner. It studies how people explore, harness and utilize our creativity as they age.

Sharon Abbey, Director for the Centre for Adult Education and Community Outreach (CAECO), has spent the last few years researching and understanding the importance of creativity to adults.

Understanding creativity in the adult learner may seem like a marginal inquiry, but as Abbey’s research progressed she realized there is an extraordinary amount of work taking place to understand the creative process, especially as people age.

“It started with the idea of why do adults tend to lose their creativity,” said Abbey. “For whatever reason it seems to atrophy, and seeing as (the centre) is focused on adult learning, I thought, let’s explore that.”

Abbey’s immersion into the world of the creative process and the theoretical framework that housed it began. She noticed that while creativity had been studied from philosophical and psychological perspectives, there’s no blueprint as to how it can be formally assessed.

In trying to develop the outline for the course, Abbey was reminded of a teacher education class she lectured years ago in which she posed the question of whether or not creativity could be taught.

The response of her students surprised her.

“They said no, you either have it or you don’t,” Abbey said. “I thought, if you don’t think it can be taught, you’re not going to even try teaching it to little kids.”

Now, several years later, Abbey will be looking to do what her class thought wasn’t possible: teach creativity.

While the course will require creative journaling – which could include anything from drawing with crayons to creating collages – Abbey says it will be academically rigorous.

“Each of the 12 weeks will contain a reading and discussions,” said Abbey. “But, they’ll have some kind of visual challenge to complete as well. At the end of the course they’ll do a summary of reflection on what it was like to tap into that creativity.”

The course is being newly offered and the hope is that students will be looking to delve deeper into the theories of creativity and its assessment, as well as its application.

“Creativity is such an important part of who we are,” she says. “So if you push it down, you’re missing part of yourself, you’re not allowing that part of you to thrive and flourish.”

For more information on the BEd in Adult Education visit: https://brocku.ca/education/futurestudents/adulted