Now I can just see all of you out there saying, “Uh-didn’t you know that?” Well yes, but for whatever reason, that day it struck me more powerfully. The key is, students with special needs must do all those things with appropriate supports. This was my second “Aha!” The more she talked, the more I realized that all the ideas she was sharing were things we taught in our basic curriculum classes as Universal Design principles: students need to learn content in multiple ways, students need to express themselves and represent content in multiple ways, and students need to find content relevant to their lives. In hope of getting some good ideas, I bribed a special educator friend with Thai food and had a fascinating conversation about creativity for students with special needs. So now the time has come to begin those revisions.

Properly chastened, I promised them that the next time I was planning to revise the book I would make sure to include examples appropriate for students with disabilities. And students who struggle in school may need the chance to feel the excitement of generating and following their own ideas more than anyone else. As I thought about it, I realized that of course the special educators were right. Not only, they insisted, was developing creativity appropriate for students with disabilities, it was possibly more important for them than for anyone else. Well, those teachers let me know in no uncertain terms that I was wrong. Of course they didn’t have to ask twice! When the time came, and I was about to introduce the “Three Keys to Creativity in the Classroom”, I made an offhand comment to the special educators in the room apologizing if the material was not appropriate for their students.

Several of the students, knowing I had written Creativity in the Classoom, asked if I could take some time at the end of the term to talk about creativity in schools. This is the story of three “aha” moments regarding students with special needs and creativity.Ī few years ago I was teaching a basic research class that is taken by students in a number of masters’ degree programs.

Aha moments examples in teaching