21st Century Creativity

My father grew up during a time where there were 3 basic skills taught in schools; reading, writing, and arithmetic.  This was 50 years ago, in that time the expectations of students and future employees alike have changed considerably.  In The Global Achievement Gap the author discusses how employers today are looking for more than that 4.0 student with the 30+ ACT score, they are looking for a person with creative thinking skills and versatility in the work environment.  As teachers our job is to prepare students for the workforce.  By being designated with this task we have to teach students creativity.  Now the real question is how do we teach a student to be creative? I believe that creativity isn't taught; it has to be discovered and offered a chance to grow.  This means that in order for a student to tap into their creative abilities a setting needs to be presented that would allow them to use their creative abilities.  Many times this only requires a teacher to step back an allow for an autonomy-supported classroom to form and student's creative sides come out. When the instructions for lessons are written out in black and white for the students their ability to critically think is not being utilized and if that ability is not being used then there is no way of developing it.