Prerna waits for the bell to ring; it’s her favourite period: drawing. As she takes out her sketchbook, a fire soars within her. With utmost concentration and precision, she wields her pencil. Her voice grows quieter, and her eyes fixate on each line her hand draws.
Far away, Anup sits with a similar fire. His eyes are fixed on the problem in front of him. Except it isn’t a real threat; it’s a maths problem, an intimidating question. He turns pages, verifies the formulas he has learned, tries different methods, and finally, it clicks. When he arrives at the answer, he feels the same rush of satisfaction Prerna feels when she finishes her art.
One may say that what Anup does is more relevant than what Prerna does. But creativity cannot be measured that way. Where Prerna stops with her pencil, Anup begins with his pen. Both are creative; they simply express it differently.
In schools, we schedule a drawing class, give children an hour to “be creative,” and once the period ends, the sketchbook closes, and they return to their normal routine. Too often, creativity is reduced to a child’s ability to draw or paint.
But why should creativity have to stay inside an art class?
Creativity is not simply about making something beautiful. It is about making connections, exploring possibilities, and looking at something familiar and wondering, “What if I looked at this differently?” For Anup, that meant approaching a maths problem from different angles until something clicked. And for Prerna, it meant turning a blank page into something of her own. The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines creativity as the ability to produce or develop original work, theories, techniques, or thoughts. But for a child, creativity may begin much earlier than producing something “original.” It begins with curiosity: the willingness to explore, experiment, make mistakes, and ask, “What if?”
What happens when children are allowed to explore?
This is where creativity grows beyond the classroom. Give a child the freedom to explore, and you may be surprised by what they find about themselves.
The activity is only the beginning. When children explore different domains, they get to notice what excites them, what challenges them, what they keep coming back to, and how they naturally like to think. They might discover an interest they never knew they had or realise that something they thought they would love isn’t for them at all.
Both are forms of discovery.
Creativity gives children the space to ask questions that don’t always have to be answered with a mark out of ten:
· What am I curious about?
· What do I enjoy making?
· How do I see things differently?
· What kind of problems do I like solving?
· And perhaps most importantly: Who am I?
From creating things to discovering ourselves
We often think of personality as something children “have”: the quiet child, the curious child, the confident child, the analytical child.
But personality also develops through experience.
When children experiment, they discover how to be comfortable with uncertainty. If something they create doesn’t work, they get a fresh opportunity to try again. Sharing their ideas helps them practice expressing themselves. Exploring unfamiliar things teaches them that it’s okay not to have all the answers right away.
These experiences slowly shape how they see themselves.
A child who discovers joy in writing, building, designing, performing, or simply imagining may begin to see themselves as more than a student who completes assignments. They begin to see themselves as someone who can create.
And that is why creativity deserves a place in everyday learning: not as an activity separate from education, but as a part of it.
Schools teach children mathematics, science, languages, and history. But education is also about giving them opportunities to understand their own interests, perspectives, strengths, and possibilities.
Perhaps that is the real power of creativity. It helps children make things, but it also gives them a way to discover themselves. And somewhere between the questions they ask, the mistakes they make, and the things they create, they begin to build something far more important: Themselves.
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