Creativity Was Very Easily Fostered During The Pandemic- Ms. Sunita Nagpal

Curiosity and creativity skills are aligned with the IB learner profile attributes like thinkers, inquirers, and communicators. Many educators now talk about the importance of making the students gain 21st-century skills including the development of curiosity & creativity during their schooling. Educators have also expressed their concern about the uncertainty of incorporating this into the curriculum. However, in the post-pandemic period, creativity has been well fostered through virtual classrooms.

ASMA’s webinar on School Education Leadership Forum was attended by several national and global educators. One of these educators was Ms. Sunita Nagpal, Principal of K R Mangalam World School, Gurugram.

The School Education Leadership Forum discussion that day was how IB schools foster curiosity, creativity and productivity.

Ms. Sunita was asked how IB schools keep the students aligned with their creativity virtually post covid?

She begins her discussion by saying that this is something that all of us will agree with, that pandemic has indeed given us an opportunity to explore the means of encouraging creativity in our children. Pre-pandemic, they were all on tried and tested parts, and then when the pandemic hit everything was haphazard and sudden.

It was like teachers were dropped in the mid-ocean having to swim. IB schools were anyway equipped with good infrastructure and technical skills. However, there were many tools that were discovered by the teachers. They used their design thinking skills to plan and strategize how best they could use the tools including Canva, Flipboard, and lots more.

And the best part is that the teachers and educators are so familiar with these tools now. Even the children were given ownership of these tools because they were sitting in their homes remotely. Once they got the hang of these tools, they were delivering what the tutor was expecting of them. So, everybody kind of worked together collaboratively and this is how we developed the IB profile of every IB learner.

The teachers collaborated well with the students and they managed to swim very efficiently through these initial tough months. Now everybody has become a pro using this technological tools both teachers and students. So, even if you enter the virtual classroom, children come up with more ideas and there is more choice and voice of the child.

Also, there is an ownership of what they are bringing out; whether it is their project or their general learning. It’s proven to be a wonderful journey. It was not without hurdles. Initially, there were a lot of problems but slowly things got adjusted on their own. They rose to the occasion and struggled even though the parents were supportive. It turned out to be wonderful learning.

Going forward, there would be a huge takeaway from this entire time. Therefore, creativity was very easily fostered throughout the pandemic in the IB school curriculum.