In an era where innovation and adaptability are highly valued across industries, fostering creative problem-solving in the classroom isn’t just an asset, it’s a necessity.
Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the role of a theatre director. In my view, one of the most critical skills for this role is the ability to solve creative problems on a large scale. Depicting messages or encoding meaning requires agile, lateral thinking, an ability that can be cultivated through experience. Over time, this skill grows more resilient, more nimble, as the demands of the work increase. It’s not unlike being a teacher, who must make a multitude of micro-decisions in every class, balancing instinct, strategy, and improvisation all at once.
Creative problem-solving is inherently demanding. It calls for resilience, presence, determination, belief, conviction, trust, and, perhaps most importantly, a willingness to fail and try again.
In the drama classroom, our students are developing what could almost be described as a superhuman level of skills that will serve them now and throughout their lives. They are learning to empathise, connect, inspire, create, collaborate, communicate, and explore their existence. They are analysing forms of expression and finding joy in what they do. The list is endless.
But lately, I’ve been thinking: What if we could take this even further? What if we could give students more opportunities to think laterally and tackle deeper challenges as a team? I believe the sense of self-efficacy students can build from navigating these kinds of collaborative challenges is profound.
Here’s where the connection to theatre directing comes into play. The creative problems a director faces are inherently complex, and I wonder: What if we could simulate some of these challenges in the drama classroom? What if we deliberately introduced “roadblocks” into group tasks? What if we infused suitable pre-planned obstacles that require lateral thinking to overcome?
For example, giving students an additional challenge like: “You must communicate to the audience that this character is flying through the sky (safely).” Or: “You need to depict two environments in the same scene seamlessly.” These kinds of creative challenges not only bolster collaboration and performance skills but might also deepen students’ sense of purpose and drive to “solve” the project.
Even if their solutions don’t fully succeed, the experience itself would be invaluable. When students are given the chance to reflect effectively on what worked, what didn’t, and why, the learning becomes richer. And this process of trying, failing, and reflecting should be celebrated.
Perhaps part of the assessment criteria could focus on students’ willingness to show resilience and commit to the creative challenge, rather than simply on how polished or successful the final product is. After all, transformation doesn’t happen through rote memorisation or passive observation. It happens through doing, through connecting, through the messy, exhilarating process of creation.
