Beliefs and practices of Chinese private pre-school teachers in nurturing children's creativity

Despite global acknowledgement on the importance of creativity in early childhood education, past research has shown that teachers’ beliefs about creativity vary and have often been influenced by their cultural norms and values towards education. The aim of this study was to explore Chinese private pre-school teachers’ beliefs about creativity and how they practice it in their preschool classrooms. This phenomenological research involved multiple semi-structured interviews with a female principal and seven teachers from eight private pre-schools in Penang. Chinese private pre-school teachers who were purposively sampled following their participation in pre-school teacher training workshops and through the completion of a closed survey to classify their creativity type. The teachers’ classroom activities were also observed and fieldnotes were taken to capture the way they nurtured creativity among the preschool children. The results are presented in two parts. Firstly, the study discovered five themes regarding the teachers’ beliefs about
creativity which are: (1) The concept of creativity (2) Identifying creative children (3) The importance of creativity (4) Teachers’ roles and (5) The constraints and expectations of teachers. Nonetheless, observational data revealed inconsistencies between teacher
beliefs and actual practices in the classroom. Secondly, the study led to the construction of three categories about teaching-learning milieu. They were (1) Classroom teaching strategies, (2) Teaching and learning environment, and (3) Characteristics of teachers. The research has provided a unique look into the teachers’ experiences in nurturing creativity, and how these experiences have been shaped by their beliefs and the current demand for academic excellence. Further research is recommended to explore the nature of training provided to them, to identify contradictory messages about the value of creativity, and to examine the feasibility of embedding culturally appropriate way of nurturing creativity in the early childhood education curriculum.