26 June 2008 - The word ‘creativity’ is often associated with artistic talent, but it really means the ability to connect ideas, and apply knowledge and skills in new ways. Why is creativity more important now than ever?

Employers are putting more value on creativity in workers to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive business world. This economic competition increases pressure for organisations and workers to innovate, create and improve their products and services.

This means they must be able to learn, relearn and solve problems. The key to doing that is creativity.

Creativity is an ability that lies within every mind. However, rote learning and spoonfeeding have not been very effective teaching techniques for making creative learners.

Creative learners are able to independently learn any curriculum from formal and informal lessons such as personal experiences. They can solve problems, apply knowledge in different contexts and learn from failure.

This will not happen unless teachers explicitly encourage them from a young age to use creativity. For creativity to develop, the right learning environment and method of instruction are needed.

These methodologies and principles are employed at St Nicholas Montessori Centre (SNMC), where young children from ages 2½  to 6 will be basically facilitate to become creative learners.

The Montessori method emphasizes on self-learning, whereby children are given the space to discover answers instead of being fed them. Learning materials are integrated across a wide range of topics, so