Abstract :
This paper reports mature students’ responses to
a creative project, focusing on their own analyses
to identify and demonstrate the conditions
required to provide worthwhile creative experience
for participants unused to such practices. In
considering their reactions to the project brief, the
paper demonstrates the lack of confidence felt by
many when faced with creative work, arising out
of myths about the exclusive nature of creativity.
The report then identifies some ways in which a
creative approach was fostered: by giving
permission to non-experienced students to work
in a creative manner (by dismantling some of the
mythology), by providing a personal space (both
physical and mental) for this to take place, by
encouraging a playful attitude to the project that
enjoyed ambiguity and uncertainty, and by feeding
the students’ ideas with a programme of
enhancement experiences. The place of one-toone
tutorials in developing an appropriate
approach is evidenced. Throughout the paper,
students’ own responses provide forceful
support for engagement in practical creative
activity, demonstrating the sense of empowerment
felt, and showing how the experience
initiated long-term developments in their thinking,
both professionally and personally.
