The Creative Innovator: The Most Misunderstood Portrait Attribute
Part 4 of the Portrait of a Graduate Series
By Dr. Marisol Marcin, Founder & CEO of Lenguas Club
When we hear “creative innovator,” people tend to picture the student who draws well, the one who leads the robotics club, or the one who always has an unconventional idea in class.
But the Portrait of a Graduate does not define the Creative Innovator as a student type. It defines it as a capability that every student must develop.
And that distinction changes everything.
______________________________________________________________________________
What Defines a Creative Innovator According to the Portrait?
The New York State Education Department (NYSED) is precise in its definition: a Creative Innovator is one who uses imagination, curiosity, and flexible thinking to solve problems creatively, develop new ideas and products, and adapt to evolving circumstances and challenges.
Three key words anchor this definition:
- Imagination: the ability to conceive what does not yet exist.
- Curiosity: the drive to explore beyond what is already known.
- Flexible thinking: the capacity to shift perspective when the first approach doesn’t work.
Notice what does not appear in this definition: artistic talent, specific technical skills, or a particular type of intelligence. The Portrait does not ask for traditionally brilliant students. It asks for students who dare to think differently when faced with a real problem.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Most Common Mistake: Confusing Creativity with Talent
For decades, education has treated creativity as an innate attribute: either you have it, or you don’t. It was relegated to art, music, or theater classes, and it was assumed that there was no room for it in mathematics, science, or languages.
The Portrait of a Graduate breaks with that logic directly.
Creativity is not a personality trait. It is a cognitive practice that develops when students face open-ended problems, when they are allowed to fail and rethink, and when they are given space to explore without every step being graded.
A student who must find a way to communicate a complex idea in a language they don’t yet fully master is being creative. A student who designs a solution to a community problem with available resources is being innovative. Neither moment requires special talent. They require an educational environment that encourages and enables those skills.
______________________________________________________________________________
Creativity and Innovation: How Lenguas Club Works it in the Classroom
At Lenguas Club, we understand that a Creative Innovator is not developed through fill-in-the-blank exercises or single correct answers. That is why our instructional model is designed from the ground up to create exactly the conditions this Portrait attribute requires.
Here is how we do it:
- Students use the language from day one. Our communicative approach doesn’t wait until students feel “ready.” It invites them to build meaning from their very first contact with the language, requiring them to improvise, adapt, and create with what they have. That process is, in itself, flexible thinking in action.
- Sessions are culturally rich and unpredictable. Contact with native speakers exposes students to expressions, references, and ways of thinking that are not in any textbook. When a student encounters something unfamiliar and must interpret it in real time, they are exercising exactly the curiosity and imagination the Portrait describes.
- Activities are open-ended and student-centered. We don’t design sessions where everyone arrives at the same answer. Our culturally rich classrooms engage students’ curiosity and creativity.
- Mistakes are part of the method. At Lenguas Club, making an error in a real conversation with a native speaker is not a failure; it is the most valuable learning moment. That willingness to try, adjust, and try again is the foundation of any genuine innovation process.
Every Lenguas Club session is, in essence, a Creative Innovation lab applied to language.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Link Between Creativity and Uncertainty
Creativity, according to educational research, thrives in environments that present genuine challenges, allow for nonlinear exploration, and embrace mistakes as part of learning. This concept represents a profound challenge for traditional educational systems, which have historically valued the correct answer over the search process itself.
The Portrait of a Graduate invites New York schools to recognize that preparing a creative innovator requires redesigning the types of tasks we give students. Educators we need to create conditions where curiosity is welcome, flexible thinking is necessary, and adapting to the unexpected is part of everyday learning.
______________________________________________________________________________
The Question Educational Leaders Must Ask
Since creativity is developed by practice, not theory, the question for every educator is a simple one: How often are students truly challenged to use flexible thinking, imagination, or adapt to something unexpected in their school week? If the answer is “rarely” or “never,” the Portrait of a Graduate shows us exactly where we need to focus.
The good news is we don’t need a massive curriculum overhaul to begin. Instead, we need authentic experiences, open-ended problems, and the commitment to let students think, fail, adjust, and try again. That’s how you develop a Creative Innovator in any classroom, in any subject, at any level.
At Lenguas Club, we bring that principle into the language classroom every day. If you want to explore how we can support your district in this direction with flexible solutions aligned with the Portrait of a Graduate, we would love to be part of that conversation.
Follow us to continue reading this series and discover how language education becomes one of the most powerful spaces to develop every attribute of the Portrait.
______________________________________________________________________________
In what moment of your teaching practice do you see creativity genuinely emerge in your students? What conditions make it possible? 👇
📧 info@lenguasclub.com
📞 607-682-2624
🌐
#PortraitOfAGraduate #CreativeInnovator #LanguageEducation #NYSchools #LenguasClub #Innovation #WorldLanguages #NYSED #FollowUs