Brazil's performance on the 2022 PISA test has sounded an important alarm for education: More than half (54.3%) of 15-year-old students showed a low level of creativity in attempting to solve social and scientific problems. 

The country ranked 44th out of 56 participants, behind Latin American neighbors such as Uruguay, Colombia, and Peru. On a scale of 0 to 60 points, Brazil scored only 23, ten points below the OECD average. The data reveal a troubling gap: our young people still struggle to propose more than one solution to a problem, limiting themselves to obvious and unoriginal ideas.

If creativity is one of the skills most valued by society and the job market today, the results show that Brazilian schools urgently need to rethink their teaching methods. For Manu Bezerra, a professor and facilitator in Experience Design and Learning Programs, the way forward lies in valuing imagination and creativity as foundational tools for learning.

“Stimulating the imagination and fostering authorship are essential to making learning a living, meaningful experience. Pedro Demo, in his book *Learning as an Author*, argues that learning is not about repetition, but about producing knowledge as an author, taking on the role of an active participant in the process,” says Manu.

She points out that one of the most powerful approaches to this, in her view, lies in the thinking routines developed by Harvard University’s Project Zero. Unlike rigid methodologies, these routines function as simple frameworks of questions or sequences of reasoning that help students organize their ideas and make their thought processes visible.

One example is the “I See, I Think, I Ask” routine , which can be used in a history class on the Industrial Revolution:

• I see: Students analyze images of factories from that era or historical documents and objectively describe what they observe.
• I think: they reflect on what these observations might mean, coming up with hypotheses or interpretations.
• I ask: Do they ask genuine questions about the working conditions, social impacts, or technological innovations of that period?

“Through this process, teachers can encourage students to create original works such as annotated timelines, multimodal narratives, or even podcasts that connect the past with today’s challenges related to automation and the world of work,” Manu points out. 

Another practice is the “I Used to Think, Now I Think” routine , which encourages students to write down and revisit their ideas at the beginning and end of a unit of study. “This exercise strengthens metacognition and intellectual authorship, showing that learning also involves rethinking and reframing,” says the teacher. 

These strategies align with the vision of Corita Kent, author of *Learning from the Heart*, who links learning to sensitivity and boldness. For Manu, integrating reflection, art, and personal expression is essential for developing the dimensions of creativity assessed by PISA: exploring, creating, evaluating, and improving. 

A Collective Pact to Reimagine Education

But transforming everyday school life goes beyond isolated practices: it requires a cultural shift. “Reinventing school involves reimagining education as a collective pact, in line with the UNESCO report ‘Reimagining Our Futures Together’. “We need to integrate emotional intelligence (which values empathy and connections), creative intelligence (which fosters authorship and agency), and artistic intelligence (which broadens aesthetic sensitivity and imagination) into the learning process,” argues Manu.

In this agreement, every member of the school community plays an essential role:

• Managers as mentors, fostering an environment and culture of innovation;

• Teachers as facilitators, capable of transforming educational goals into vivid experiences;

• Students as creators, invited to imagine, experiment, and construct meaning in the learning process.

A practical strategy for making this collaboration feasible is to combine co-creation with backward planning. In this approach, one first defines the learning objectives, then the evidence that they have been achieved, and finally, the plan for experiences that engage the different intelligences (emotional, creative, and artistic). “This process is supported by design, which allows for the continuous prototyping, testing, and refinement of pedagogical practices,” explains Manu.

The contrast between the PISA results and the potential of creative methodologies shows that Brazilian schools face a major challenge, but also have an enormous opportunity. By adopting thinking routines, valuing authorship, and promoting co-creation, it is possible to transform the classroom into a space where imagination and the production of knowledge go hand in hand.

“The reinvention of everyday school life does not happen through imposition, but through collaborative learning communities, where everyone shares the responsibility of envisioning and building educational futures that are more humane, creative, and powerful,” concludes Manu.

The content of this article is based on the participation of Manu Bezerra, a professor and facilitator of Learning Experience and Program Design, at the Bett Nordeste 2025 Conference.

Share on social media: