Abstract
“Creativity” as a contradictory “buzz word”, developed as a concept in scientific research, poses great challenges for phenomenology and pedagogy. This paper adopts a phenomenological-pedagogical understanding of learning, based on an understanding of learning as experience and perceives “creating” (erfinden) as a phenomenon of learning between reproductivity and productivity, between the self and the alien, between order and chaos where they form polarities which allow a scale of intermediate possibilities. The purpose of the paper is to explore the application and the meaning of the phenomenon of “creating”, from the point of inspiration through the realization of something new. Following the phenomenology-based research design of the “Innsbruck Vignette Research” the paper is based on data drawn from field-work at middle schools across the South Tyrol of Italy. This study is undertaken in order to gain a new perspective on the complexity of the learning phenomenon, as well as to provide a new aspect to be included for teacher training. To this end, different facets of the phenomenon of “creating”, as illustrated by a hermeneutic phenomenological vignette reading, will be discussed.