People belief that Creativity is essential for children, for students, for teachers, for schools. Actually, for everybody. No doubt that creativity is important, but what exactly is creativity?
A lot of people have being trying to find a definition for creativity. These are some quotes that relevant people have said about creativity:
“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people” – Leo Burnett
“Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple awesomely simple, that’s creativity” – Charles Mingus
“Creativity comes from a conflict of ideas” – Donatella Versace.
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while” – Steve Jobs.
“Creativity is contagious, pass it on” – Albert Einstein.
These are some interesting quotes about creativity that comes for different people, each one coming from a different area. But know, we should know the point of view of some important experts of education and psychology:
For Robert M. Gagné creativity is usually subsumed under the category of giftedness and is associated with “above average” intellectual abilities as measured by conventional tests of intelligence. Meanwhile, Carl Ranson Rogers (one of the founders of the Humanistic view) believed creativity is the ability to “relate to others in nonjudgmental ways.”
In Psychology: Divergent thinking is an activity which took part in another human intellectual function called imagination, creating something new from the bottom or creating the same what through a different way. Howard Gardner, Joy Paul Guilford and Robert Stemberg are psychologists who have investigated about the relationship between creativity and intelligence. According to Gardner, creativity has three elements:
- The creative individual, e.g. Someone who has the capacity and interest in producing innovative work.
- The field of endeavour, e.g. the creation of pictures and sculptures using scraps of wood or other discarded materials.
- The recognition by a set of judges from that field, e.g. recognition by other artists and art critics of the quality and innovative nature of the work produced.
Besides, Guildford found some factors that identify cretive individuals:
- Fluency: the ability to generate new ideas
- Flexibility: being open to change
- Originality: the capacity to generate new or unexpected ideas
- Elaboration: The ability to extend ideas
More recent views of creativity see it as a social construct and as a trait or series of traits that result in some product or action
So as we see it is not easy to explain what exactly creativity is. Even we can not find a exactly definition we can answer some important questions about creativity:
CAN WE DEVELOP CREATIVITY THROUGHOUT LIFE OR IS ALREADY PRINTED ON OUR GENETIC INHERITANCE?
Creativity is not different from knowledge. It is a quality of the reason. Then, every human been is creative and creativity can be developed, since what be develop is the reason.
Csikszmentmihalyi suggests that genetics may contribute to their ability, but for talent and creativity to be demonstrated, their innate ability must be accompanied by strong motivation to excel, plus the mastery of relevant knowledge skills, i.e the must demonstrate exceptional achievement or performance.
We can help the children developing their creativity. One child will always want to create and invent, because his/her curiosity will lead him/her to explore the world.
Creativity for education, and not education for creativity. In order to encourage creativity in the schools we should use an active, flexible, tolerant and open methodology.
EDUCATION FOR CREATIVITY, and not Creativity for education as it is usually thought.
References:
De la Herrán, A. (2010). La creatividad en la enseñanza. Retrieved September 30, 2013, from http://www.scribd.com/doc/28052959/creatividad-y-educacion
Trautmann, M. (2010). Top 10 creativity definitions. Retrieved September 30, 2013, from http://celestra.ca/top-10-creativity-definitions/
McLeod, S. (2007). Car Rogers. Retrieved September 30, 2013, from http://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html
Brainbridge, C. (n.d.). What is Creativity? Retrieve September 30, 2013, from http://giftedkids.about.com/od/A-D/a/What-is-Creativity.htm
Give them wings 