In this blog I will aim to reflect
my thoughts, opinions and ideas based on key concepts studied in the university
module “The Enquiring Mind: Creative Approaches”. I will focus on creativity and its
significance for 21st century education.
Firstly, it is important to
understand what creativity is before starting any debate. There are many
definitions for creativity but I would like to introduce to a few significant
individuals and their interpretation of creativity.
“Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking
what no one else has thought.”
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns
in order to look at things in a different way.”
Edward De Bono
“I define creativity as the process of having original ideas that
have value.” Sir
Ken Robinson
In the first lecture, as an
activity, we had to write down our definitions of creativity and swap our ideas
with other students. The photo below show the answer I received from one of the
other students.
The
definition presented in the photo above is very interesting and it may lead to many
interpretations. There is a small spelling mistake ‘unlogical’ that I assume should
be illogical. The illogical brain may refer to our spirituality, personality
and ability to create or innovate. It can mean different things to different
people. It may refer to our imagination, innovation, intelligent, talents or
explorative skills. I think the process of creativity can inspire us to look
for new ideas or improve existed ones. It can open and expand our minds to more
scientific and creative enquiries.
For
many of years, the concept of creativity inspired and motivated many of
researches to dedicated their time and write the books about its meaning and
influence to culture, society, education and environment. Over the centuries creativity was referred to
arts, painting, music and writing. However it is important to outline that
concept of creativity is broadening and extending its meaning to education,
communication, everyday life tasks and activities, political and social
sciences (Cropley, 2003).
I was
introduced to a new approach of
creativity by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who looked deeper into
creativity by asking the question “where is the creativity?” Csikszentmihalyi
proposed the model of creativity that is composed of three different domains
that are interconnected and related to each other. These areas are: the domain,
the person and the field. Domain refers to a culture and knowledge shared by a
particular society. The person is each individual that brought or changed something
in society culture. Field refers to the community, people to decide whether the
ideas is or is not worth including into the domain (Sawyer, 2012). This
approach may help us to look deeper into what, where and how creativity
contributes to our life, environment, society and education.
This model
of creativity in my opinion moves beyond simple framework of creativity as an
art or talent. Csikszentmihalyi looked deeper into factors that have influence
on our creative abilities not only on its outcome. He summarised creativity as
a phenomenon that connects individual’s personality traits, environment factors,
society, culture and cognitive processes (Henry, 2006).
According to Csikszentmihalyi and Wolfe (2000)
‘creativity can be defined
as an idea or product that is original,
valued and implemented’
Does it mean that creativity should be the ability
to add something new to society or culture? What
about individuals who are creative, or non-creative but are unsuccessful, to be
recognised in society? Can we say that there are non-creative individuals? One
of the students asked this question the Lecturer who said that we all have a
talent. As I mentioned earlier, talent could be associated with any tasks and
activities of our everyday life or work. The creative outcome could be the
practical solutions to any problem encountered on our way.
As a summary, I created a mind map as an attempt to
bring together my thoughts and ideas about creativity.
References:
Cropley, A.J. (2008) Creativity in Education and Learning: a Guide for Teachers and Educators.
London: Kogan Page.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. & Wolfe, R. (2000) New Conceptions
and Research Approaches to Creativity: Implications of a Systems Perspective
for Creativity in Education, in Heller, K., Monks, F., Sternberg, R. &
Subotnik (Eds.) International Handbook of Giftedness & Talent (pp.81-93).
Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd.
Henry, (2006) Creativity. Available at: SAGE http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/11443_01_Henry_Ch01.pdf
Sawyer,
K. (2012) Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation. Oxford:Oxford http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/creativity
accessed on 5th March 2014
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