Creativity is a familiar concept but easily mistaken concept for everyone. Creativity is the process of thinking unique and brilliant which can create value, and must include relevance and novelty. It is what everyone knows. But did you know that creativity must be related to the problem solving? It might be confused to understand the exact concept with a sentence. Thus I'd like to cite a paragraph from the article written by Stefan Mumaw, the author of Creative boot camp to make sure you define creativity exactly.
Creativity cannot be present without a problem to solve. When an artist paints a beautiful painting, they are being artistic. When they paint a beautiful painting while solving even the smallest of problems (perhaps the desire for photorealism, or the restriction of only using palette knives, or limiting the number of paints used), they are being artistic and creative. It is the problem that defines creativity, not the art.Before considering whether the creativity is learned in school or not, we should confirm that creativity can be learned. It's absurd to say that creativity cannot be learned, even though it's innate. As I mentioned above, creativity is the process of solving the problem and must include relevant and novelty. Then the question 'the creativity is innate or learned' is meant 'Can you learn to solve problems with relevance and novelty?' Of course some might have talent for solving problems with relevance and novelty. But it's clear that we can learn to do so, solving problems with the creative solution.
If you are presented problems consistently and you choose to solve those problems with relevance and novelty, you can improve creatively.(Stefan Mumaw)It's clear that we're facing problems every day; thus we already have an environment for developing creativity. Thus, what we need is an attitude for greeting problems and choosing creative way for solution.
Then, let's think about the relationship between education and creativity. Nobody would not refute that education develope creativity even it's innate. However, many people have believed that school is the place where the creativity is slaughtered, even the school carries out education. Thus, now, it's time to throw away that misconception and light the school as a place of growing creativity and know how we can achieve so.
You can jumpstart your Innovation Engine by building your base of knowledge, which will ultimately serve as the toolbox for your imagination. You can also build habitats — or environments — that foster creativity. This involves crafting spaces that are conducive to creative problem solving, and instituting rules, rewards and incentives that reinforce creative behavior. And, most important, you can cultivate an attitude that problems are opportunities for a creative solution. With that mindset, you are willing to push through roadblocks and obvious answers to come up with truly creative ideas. (Tina Seelig)
The paragraph, cited from sayings of Tina Seelig who is a renowned educationalist writing inGenius, shows us 3 requirements (or ways) for growing creativity; Building base of knowledges, building habits and environments, and cultivating attitudes. I'd like to focus on the first sentence. That sentence means knowledge is a basic requirement for creativity. Thus we could strengthen the basis for creativity by acquiring knowledges. Here's an another expert's opinion emphasizing the importance of understanding subjects learned in school for out-of-box thinking.
No one in creativity research argues that children should give free rein to their imagination at the cost of understanding a subject. After all, you can’t think outside the box until you fully understand what’s inside the box. (Gerald Puccio)Then I'll ask you a question. Where can we gain knowledges and understand subjects? The answer must be 'schools'. School is where we can gain knowledges and understand subjects. Thus, in other words, we can lay groundwork for creativity in school. Of course, some might argue that we can do so by reading books or surfing the internet. But it's true that a school is the most effective way for doing so.
After strengthening the basis for creativity, what we have to do is developing creativity in practice. Then , however , you would meet the difficulty in answering the question, 'How can you develop your creativity?' The abstract answer is 'practice' But we're eager to have more specific answer. Here's a more specific answer
Puccio teaches his students that creativity comes in four stages – clarifying, ideating, developing and implementing. Clarifying is ensuring you’re asking the right question; ideating is about exploring as many solutions as possible; developing and implementing are making sure the idea is practical and convincing to others. (Gerald Puccio)Now, we have specific answers. But it seems hard to carry those out by ourselves. Because, at first, we couldn't know whether our question is right or wrong , and whether our idea is practical and convincing or not. Also “Creativity is not a licence to be bizarre(Gerald Puccio)” It means just persuing unique ideas is not a creative thing. We should make a thought unique but also valuable, and relevant; thus we need a person to help us take a right step for creativity and not cross the line between being bizarre and creative. Then who can help us ? 'Teachers in School' can help us. There might be another way such as hiring tutors, but it's not a fair way due to the needs of money. The poor can have tutors. Thus, teacher in a school is perfect for growing creativity. Of course some might worry that due to today's curriculum for entering universities teachers couldn't help their students to enhance creativity. But there are methods for teachers to keep a balance on fostering creativity and giving a lecture for entering universities.
For example, in my school, an English teacher give students a question related to the topic of the text which will be on the exam. Then students do researches to answer the questuion and present what they researched and found as an answer in front of the classs. By that way, students can grow creativity because this process includes all the requirements for developing creativity; clarifying, ideating, developing and implementing. Also, they get good grade on the exam because they could understand the text better by doing a research related to the text than other way of learning.
As we see above, we can lay groundwork for creativity and grow creativity with helps of teachers in school. Thus considering school as a slaughterhouse of creativity is the concept we should throw out. School is certainly a place where creativity is learned.
Thanks to Ken Robinson's awesome speech on TED, How school kills creativity, I'm working on this essay. But It's true that his lecture conveys opposite arguments from my position, creativity is learned in school. His main point is that school does not allow students to make mistakes, and ignore the subjects other than the subjects done by brain. Also, I'd like to refute other's idea; creativity is certainly an innate thing, thus no one can make it develop. I would like to start by refuting an opinion; creativity is certainly an innate thing an then refute Ken's opinions
Firstly, some say that creativity is certainly an innate thing, thus no one even school could not grow it. This insist is totally oppose to my opinion, because it denies that creativity can not be learned. According to 'Creativity as an innate part' written by Judy Croome, the author said creativity in arts and litteratures can not be learned. It seems compelling, because we see many who have talents in certain part everyday. But it's not true. Even if we don't have innate creativity; talents in arts, we can grow it with our effort. Malcom Gladwell, a writer of the book named 'Outlier', said we can be the best in any field, if we put Ten-Thousand-Hour in that field. For example, in fields of arts, if we put ten-thousand-hour, we can be a famous painter. I think it means efforts can defeat talents; innate creativity. Because there're many talented people in field of arts, but as someone made an effort, he or she can be better than the talented. Thus, saying creativity can not be learned sounds absurd.
In addition, whether allowing students to make mistakes or not depends on teacher not school, or education system of Korea. According to the article, 30 Ways To Promote Creativity in Your Classroom, it suggests teachers to allow their room for mistakes. It means teacher is the person in charge for allowing students to make mistakes. Also, from my personal experience, even in the same school, some teachers are generous for and even welcome mistakes, but some teachers are rigorous for mistakes, making students stand-up when they make mistakes. Thus, insisting school doesn't accept mistakes sounds absurd. If there's a problem on whether accepting mistakes or not, teachers are responsible for that, not schools. It is not the fault of schools. Thus teacher should be changed. They should admit mistakes of students.
Also, he said school always have priority on math, English, Korean, Science or Social studies. Thus, children who are not interested in those are considered as troublemakers, cannot have an opportunity to show their competence in other fields, and suppressed to not do what they are interested in. However, nowadays, schools in Korea help students to find their interest among all fields by allowing them to spend one year or one semester without studying for exam in middle school. I'll use an example of fictional girl named Jisu. Jisu could find her interests in dance through Korean transition year by attending dance and others course. After she find her interests in dancing, she can enter special-purpose high school such as Seoul performing arts high school. Also, for students who are interested in brainy-subjects, school is certainly the best place to grow their creativity. Thus, it's absurd to say that Korean school kill students' creativity.
In addition, some say that creativity is certainly an innate thing, thus no one even school could not grow it. This insist is totally oppose to my opinion, because it denies that creativity can not be learned. According to 'Creativity as an innate part' written by Judy Croome, the author said creativity in arts and litteratures can not be learned. It seems compelling, because we see many who have talents in certain part everyday. But it's not true. Even if we don't have innate creativity; talents in arts, we can grow it with our effort. Malcom Gladwell, a writer of the book named 'Outlier', said we can be the best in any field, if we put Ten-Thousand-Hour in that field. For example, in fields of arts, if we put ten-thousand-hour, we can be a famous painter. I think it means efforts can defeat talents; innate creativity. Because there're many talented people in field of arts, but as someone made an effort, he or she can be better than the talented. Thus, saying creativity can not be learned sounds absurd.
In part, school in Korea seems to kill creativity of students. In the past, I do think that there was no creativity in a classroom and no teachers are willing to cultivate students' creativity, because their goal was only making students entering good university. However, time passes. Nowadays, Korean education tries to make a system for supporting environments for creativity. Teachers accept mistakes, ask questions and so on for teaching creativity to their students. Thus, if students are willing to grow creativity in school, there's no obstacle keeping us from growing creativity. Teachers would help us, and what we learn everyday would be the basis for creativity, solving problems in different angle with relevance and novelty. For willing students, school is certainly the best place for learning creativity
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