Can Creativity be Taught. Sir Ken Robinson.
People often feel that creativity is something you're born with and that you've either got it or you haven't. In this short talk, Ken Robinson successfully and simply argues that creativity can be learnt and should be an essential part of the schools curriculum.
What he doesn't mention in this brief video is the importance of curiosity, of the desire to know and discover. Prevalent in all creative thinkers is the desire to know and understand more. This is not the whole formula but it is a very important part of it.
Undoubted as well is the ability to think outside or beyond the norms, to have original thoughts that move one step beyond received wisdom. In order to think beyond existing norms you have to know what they are, and that means being immersed in the chosen field, no matter what it is.
Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value. All creative processes involve evaluation. As Ken Robinson says, it's not a freewheeling process, it does involve "crafting" and working at it. Having value presupposes that there is an eager audience who, if they find the ideas to have value for them, will embrace them. Creativity without evaluation may be fun to conceive, but will be relegated to self-indulgence or frivolity. In order to assess creativity, you just have to identify the criteria. Clear on the criteria of originality and value.
What I love about Ken Robinson's definition is its breadth, you can be creative with anything and in any field. Creativity is not taught by direction instruction, like driving a car, it is a process of enabling, and of encouragement.
Creative thinking is an extremely powerful tool of change and should not be excluded from the schools (or life's) curriculum because the criteria of evaluation are not as easy as maths or science.
CL 20 Aug 2017
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