Sunday, July 15, 2012

Creativity

It's generally believed that creativity is an attribute of a selected few. In fact, this is just not true. Though it may vary from person to person, creativity is, I believe, something that everyone shares.
The truth is that creativity is not nurtured or taught to each individual.

It's not that hard to teach creativity, but first you have to believe in it. And that works best if you believe in it as a gift more than a skill. Creativity wraps itself around curiosity and problem solving. It values the contributions of the individual voice.

But, of course, that is the reason it's not taught.  It asks questions, doesn't like to conform, challenges authority and asks the teacher to collaborate in all this. This can be quite unsettling.

The payoff for the student unfolds over a lifetime. The payoff for the teacher is the expanding of self that comes with each new student voice, in each new time and each new world.