About Creativity Essay

Submitted By na32222
Words: 1169
Pages: 5

About creativity Creativity refers to the phenomenon whereby something new is created which has some kind of subjective value (such as a joke, a literary work, a painting or musical composition, a solution, an invention etc.). It is also the qualitative impetus behind any given act of creation, and it is generally perceived to be associated with intelligence and cognition ( Wikipedia) . Even those of us not in explicitly creative fields must come up with new ideas and insights in order to move ahead. Due to the fact that creativity plays a vital role in the development of society, scientists, scholars and all the professionals are looking for the factors that will boost creativity and the elements that will decline the creativity. In the article The Creativity Crisis, the author Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman presented some decisive factors that affect the creativity of students. And the writer of The Rise of the New Groupthink Susan Cain showed us how collaboration and solitude influence the creativity of our work. Both of them explained the factors that would encourage and discourage the creativity by using scientific studies and researches, many views in the articles and my own experience are consensual. Creativity is not a talent, not restricted to the arts and it can be applied to any human endeavor; it is a way of operating and it can be fostered and boosted by students’ motivation and multiple intelligence blend. Even though those factors are not fishy and slippery subjects, they are the methods that have significant effects. Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman introduced a project (figure out how to reduce the noise in the library) that conducted by the fifth graders of the National Inventor Hall of Fame School to illustrate how students’ motivation have effects on creativity. (22-26) Working in a small teams, students followed the procedures that they called fact-finding, problem-finding, idea-finding and solution –finding. Along the way, the kids put the theory, that they learned from textbooks, in the practice. Moreover, they were willing to find the best solution by trial and error, and they have the motivation to to learn, practice and be more creative. As a result, the school became one of the top 3 schools in the local, in terms of the state’s achievement test. No doubt, it is the students’ motivation that drives the increasing of creativity. “Creativity requires constant shifting, blender pulses of both divergent thinking and convergent thinking, to combine new information with old and forgotten ideas.”(The Creativity Crisis, 16) Evidently, the authors point out how to generate creative ideas that is worth pursuing. Being erudite is one of the catalyst that would increase creativity. Creativity and innovative thinking often involve connecting previously unrelated concepts, techniques, methods, or ideas, and after blending multiple intelligence an unexpected result would be came up with. Undoubtedly, the motivation of students and the multiple intelligence blend are inseparable parts of fostering creativity. Humans are the most creative of all living on Earth, but, ironically, we are discouraging our creative by intellectual utilitarianism and negligence of individualized working. Undeniable, those are the trends of the society, nowadays. Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman revealed the issue that the American kids are overwhelmed with standardized curriculum, rote memorization for getting good scores in nationalized tests. That makes them don’t have the time for creativity class (10-11). Students will not study until a test around the corner, they only drill the problems that will be on the tests. This drill-and-kill studying style is surely strangling creativity. Neglect of solitude is another factor would jeopardize creativity. Susan Cain revealed the fact in her article “A person sitting quietly under a tree in the backyard, while everyone else is clinking glasses on the patio, is more