Creativity - Part 2

Creativity is a broad term. It has been present thought out all human history – it seems to be one of the defining human characteristics. That being said, it does not mean it is exclusively a human trait – many animals also show traces of it. Creativity is not uniformly described, but the central idea of all definitions describes it as an ability to create something new/original and at the same time worthwhile.

Although creativity has ever been present, the concept is relatively new. Antique society did not acknowledge it, instead all that was new was discovered instead of created. The term came into foreground with the rise of Christianity and God as the "creator". It was not until later, after the Renaissance, that creativity has been understood by the meaning it holds today.

As said above, definition of creativity is as broad as creative endeavour themselves. Its research spans almost every scientific discipline, not to mention arts. It is impossible to do justice to the whole idea, so in this short text I limit myself to one area – education.

It was my impression from material I discovered that a debate started at the break of the century, which emphasizes the decay of creativity in us caused by a misguide education system. Children are creative by nature. And our school system systematically instructs them to repress it and conform to the crowd. Which is logical from the point of an industrial society of the 19th century where our current system originated. Student's minds were moulded just like the product they were crating. But Ford's human conveyer belt is no longer needed - our society has changed and hold little need for repetitive production and repetitive thinking.

It has been suggested children should be thought more creative thinking and problem solving. Not only in traditionally creative disciplines of fine arts, which are looked upon as a waste of time, but also in more logic based sciences like maths and physics. Problems we face today will require solutions that are more "out of the box" and in turn, thinkers that are able to mix ideas from different fields to present new answers.