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.
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