I remember an assignment long ago in school. “You’ve just come back from holiday,” my teacher said. “I want you all to sit down and write a creative story about your holiday.” I’d sit there staring at the blank page. “What is this creativity stuff?” I asked myself. “I’m not creative.” I even asked my mother: “When the teacher gives those creativity assignments, I don’t do very well.” My mother replied, “Well, you know, son, creativity runs on the other side of the family!” I grew up thinking creativity was in the genes and chromosomes and I missed out somewhere.
Later, of course, I found that’s not true. Increasingly we are coming to realise that all human beings have the capacity to generate novel, ingenious products, solutions, and techniques—if that capacity is developed. All human beings have great reservoirs of creativity. Skillful people know how to cause the “creative juices” to flow when the situation demands it. They know how to use such strategies as brainstorming, synectics, metaphor, and mind-mapping to generate new ways of perceiving problems and solutions.
Skillful, creative people often try to conceive solutions differently, examining alternative possibilities from many angles. They tend to project themselves into different roles using analogies, starting with a vision and working backward, imagining they are the objects being considered. Creative people take risks; they “live on the end of their competence,” testing their limits. They are more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated, working on the task because of the aesthetic challenge more than the material rewards. Creative people are open to criticism. They hold up their products for others to judge and seek feedback in an ever- increasing effort to refine their technique. They are uneasy with the status quo. They constantly strive for greater fluency, elaboration, novelty, simplicity, flexibility, insightfulness, craftsmanship, perfection, beauty, harmony, and balance.
Suggestions for teachers
Following are some simple classroom activities to liberate students’ creative juices. The ideas are drawn from my book, The Power of the Social Brain Teaching, Learning, and Using Interdependent Thinking, edited with Pat Wilson O’Leary.
You will want to add to this list. The important part of these strategies, however, is the metacognitive reflection. The intent is to have students become aware of what goes on their heads. With metacognitive awareness, it is more likely that the students will draw upon those thought processes the next time a situation presents itself in which creative thinking is warranted. Get in the habit of asking students, “What went on in your head when you thought…..?”
Working in groups causes greater stimulation of ideas. Students will want to pay attention to how their ideas flow more freely when they listen to and “bounce off” other’s ideas in a freewheeling atmosphere.
Build the vocabulary of creativity: insight, intuition, clever, creative, originality, fluency, inventive, divergent. Have them discuss the meaning of the old saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Invite them to think of times when they had to invent an original solution to a problem. What were the circumstances? Have them describe what went on in their heads when they had to think of an original idea.
Have the students interview their parents— when do they have to draw on their originality, ingenuity, and creativity? Have students read stories of Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Michelangelo, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alexander Graham Bell, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, Thomas Edison, Madame Curie, Leonardo da Vinci and other noteworthy artists, scientists, inventors, engineers, entrepreneurs, and philosophers who are noted for their inventions and creative insights.
Cheerios as a Metaphor
The following activities guide students in describing the metacognition involved in three forms of creative thinking: fluency, metaphor, and personification.
Give each group of four to six students a handful of Cheerios. Place the pile of cereal in the center of the table on a piece of paper. (Some students will want to eat the cereal. Tell them they may after the activity.) Ask one student to be the recorder to capture as many of the group’s ideas as possible.
Tell the students that the first activity will be one in which they experience fluency. Ask them to monitor what goes on in their heads when they are thinking fluently. Their task is to think of as many uses for a Cheerio as they can in one minute (e.g., life preserver for ants, wheels for a mini car, packing material, counters, keep babies quiet, etc.).
After one minute, call time and have the recorders share the groups’ lists of uses for the Cheerios. Then, ask them what went on in their heads when they were thinking fluently. They will often describe their thinking as building on ideas of others—they listened to each other and their ideas stimulated them to generate even more ideas. Others will say something like, “I let my mind run wild to think of anything— sometimes different ideas,” or “I opened my mind to anything it could think of.”
Ask students to think of and tell about situations in which they might need to think fluently. Invite them to think of jobs or careers in which people get paid to think fluently (advertising agents, artists, composers, writers). These ideas are stated by volunteers, to the whole class.
Thinking metaphorically
The second activity is metaphorical thinking. Explain that similes are comparisons between two unlike objects
or events, introduced by “like or as.” Give some examples (e.g., “cheeks like roses”). Have students find examples of similes in short stories, advertising, speeches, and so on.
Now have the students complete the following: A Cheerio is like a _____________ because ___________________. They will have one minute to think of as many similes as they can while the group recorder captures these.
After one minute, share the similes. (A Cheerio is like a doughnut, ring, or circle because it’s round. A Cheerio is like a sponge because it soaks up liquid. A Cheerio is like a dull book because it’s dry, etc.)
Invite students to describe what went on in their heads when they were thinking metaphorically. They may say they searched their memory for comparisons. They may say they thought of the attributes of Cheerios: round, crunchy, spongy, tan color, puffy, and then thought of other similar objects. Again they will no doubt report that they build upon and “bounced” off others’ ideas as they were stimulated to greater creativity when listening non- judgmentally to others.
Personification
The third activity is personification – to become a Cheerio. Define personification as a person or the human form taking on the qualities of a thing or abstraction. Cupid, for example, is the personification of love. The Statue of Liberty is the personification of freedom. Have students generate other examples of personification.
Talk with students about personification as a way to solve problems creatively – by, for instance, imagining what it would be like to be an automobile tire or the tallest building
in the world, or what it would feel like to be a zero. This causes a person to look at a situation from a different vantage point. Discuss with them times when that would be important.
Next, have them pretend to become a Cheerio. What would life be like? What is the greatest gift you could receive if you were a Cheerio? What would be the worst fate of being a Cheerio? Have students brainstorm life from a Cheerio’s perspective.
Follow-up discussion
Debrief by having students describe: What went on in their heads as they brainstormed? How did working in groups facilitate their creative thinking? When else in life do people succeed by working creatively in groups? Invite them to ask their parents how they must create, what are the circumstances, and how do they draw upon others to enhance their creativity.
Develop indicators of creativity/insightfulness. Have students monitor their own growth of originality, fluency, and cleverness by keeping their “How am I doing?” checklist. Indicators could be “Plays with ideas and things,” “Thinks divergently,” “When talking, extends ideas,” “Uses prior skills and knowledge in new ways,” and so forth.
As a teacher you will want to recognise creativity, imagination, innovation and divergent thinking in your students. Use verbal recognitions that reward the act. Instead of saying, “You’re so smart,” say “you’re creative thinking produced many ideas.” Instead of saying, “You’re such a clever boy,” say “your story showed you use your imagination.”
Of course, you, as a teacher, must model the release of your creative strategies as well. Let your students in on what’s going on in your head when you are thinking creatively.