Introduction
At school, creativity killers are
numerous, and they are not easily detectable because they are mostly unintentional.
It is after rigorous investigations that they can be spotted and avoided for
more creativity among the learners. Basically, creativity is killed by orders,
fear, control, conformity, conditioning and so on. Susan Greenfield says that
“growing up” is what kills creativity. True, because adults have already
developed ways to do things and refuse to think about alternative ways. Creativity
is revived by the need for something, like saving time, effort, material,
space, money, energy and a lot more. This reminds me of the old proverb which
goes, “The art of necessity is strange, it makes vile things precious”
Simply, what kills creativity at
school is “Do it this way”. And it is in tests that the phenomenon is
amplified, “Rewrite as indicated” or “Rewrite with the words given”.
When we ask the students to do an activity in a predisposed way, they don’t have
enough options to think creatively. However, like problem solving, when we ask
them to do an exercise in their own way, they might astonish us by doing it in
a way that has never come across our minds, and that’s creativity.
“Here is a “useless” thing, what
can you do with it? How can you make it useful for something? Give it a new feature
to make it functional somehow”. These instructions incite creativity and allow
the students to think beyond the usual. Believe me if the students were given
freedom to do a task in their own way, they would do it marvelously well. They
can even reveal a lot about their thinking strategies, and why not about their
innate genius faculties. On the other hand, those with little or no imagination
will be forced to sharpen their imagination and thinking skills to come up with
rewarding results.
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