Creating Creatives Part 4

Next up on Bloom’s Taxonomy is the first of the “higher-order thinking” tiers—Analysis. Here, students can finally appraise, compare, contrast, and here’s what’s really important—criticize and question their work. Which gets us back to creativity and how we as a society deal with it.

Pablo Picasso reportedly said “Everyone is born an artist. The trouble is remaining one as we become an adult.” We all know what he’s referring to. Many of us have come to see work, practice and learning as black and white—an answer is right. Or it is wrong.

Julia Cameron , author of The Artist’s Way, says: In order to become an artist, you must first be willing to do art badly. I would add, you must also be willing to try over and over again.

Indeed, if every painter were to judge his ability after his first painting, we would have no more painters. So while this skill and analysis, is important to the creative process—to creating Creatives—we need to temper it with affirmation, and patience. And we must remember (and remind students) that life allows do-overs. In fact, it is in the do-overs, and the willingness to keep trying, that real creativity gains ground.

Let’s imagine the future again—the world that today’s kindergarteners will be working in. It will be those who can try new things, perhaps unsuccessfully, adjust, and try again in a different way, who will be the innovators and achievers. Learning to try, not be satisfied with the result, and try again is key to future success.

The Importance of Creating Creatives--Part 1

“She’s a Creative,” someone said with a shrug. That explained it all--her hair, her makeup, even the odd little boots she wore. Why does our society want to separate those who are creative from those who are not? It’s as if we believe that the gift of creativity is something only some of us have. (I beg to differ.) And while creativity may be esteemed in highly successful artists in society, it is often dismissed in those who are not.

In schools, we push out children toward the academic. We are prepared to cut the arts if budgets get too tight. College professors complain about students who had four-point-plus high school GPAs, stellar ACT scores, but have limited higher-level thinking skills—the very skills they will need to be productive in college and this rapidly changing world. Many of these students were “taught to the test,” a necessity brought on by pressures on school systems to “prove” their competence in teaching. And these students worked hard, learning those quantifiable things that would be on their tests. Their parents, their school systems and they themselves were proud—as they should be. It was a job well done. But are they adequately prepared for the future? Think about this: the children who enter kindergarten today will be a part of the work force in 2070. Who knows what the world will look like then? How do we prepare them? One thing we must do, I believe, is to help them be thinkers, experimenters, questioners who are willing to try something different. To adjust to all the changes that will invariably shape the coming decades, they will need to be Creatives.

Creativity is much less quantifiable than math, science or language skills. But in the coming days, we will examine what creativity is (hint: it’s more than being artistic), how it is tightly linked to higher-order thinking skills, and how it positively impacts all aspects of learning. And, we’ll take a look at how stitching can be a part of creating Creatives.

Reflect on your own experiences. How do you define creativity? Where do you encounter it in your life?