30 Ideas to Promote Creativity…and Creativity Killers to Watch Out For! How Playing Music Benefits Your Brain More than Any Other Activity. Some of Today’s Most Prominent Artists on Courage, Creativity, Criticism, Success, and What It Means to Be a Great Artist. By Maria Popova Wisdom from Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramović, Damien Hirst, Laurie Simmons, Carroll Dunham, and more. “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant — there is no such thing,” Georgia O’Keeffe wrote in her spectacular letter to Sherwood Anderson. “Making your unknown known is the important thing — and keeping the unknown always beyond you…” And yet, as human beings, we orient ourselves in the darkness of the unknown by grasping blindly for familiar points of reference, seeking to construct a compass out of similarities and contrasts relative to our familiar world, and out of those we try to construct a framework for what we call success. This is especially true of such nebulous subjects as art, where there is no true North, no universal gold standard of success, so we seek tangibles — like the market — to orient ourselves in the maze of merit.
Thornton writes in the introduction: Artists don’t just make art. Echoing Ursula K. Many people spend so much time doubting. Share on Tumblr. Patti Smith’s Lettuce Soup Recipe for Starving Artists. Lynda Barry's Field Guide to Keeping a Visual Diary. Nilofer Merchant: Got a meeting? Take a walk. On the Edge of Chaos: Where Creativity Flourishes. Getty If it’s true, in Sir Ken Robinson’s words, that “Creativity is not an option, it’s an absolute necessity,” then it’s that much more imperative to find ways to bring creativity to learning.
But first, we have to understand what conditions foster true creativity. One definition that scientists have agreed upon for creativity is the ability to create something that’s both novel as compared to what came before, and has value. “It’s this intersection of novelty and value, a combination of those two features that’s particularly important,” Dr. Robert Bilder, a psychiatry and psychology professor at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. “The truly creative changes and the big shifts occur right at the edge of chaos,” Bilder said. For educators who have embraced the notion of the tightly controlled classroom, it’s a worst-case scenario. It’s the lack of this type of freedom that has led skeptics to question if today’s schools could ever inspire true creativity. Related. Why Arts Education Is Crucial, and Who's Doing It Best.
"Art does not solve problems, but makes us aware of their existence," sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz has said. Arts education, on the other hand, does solve problems. Years of research show that it's closely linked to almost everything that we as a nation say we want for our children and demand from our schools: academic achievement, social and emotional development, civic engagement, and equitable opportunity. Involvement in the arts is associated with gains in math, reading, cognitive ability, critical thinking, and verbal skill. Arts learning can also improve motivation, concentration, confidence, and teamwork. It has become a mantra in education that No Child Left Behind, with its pressure to raise test scores, has reduced classroom time devoted to the arts (and science, social studies, and everything else besides reading and math).
The Connection Between Arts Education and Academic Achievement Yet against this backdrop, a new picture is emerging. Reviving Arts Education. Art Education 2.0. Creativity in the Secondary Art Classroom. Creative Thinking Techniques - Enhance Your Creativity. Art in Schools Inspires Tomorrow's Creative Thinkers. Without the arts, education's grade is Incomplete. Education minus art? Such an equation equals schooling that fails to value ingenuity and innovation. The word art, derived from an ancient Indo-European root that means "to fit together," suggests as much.
Art is about fitting things together: words, images, objects, processes, thoughts, historical epochs. It is both a form of serious play governed by rules and techniques that can be acquired through rigorous study, and a realm of freedom where the mind and body are mobilized to address complex questions -- questions that, sometimes, only art itself can answer: What is meaningful or beautiful? Why does something move us? How can I get you to see what I see? To erase art, as the Taliban did by turning explosives on the colossal centuries-old Buddhas of Bamiyan along the ancient Silk Road through Afghanistan, is to deny the reality of human differences and historical change.
"Life is short, and art long," reads the Hippocratic aphorism. Creative Thinking Training Course | Creativity. Can Creativity be Taught? Results from creativity studies Creativity at Work. In 1968, George Land distributed among 1,600 5-year-olds a creativity test used by NASA to select innovative engineers and scientists. He re-tested the same children at 10 years of age, and again at 15 years of age. Test results amongst 5 year olds: 98% Test results amongst 10 year olds: 30% Test results amongst 15 year olds: 12% Same test given to 280,000 adults: 2% “What we have concluded,” wrote Land, “is that non-creative behavior is learned.”
(Sources: Escape from the Maze: Increasing Individual and Group Creativity by James Higgins; also George Land and Beth Jarman, Breaking Point and Beyond. Why aren’t adults as creative as children? For most, creativity has been buried by rules and regulations. Can Creativity Skills be Taught? Yes, creativity skills can be learned. Over the course of the last half century, numerous training programs intended to develop creativity capacities have been proposed. Creativity is a skill that can be developed and a process that can be managed. Creativity on the Run: 18 Apps that Support the Creative Process. "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. " - Albert Einstein We do not need to teach creativity, but rather inspire its daily practice.
Somewhere along the way, we simply forgot to honor this innate gift and how to access its power. Our role as educators is to encourage learning experiences that increase the ability to recognize and listen to our inner voice. Let us begin by shifting emphasis from finding the right answer to creating school cultures that encourage risk-taking and embrace ambiguity. Psychologist Carl Rogers believed that we repress and even hide creative talent if our working environment is not psychologically safe or grounded on unconditional acceptance and empathy. The Idea Catcher We can start by using note-taking apps to encourage observation and reflection. Recommended apps: Tricking the Muse A strategy often used to help generate ideas is brainstorming.
30 Ideas to Promote Creativity…and Creativity Killers to Watch Out For! Why We Need To Value Students’ Spatial Creativity. By Jonathan Wai At 16, Albert Einstein wrote his first scientific paper titled “The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields.” This was the result of his famous gedanken experiment in which he visually imagined chasing after a light beam. The insights he gained from this thought experiment led to the development of his theory of special relativity.
At 5, Nikola Tesla informed his father that he would harness the power of water. Thomas Edison—famous for developing the light bulb and more than 1,000 patents—was fascinated with mechanical objects at an early age. Einstein imagined with his mind. Spatial thinking “finds meaning in the shape, size, orientation, location, direction or trajectory, of objects,” and their relative positions, and “uses the properties of space as a vehicle for structuring problems, for finding answers, and for expressing solutions.”
But despite the value of these kinds of skills, spatially talented students are, by and large, neglected. STEAM – Put a ‘A’ in STEM with the arts! What is STEAM? “In this climate of economic uncertainty, America is once again turning to innovation as the way to ensure a prosperous future. Yet innovation remains tightly coupled with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math – the STEM subjects. Art + Design are poised to transform our economy in the 21st century just as science and technology did in the last century.” (source: stemtosteam.org, a website hub for the STEAM initiative championed by the Rhode Island School of Design President, John Maeda) At it’s core, STEAM is about adding Art and Design to the push for STEM in schools and beyond.
Research and education policy should recognise the importance of the arts in driving innovation through integrated studies…STEM + Art = STEAM! The idea of STEAM is not new, but it has currency in an education system that looks to prepare students for an unpredictable, fast-paced future where creativity will be a valuable commodity. “Where science ends, art begins,” Nègre wrote. Creativity & Innovation.
Five Future Trends That Will Impact the Learning Ecosystem. As summer reflections on the past school year turn into aspirations for the next year, it's important to keep in mind the big picture of change in education. Five shifts in how we think about schools and education in general will help to regenerate the learning ecosystem, and will provoke our imagination about new possibilities for teaching and learning. 1. Democratized Entrepreneurship Democratized entrepreneurship will spread an entrepreneurial mindset among learners, educators and communities, accelerating a groundswell of grassroots innovation.
Entrepreneurship is no longer reserved for those few with the resources to buffer risk and the social capital to access expertise and guidance. To take advantage of this trend: Begin to cultivate an edupreneurial mindset of experimentation, risk-taking, learning from failure, creative problem-solving, and market awareness in your classroom, and expand it to your school and district. 2. 3. 4. 5. Creativity is the Future of Education. You only need 3 things to be creative | Create and Connect. According to Teresa Amabile, you ‘only’ need three ingredients to be creative: source: Teresa Amabile 'How to Kill Creativity' KnowledgeToolsMotivation Great, you say, I know quite a few things, I have some tools in my shed and I am motivated to bits.
Bring it on! Not so fast! Let’s look at those three in more detail: Knowledge: You need to have some expertise, or surround yourself with some experts, on the subject you want to be creative on. In just one day, Create and Connect can teach you some tools that will start making a difference in your private life or business. Sign up for one of our next Creative Thinking Trainings. For details about the Creativity Trio, read Amabile’s article ‘How to kill creativity.’ Make Create Innovate.
The creative spark | Playlist. Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity. David Kelley: How to build your creative confidence. My Anti-Creativity Checklist. Creativity—It’s our future | Creativity in Education. Share this Episode Please select a language: Autoplay End of Video Show End Screen Default Quality Adjust your embed size below, then copy and paste the embed code above. Community Translation Episode available in 2 languages Available Translations: Join the Community Translation Project Thanks for your interest in translating this episode!
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