Creative Thinking About Creativity

At times, I have been an artist, but I am not an artist right now.  I am going through a creativity drought.  Or am I?  I encounter problems all day, every day.  The road I usually take is closed due to construction.  My oven gets up to 425^oF when it’s only set at 350^oF.  However mundane, most every problem I experience needs a creative solution.  I call myself thrifty and scrappy, with a hint of Yankee Ingenuity.  In other words, I AM creative.

Can Creativity be Planned?

In his 1996 article, Models for the Creative Process, Paul Plsek looks at several step-by-step models for fostering creativity in problem solving.  The Wallas and Barron models are simple 4-step plans to build creativity.  But Plsek argues that they are also vague.  He then discusses other models, such as Rossman’s Creativity Model and Osborn’s Seven Steps for Creative Thinking, which give more detail and make creativity seem less magical and more achievable. The graphic below my way of comparing two such models.

Integrating Movement to Spark Creativity

Rae Pica, an expert in the field of movement and early childhood education, wrote an article in YC: Young Children in 2009.  Can Movement Promote Creativity? explains how she encourages problem-solving through movement.  That’s not to say that we should just encourage students to run around in circles all day long.  Pica suggests that having students come up with multiple solutions to a problem promotes divergent thinking.  One example she gave was when she asked preschoolers to show her a number of ways to go from one end of a balance beam to the other.  Encouraging all solutions leads students to continue developing these creative thinking skills rather than trying to solve the problem the “right” way.

References

Pica, R. (2009). Can movement promote creativity? YC: Young Children, 64(4), 60-61. Retrieved September 19, 2010 from EBSCOhost online database (Education Research Complete, 43385524)

Plsek, P. (1996). Working paper: models for the creative process. Directed Creativity. Retrieved September 19, 2010 from the World Wide Web: http://www.directedcreativity.com/pages/WPModels.html