Creativity: A Guide for the Advanced Learner (and Teacher)

There's an awful lot of nonsense talked about creativity, so we have to untangle it and get the 'nots' out of it before we can start teaching it. Creativity is not grand : it is not just for budding Mozarts and Einsteins. It is what you need when your teenage daughter says it is ' so not fair' that she can't go to France with Kevin. It is what you need when a colleague has to change but won't. Creativity is not particularly artistic , and you do not have to dress weirdly to do it. It is as vital for accountants and receptionists as it is for designers and song-writers. Creativity is not necessarily a 'good thing' . A lot of very bad inventions have come from very creative people. Creativity is not comfortable to be around: it is often anarchic and rebellious. Would you have wanted Tracey Emin, Graham Norton and Rik Mayall at the back of your class? Creativity is not easy . It is not a matter of a few hints and tips and off we go. It is often slow and sometimes agonising. Creativity is not wacky. It draws on and is constrained by a good deal of knowledge and experience. Anything does not go. Creativity seeks a solution to something that matters. Creativity is not easy to assess : the products often demand new criteria of evaluation, and provoke fierce and inescapable argument about what is 'true art', or an 'elegant theory'. Creativity does not have its own home in the brain: it is not camped in the right hemisphere, and it is not opposed to logic and analysis. Dancers think hard, just as much as scientists need to dream. Creativity is not solitary . Typically periods of solitude and rumination are interspersed with intense engagement with the social and cultural world, be it a family discussion or a university seminar. Creativity is not simply 'released' , like a helium balloon when the anchoring weights of convention or criticism are untied. Yes, the mental and emotional brakes have to be off, but there is a great deal of learned skill and sensitivity to creativity, just as there is to flying a balloon.