The Mind Creative
mentality? At this point, students are collected, assembled and
packaged in the same way over a finite period of time. Teachers,
who should be nurturing various personalities and raw creativity
are now systematically following a homogenous education system,
teaching students in the same way regardless of different learning
styles and different interests.
We must understand that whilst mathematics and reading are
important for child development, so too are the arts and
humanities. Embracing our natural creativity promotes problem
solving abilities, multi-tasking and innovation. Creativity coupled
with numeracy/literature provides students with more holistic
knowledge about the world we live in.
Why we should encourage creativity in the classroom
Business
To those who believe that teaching creativity is useless for
students, let me tell you that it is creativity that lies at the heart
of all business; business is actually a form of art. It integrates
creativity and imagination (business plans and ideas, people skills,
and organisational skills) and requires a focus and drive that many
artists possess.
Torrance (1965) defined creativity as “the process of becoming
sensitive to problems, deficiencies, gaps in knowledge, missing
elements, disharmonies, and so on; identifying the difficulty;
searching for solutions, making guesses or formulating hypotheses
about the deficiencies; testing and retesting them; and finally
communicating the results.”
This is the pure essence of business.
A great example of the link between creativity and business is Sir
Richard Branson. He states that the most important attributes
someone should possess when in business are all of a creative
nature:
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