Creativity: What It Is and Isn't

Several weeks ago at our district's Flex Learning Saturday, I talked with teachers about the topic of creativity.  I addressed the need for teaching creativity and creative thinking so that our students will become out-of-the-box problem solvers in their lives and careers. The ensuing discussions alerted me to the notion that perhaps creativity is less easily understood than it should be, so I’ve compiled some lists of what creativity is and what creativity is not to help you further define this tricky concept:

Creativity is NOT going to Michaels and spending your paycheck on glitter, stickers, puff paint, felt, and stick-on googly eyeballs.

Creativity is NOT turning in a project that required a lot of time and effort to make pretty.

It is NOT coloring inside the lines or making sure that the ocean is blue and the grass is green. 

Creativity is NOT following a recipe you found on Pinterest to bake a cake you have never made before.

It’s NOT following a pattern to knit a stocking cap or going to a party at Painting With a Twist and following the teacher’s directions to paint a picture that looks like everyone else’s.

Creativity is NOT watching the teacher dress up like a historical figure and deliver a lecture.

Nor is it tweaking one or two phrases in a preexisting song to make the lyrics roughly match a concept being studied. 

Writing in a journal or diary, expressing individual thoughts or opinions, and “being yourself” may not be creative activities. 

Creativity is NOT the same thing as free time, playtime, game time, or recess.

In their 1999 report to the British government on creativity, culture, and education, the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education defined creativity as “imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value.”  Ken Robinson (whose TED Talk “How Schools Kill Creativity” should be required viewing on the subject) simplifies this only slightly, defining creativity as “the process of having original ideas that have value.”

Using these guidelines, we can begin to shape our thinking about what creativity looks like in our classrooms.

Creativity IS representing one’s learning in a unique way to teach someone what you know.

It’s coming up with a new way to solve a math problem.

It’s devising a new experiment to test a hypothesis.

Creativity IS doing something that doesn’t look like the teacher’s example.

It may involve many drafts, and it may get messy. 

Perhaps the creative thinking won’t even result in a finished product, but the thinking done may later be used in another unexpected situation or context. 

Creativity in the content area classroom shouldn’t be creativity for the sake of creativity; then it doesn’t have value, a component in the above definition.

Creativity IS using someone else’s idea as a springboard to make something entirely different; it’s applying what you’ve learned or discovered in a unique way. 

Creativity IS designing your own coloring book, inventing a new knitting pattern, painting your own picture to decorate your room, writing a monologue in the voice of an historical figure or literary character, applying what you’ve learned about suspense in short stories to write your own story that will cause the reader to lose sleep, making up a new game to pass the time on a rainy day, totally rewriting the words to a song or rap to teach someone about something, and using what’s available in your kitchen to make up a tasty new recipe…and then posting it on Pinterest for other people to make.  Or creating a new website that is different and better than Pinterest.

Creativity IS identifying a problem and then coming up with a solution that no one else thought of. 

 According to creativity guru Paul Torrance, creativity may involve fluency (coming up with numerous ideas), flexibility (solving a problem in many ways or coming up with a wide variety of ideas), originality (thinking up something no one else thought of) and elaboration (adding depth and detail to your thoughts.) 

Creativity may or may not be fun, but it’s a whole lot more exciting than sitting and copying words off a PowerPoint slide.      

As you equip your students with creative thinking skills, ask yourself if your idea passes the Ken Robinson test:  does it produce ideas that are (1) original and (2) have value?  If so, chances are you’re on the right track.

To read more about what Ken Robinson has said about creativity, I recommend this article.