Ken Robinson "Out of Our Minds: Learning to be creative"

One thing that’s struck me since I joined SFN is just how creative we all seem to be, whether it’s channelled into our work, our art, our writing, our gardens or restoring our homes. So I was surprised to read this statement that I just picked out of the blurb for the book



"What’s the problem? Why do so many adults think they’re not very creative (and not very intelligent)? How do we lose the confidence to be creative?





What should be done? Is everyone creative or just a select few? Can creativity be developed? If so, how?"




Does upping sticks and moving to another country to live and work attract creative people? Does the struggle to survive bring out latent creativity? Or am I wrong, how many of you would describe yourselves as “not very creative and not very intelligent”?





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I think that being creative is an activity whereas imagination is what goes on in the head. If you transform your imagination into something concrete, then you’re being creative.

I think of myself as being creative and intelligent, and I don’t know many adults who don’t think like this, but that may be more because I filter out non-creative non-intelligent people from my entourage.

I suppose we do need to define creativity…I would have thought that scientific thought was creative, in that you sometimes have to have a seemingly batty/creative idea and then go on to prove its correctness or otherwise. If scientists hadn’t been creative would we ever have had aeroplanes or chaos theory…I’m on thin ice here, I know.
So what’s my definition of creativity? I haven’t looked in any dictionaries or Googled anything, this is purely personal; I think creativity is what makes life worth living, it makes our environment more attractive, our children better educated, it spreads new ideas, interprets our past, creates imaginary worlds, makes our food tastier and better for us. It’s the basic human drive to make things better, more beautiful and more efficient…

Personally I think that it’s just different people’s ideas of what is creative, ie, the definition of creativity. I certainly think that moving to another country and changing your life makes you do things differently and you have more scope. Often you have to diversify too and this often involves being more ‘creative’ than you once were perhaps in your old life. I can also add that having children and making things and doing things with them is creative (I wouldn’t have done some of the things that I now have done if I hadn’t had children!). I wouldn’t say that creativity and intelligence are hand in hand either - there are many intelligent people that do not necessarily do creative activities and not all creative people are intelligent… An interesting discussion though.