Opus 2016-135: Creativity

I have a class that is labeled “gifted” or “honors”.  They are a great bunch of kids but they seem so normal.  I really believe that if you put them into the school district when I was a student they would just be an average class.  I keep wondering what is missing. 

I think it is the spark of genuine creativity or originality.  I have experienced it a few times and this year it is totally absent.  Am I experiencing a blip or the result of persistent conditioning toward compliance?

This got me thinking about the nature of creativity.  It is supposed to be one of the big thrusts of Common Core Curriculum (CCC).  The question is how do you teach creativity.  I think for some people it is not going to happen.  Real creativity requires a way of looking at the world that comes up with something totally new.

What about the car I am driving.  It is a modern marvel.  It is an awesome piece of technology.  Think about all the parts and processes that have gone into making it.  It starts with ore mined or oil extracted.  But what in this creation reflects real originality?

I am constantly using the rear view mirrors.  The man who came up with the process of coating the back of glass to make the mirror was a genius.  The man who came up with glass was a genius.  Putting them in cars was just adapting that genius.  I spent some time trying to think of something that demonstrated real creativity in the cars on the freeway around me and came up blank.

We live in a day when creativity is a desperate need.  We have enough oil and uranium to generate energy into the foreseeable future.  But eventually we need something better if for no other reason than improved productivity.  Think of the American Indian cultures.  They lived on a continent that was rich in all the materials needed for a prosperous and safe life.  Instead of producing the needs of life by refining oil and iron, they cut down all the trees and used the bones of the buffalo they hunted.  It may seem romantic to a person siting in their Lazy-Boy chair, drinking their gourmet coffee and reading about how the Native Americans were one with nature.  In reality it was a brutal and desperate existence.  You never knew when a flood, stampede or raid by another tribe would rain on your parade.  A simple thing like appendicitis or a cut could end in tragedy.  Toothache, anyone?

We need to find new ways to corral the buffalo in our neighborhoods and the hostiles at our doors.

Encourage thinking.  Home school your children.

homo unius libri