On Jun 12, 2010, at 10:00 AM, Saul Ostrow wrote: > The general consensus is that the following 8 points constitute creativity
Which three are not part of creativity? <g> Your list (or the Guggenheim's speaker's list) seems to be the basic components of conducting any kind of endeavor. For example, no. 6, 10, and 11 sound suspiciously like the mode of organizational psychology. Your second message about K-12 teachers just arrived and I can see that the jargon of pedagoguese permeates all of these points. And don't forget, in the modern, enlightened world "creativity" is a highly-prized goal and preternatural gift that anyone can achieve and should be allowed to attain. Everything should--and can--be creative. I firmly believe that one doesn't teach creativity. In fact, it cannot be taught, as such. But one can teach the things in that list, which develop the intellectual and practical skills that enable a person to produce good work. And creativity cannot be sought as a goal for the maker or as a quality in the work. It's a by-product, at best. And even then, "creativity" is an abstraction that embraces many individual things: the particular curvature of a line, the form of the dancer's body in a leap, the combination of instrumental sounds in a piece of music, the meaning of words and their juxtaposition in a poem, etc. Art--and all human actions--are particular things, composed of many parts chosen by the maker. The plain and common fact is that everything develops in some way, everything is formed or produced, and that includes well- and badly-made things. Calling it "creative" just gussies it up for feel-good educational (and social) reasons. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
