Creativity

//Kids: They dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music. ~William Stafford//  http://www.ijea.org/v12r7/v12r7.pdf: **Researching Creative Learning:**

In order to effectively compete in the global economy, business leaders are increasingly looking for employees who are __**creative**__, collaborative and innovative thinkers. A greater investment in the arts is an effective way to equip today’s students with the skills they will need to succeed in the jobs of tomorrow. (p. 1)

...teaching that allows students to use their imaginations, have ideas, generate multiple possible solutions to problems, communicate in a variety of media and in general ‘think outside the box’. They [educators] may also mean practices in which children and young people show that they have the capacities to assess and improve work, sustain effort on a project for a long period of time, exceed what they thought was possible and work well with others to combine ideas and approaches that allow young people to apply their creativity through making choices about what and how they will learn, negotiating about curriculum and involvement in generating possibilities for and making decisions about school priorities and directions.

Arts provide a fertile ground for creative learning and when children gain the creative experience they also gain intellectual and emotional maturity

The Creativity Crisis:

In this article it says that the accepted definition of creativity is production of something that is original and useful. When being creative there is no one right answer.. being creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas)and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result)

In 1958 Ted Schwarzrock was an 8 year old in third grade and he became one of the "Torrance kids" which consisted of nearly 400 Minneapolis children that had to complete a series of creativity tasks which were designed by professor E. Paul Torrance. They would ask questions like "How could you improve this toy to make it better and more fun to play with?"

Everyone pretty much agreed that Torrance's tasks became the gold standard in creativity assessment and they measured creativity perfectly. It was very shocking how accurate Torrance's creativity tests predicted the creative accomplishments when they grew to be adults. The ones who came up with more good and creative ideas grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers.

A Heightened Potential for Creativity:

How is creativity different from as well as related to, intelligence?