Creativity is the Most Important Thing We Can Teach Our Children in the New Millennium

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Creativity is the Most Important Thing We Can
Teach Our Children in the New Millennium

• Bonnie Cramond
• The Department of Educational Psychology
  Instructional Technology
• The University of Georgia

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R. Buckminster Fuller

• Recalled that during his childhood at the turn
  of the last century, people tried to predict the
  future and could not begin to conceive of
  automobiles, electrons, travel to the moon, or
  even air wars as reality.

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R. Buckminster Fuller

• Only about 1 of the world was literate, and
  fewer still thought of humanity in world terms.
• We, too, are poised on the brink of change in
  this new millennium
• Prediction is still true successful adaptation
  to world change and enrichment of our world
  depend on creative endeavors.

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How Much of What You Learned in School is True
Now?

• There were only 49 states, or 48.
• Man had not walked on the moon even airplane
  trips were reserved for the wealthy, and travel
  was easy.
• Our food was not zapped, and our files were not
  zipped.
• The idea of a Black man or a woman running for
  president was unthinkable.(A Catholic was
  controversial)
• UTube, ipods, cell phones, Skype, Blue Tooth,
  email, ebay, and Facebook had no meaning
• Amazon, chats, and MySpace had different
  meanings, and text was not a verb.
• People, not machines, got viruses.

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We are moving from industrial societies to
knowledge societies

• We must realize that it is time to move past the
  3 Rs of Reading, riting, and rithmetic

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To the 4 Rs

• Richness of curriculum
• Recursion through reflective interaction
• Relations of new understandings into the larger
  picture and
• Rigor of being a critical consumer and
  understanding the transitory nature of knowledge
• (Doll,1993)

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5th R Reverse the Role of the Learner

• Passive--- Active
• Consumer--- Producer
• Dependent-- Independent

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Types of Creativity

• Inventive
• addresses a worthwhile problem
• novel and appropriate solution
• Expressive
• Illustrates the creators emotions and aesthetics
• original and valuable

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Inventive Creativity

• Exhibited in mathematics, science, and social
  arenas
• Recognizes and identifies problems that may or
  may not be apparent to others,
• When solved, result in an improvement in the
  domain

Dean Kamen, Inventor
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Inventive Creativity

• Saves and improves lives

Segway
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Inventive Creativity

• May produce an intangible product--such as a
  social movement

Mohandas Ghandi
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Inventive Creativity

• Finds worthwhile problems
• Produces solutions of value

Watson, Crick, and Franklin (and Wilkins)
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New World Problems
New Markets
Overpopulation

• Inventive
• Novel solutions to unsolved problems
• Early recognition product creation
• Market response

Geopolitical Restructuring
Hunger
Economic Woes
Obesity
Conflict
Pollution
Natural Resources
Disease
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According to Torrance,

• When a person has no learned or practiced
  solution to a problem, some degree of creativity
  is required

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Creativity Promotes Economic Growth

• Recent reports maintain that our nation cannot
  retain its economic and scientific position in
  the competitive world with a work force that has
  mastered only minimum competencies

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Prototypical U.S. Industry in 10 years if all
goes well
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Richard Florida, Economist

• The Rise of the Creative Class And How It's
  Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and
  Everyday Life (2002)
• There is a new social class, the creative class,
  who generate new ideas, new technology, and new
  creative content that profoundly influence work
  and lifestyle issues.

• The Flight of the Creative Class The New Global
  Competition for Talent (2005)
• Nations are in competition to nurture and retain
  their most creative talent because they are
  linked to a nations prosperity.

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Top Five European Countries and the U.S. in
Number of Patents in 2001
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Patents filed
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• As the rest of the world becomes more interested
  in creativity, the U.S. is focusing on basics.
• As we focus on leaving no child behind, the rest
  of the world is leaving us behind.

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What of Expressive Creativity?

• The impetus for the arts
• Results not from the recognition of a problem,
• But from the need to communicate with others
  and/or express oneself

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Not real dichotomy inventive
expressive

• Aesthetic experience in the realization of an
  elegant solution to a problem
• There are many problems to be solved in the
  completion any artistic expression

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Not real dichotomy inventive
expressive

• Combination-- a new menu item
• makes use of an abundance of a food (inventive)
• takes care to make the new item as appealing to
  the senses as possible (expressive).

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Expressive Creativity Helps Us Understand Our
World

• By using world events as the subject matter of
  the creations
• For example, the Spanish Civil War inspired these

Guernica
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Expressive Creativity

• Helps us deal with the stresses of modern life

Maya Angelou wrote about the racism and rape she
suffered in her life in I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings
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Expressive Creativity

• Helps us to express the anguish, longing, and
  loneliness we sometimes feel, and to relate to
  others

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Multiculturalism and Technology

• Opportunities for creators to
• reach a wider audience
• explore alternate avenues of expression
• Bypass the gatekeepers

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Hoffer, 1973

• In a time of drastic change, it is the learners
  who inherit the future. The learned find
  themselves equipped to live only in a world that
  no longer exists

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This is a time of drastic change Our children
must all be learners...and creative