Last stint on creativity
Well here we are the last of my creativity blogs, not really sure where to go with this one but I’m sure all will come apparent. After attending Ben Mathis’ lecture on creativity it really opened my eyes into what it takes to become a part of the computer games industry. The creativity in the field is at an extremely high level. But how creative do you need to be. Is creativity a trait that you are born with or can it be developed? Well I think its an element of both, every one is born with some element of creativity whether it be as a builder or a ballerina but it is the desire to learn skills that sparks the creative side of a person. For example I have no desire to be a ballerina, nor do I have the agile body but if I did and had the desire to I could in my opinion learn the skills and focus all my creativity on that.
Some lucky people I have discovered have the ability to pull thoughts and processes from thin air, I have come across people like this all through my academic life. Where as people like me have to take time and effort to research and development ideas. Is this a lack of creativity on my part, most probably. But can I produce equally creative work, of course just takes more time. I really don’t know what to write any more so will keep this blog up to date with the work that I’m doing most probably after my assessment on the 14th of jan as well I need to sort that out first
Laters
Monday, January 14, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
My one Big Post on Creativity (edit: was my big post now just a rant on creativity in education)
Good evening all this is my one great big entry about creativity, I decided to opt out of the many small ones as well I find it hard enough to start posts so this way I only have to do it once, (well thrice if you include the previous posts). Previously I’ve looked at both the definitions and the cognitive/psychological studies on creativity but personally I find that all rather boring so in this post its just really going too be my ramblings about what I feel about creativity, what it is and who possess it.
Creativity is in all of us, I spoke about how everyone posses it in previous posts so I wont repeat my self to take up space however tempting it is. But after attending the various lectures and talks on creativity throughout the year I have developed my own views on creativity. To start with I will describe my views about peoples take on creativity and what is or isn’t creative. Almost any aspect of life in which a person undertakes something can be describes as being creative. But it’s the fine line between being creative and being academic that some people, especially older generations find hard to see any sort of crossover. I certainly know that when I was growing up academic subjects were pushed far more that creative ones. My dad couldn’t care less if I was doing poor in art but as long as my maths, science and English was ok I was allowed to go on happily with out getting a serious beatdown, I say beatdown it was more verbally than physically, ok all verbally but it was still as hard as any smack round the face. My maths and science were generally good but as you can probably tell from my blog my English was pretty sub par. Anyway the point I’m trying to make here is that when I was at school art was never pushed it was always a choice and it took me a long while to discover my passion for it. I would like to think how developed my skills would be now if it had been more common in my earlier years or how much I would resent it now and probably be working full time at Tesco’s if that were the case. Speaking to elders as well confirmed what I thought about the older generations. When my dad was at school art was barely an options let alone dance or drama, people who dropped out to pursue these lines were generally considered “fags”.
Now however I think the system is improving however it is nowhere near the standard it should be. I can understand how hard it is to have creative courses in the curriculum, because they are notoriously hard to mark standards. When I did art at A-levels I admit I failed and it wasn’t because of my lack of skill but it was the fact that 40% of the course structure was jus pure writing, analytical and basically the ability to chat utter bolocks about a piece of work which is a concept I could never get to grips with, saying shit like, why did the artist use green for the ground, could be because of his envy with the world, no its because grass is generally fucking green, I’m sure that’s why he painted it that colour, sorry about the language but hey I failed because of this so I have every right to be angry. Well out of nothing I have got on to creativity in education and on this subject I have come across a very interesting set of notes published by a professor Ken Robinson about how he wants to promote creativity in education clickHERE for these notes, it’s a pretty long read and I have to admit I didn’t read it all but he does put forward some interesting points about how important creativity is in the school system in the U.K. In conclusion to the creativity in education part of this I feel that it does need to be pushed in schools from an early age and let children find something they love and have a particular talent at before maths and English is pushed on them at a higher level and I think this will stop a lot of children resenting school, be it music, drama, art, sports, dance or indeed maths, science or English it would defiantly help the state of the schools in this country. Well at the beginning I said this was going to be one long blog but I feel I have covered one topic in enough detail to post this, next one will be up shortly.
Good evening all this is my one great big entry about creativity, I decided to opt out of the many small ones as well I find it hard enough to start posts so this way I only have to do it once, (well thrice if you include the previous posts). Previously I’ve looked at both the definitions and the cognitive/psychological studies on creativity but personally I find that all rather boring so in this post its just really going too be my ramblings about what I feel about creativity, what it is and who possess it.
Creativity is in all of us, I spoke about how everyone posses it in previous posts so I wont repeat my self to take up space however tempting it is. But after attending the various lectures and talks on creativity throughout the year I have developed my own views on creativity. To start with I will describe my views about peoples take on creativity and what is or isn’t creative. Almost any aspect of life in which a person undertakes something can be describes as being creative. But it’s the fine line between being creative and being academic that some people, especially older generations find hard to see any sort of crossover. I certainly know that when I was growing up academic subjects were pushed far more that creative ones. My dad couldn’t care less if I was doing poor in art but as long as my maths, science and English was ok I was allowed to go on happily with out getting a serious beatdown, I say beatdown it was more verbally than physically, ok all verbally but it was still as hard as any smack round the face. My maths and science were generally good but as you can probably tell from my blog my English was pretty sub par. Anyway the point I’m trying to make here is that when I was at school art was never pushed it was always a choice and it took me a long while to discover my passion for it. I would like to think how developed my skills would be now if it had been more common in my earlier years or how much I would resent it now and probably be working full time at Tesco’s if that were the case. Speaking to elders as well confirmed what I thought about the older generations. When my dad was at school art was barely an options let alone dance or drama, people who dropped out to pursue these lines were generally considered “fags”.
Now however I think the system is improving however it is nowhere near the standard it should be. I can understand how hard it is to have creative courses in the curriculum, because they are notoriously hard to mark standards. When I did art at A-levels I admit I failed and it wasn’t because of my lack of skill but it was the fact that 40% of the course structure was jus pure writing, analytical and basically the ability to chat utter bolocks about a piece of work which is a concept I could never get to grips with, saying shit like, why did the artist use green for the ground, could be because of his envy with the world, no its because grass is generally fucking green, I’m sure that’s why he painted it that colour, sorry about the language but hey I failed because of this so I have every right to be angry. Well out of nothing I have got on to creativity in education and on this subject I have come across a very interesting set of notes published by a professor Ken Robinson about how he wants to promote creativity in education clickHERE for these notes, it’s a pretty long read and I have to admit I didn’t read it all but he does put forward some interesting points about how important creativity is in the school system in the U.K. In conclusion to the creativity in education part of this I feel that it does need to be pushed in schools from an early age and let children find something they love and have a particular talent at before maths and English is pushed on them at a higher level and I think this will stop a lot of children resenting school, be it music, drama, art, sports, dance or indeed maths, science or English it would defiantly help the state of the schools in this country. Well at the beginning I said this was going to be one long blog but I feel I have covered one topic in enough detail to post this, next one will be up shortly.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Now for my second entry in the creativity series of blogs.
In This blog I will be exploring creativity in a psychological and cognitive sense. How the brain works and many people’s theories and my own take on what motivates me and others.
Sigmund Freud described creativity by suggesting that it arises as a result of frustrated desires for fame, fortune, and love, with the energy that was previously tied up in frustration and emotional tension in the neurosis being sublimated into creative activity. Basically creativity comes from built up tension in the brain from the lack of the persons desires. I personally think that Freud talked bolocks; I mean this comes from the man who claims that all children have a sexual desire from their mother and a fear of castration from their father. In my opinion he was either very perverse or a few tools short of a full shed. But what he suggests here about where creativity comes from is entirely plausible although its will take some convincing.
“Do Creativity and intelligence come hand in hand?”
In my opinion most certainly not, I do not think a person needs to be clever in order to be creative. Every single person in this world is creative in some aspect or another. An autistic child who may have the intelligence of someone half his age but the drawing skills of a hardened veteran. Take a look at this video of Stephen Wiltshire a suffer of autism but with the most outstanding abilities.
In a psychological sense there have been many case studies searching for a link between creativity and intelligence, A very popular model is what has come to be known as "the threshold hypothesis", proposed by Ellis Paul Torrance, which holds that a high degree of intelligence appears to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for high creativity. This means that, in a general sample, there will be a positive correlation between creativity and intelligence, but this correlation will not be found if only a sample of the most highly intelligent people are assessed.
I am going to end this entry here because well I did enough psychology at A-level and this stuff bores me so I’d rather look at more interesting approaches and ideas to Creativity but may well return here if a get stuck for content.
In This blog I will be exploring creativity in a psychological and cognitive sense. How the brain works and many people’s theories and my own take on what motivates me and others.
Sigmund Freud described creativity by suggesting that it arises as a result of frustrated desires for fame, fortune, and love, with the energy that was previously tied up in frustration and emotional tension in the neurosis being sublimated into creative activity. Basically creativity comes from built up tension in the brain from the lack of the persons desires. I personally think that Freud talked bolocks; I mean this comes from the man who claims that all children have a sexual desire from their mother and a fear of castration from their father. In my opinion he was either very perverse or a few tools short of a full shed. But what he suggests here about where creativity comes from is entirely plausible although its will take some convincing.
“Do Creativity and intelligence come hand in hand?”
In my opinion most certainly not, I do not think a person needs to be clever in order to be creative. Every single person in this world is creative in some aspect or another. An autistic child who may have the intelligence of someone half his age but the drawing skills of a hardened veteran. Take a look at this video of Stephen Wiltshire a suffer of autism but with the most outstanding abilities.
In a psychological sense there have been many case studies searching for a link between creativity and intelligence, A very popular model is what has come to be known as "the threshold hypothesis", proposed by Ellis Paul Torrance, which holds that a high degree of intelligence appears to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for high creativity. This means that, in a general sample, there will be a positive correlation between creativity and intelligence, but this correlation will not be found if only a sample of the most highly intelligent people are assessed.
I am going to end this entry here because well I did enough psychology at A-level and this stuff bores me so I’d rather look at more interesting approaches and ideas to Creativity but may well return here if a get stuck for content.
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