Creativity Can Be Learned, And Taught

Excellent NYT article on how creativity aligned to critical thinking can being taught. I've grown sick of hearing words like 'talent' thrown around, as if some individuals are creative and others not. We teach our students—and ourselves—to think and act more creatively every day.

Critical thinking has long been regarded as the essential skill for success, but it’s not enough, says Dr. Puccio. Creativity moves beyond mere synthesis and evaluation and is, he says, “the higher order skill.” This has not been a sudden development. Nearly 20 years ago “creating” replaced “evaluation” at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning objectives. In 2010 “creativity” was the factor most crucial for success found in an I.B.M. survey of 1,500 chief executives in 33 industries. These days “creative” is the most used buzzword in LinkedIn profiles two years running.

Traditional academic disciplines still matter, but as content knowledge evolves at lightning speed, educators are talking more and more about “process skills,” strategies to reframe challenges and extrapolate and transform information, and to accept and deal with ambiguity.

Thanks to @CliveSC for the heads-up on the article.

Source: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/educa...