Don’t force creativity创造力是主动的

杨代娣

創造力是一种能将不同观点联系起来的非强迫的、有价值的、原创的想法的能力。

Children in elementary school havean unbelievable capacity for imagination：making up games on the playground， drawinga picture of the North Pole， or even givingsocial lives to stuffed animals. Thistype of imagination leads to passion， innovation，and creativity that gradually disappearthrough years of schooling.

Kids dont fear the consequences ofbeing creative. Kids arent afraid of beingtold theyre wrong. If you tell them theyrewrong， youve just entered a completely illogicalargument with a 5yearoldthat youwill not win. Their imagination will developfast. On the other hand， we adultshave lost the capacity to understand how tobe wrong and be prepared to continue usingcreativity.

If you ask people what they thinkcreativity is， maybe theyll say that its theability to draw a picture without any clues.Maybe its writing a song on an instrumentthey know how to play， or writing a fictionalstory for their English class.

To me， creativity is a bit different. Idont have the ability to do any of thosethings. I never have， and I most likelynever will. I feel that I got educated out ofmy creativity， yet Im expected to just continueto have this ability of creativity on demandin class. Its like schools understandthey are killing creativity， yet continuouslyask students to have such talents despitetheir inability to provide the environmentto enhance this ability.

I ask the students and teachers atschools： Is this how we want to measurecreativity？ My definition of creativity is theability to have unforced， valuable， originalideas that connect different perspectives.Creativity is a powerful force， yet forcedcreativity has the power to kill creativity.

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