Jonah Lehrer writes in his recent blog post “Classroom Creativity" that “Everybody wants a creative child - in theory." He explains:
"The reality of creativity, however, is a little more complicated, as creative thoughts tend to emerge when we're distracted, daydreaming, disinhibited and not following the rules. In other words, the most imaginative kids are often the trouble-makers.”
Robert Alan Black, author of Broken Crayons, Break Your Crayons and Draw Outside the Lines, calls these trouble-makers "crayon breakers," and he lists these as some of the “traits of highly creative people":
They are sensitive, not motivated by money, intuitive, and observant. They ask questions, have a strong sense of humor, are curious, tolerate ambiguity, and they can be very critical. They are self-disciplined and energetic.
What is interesting is that these are traits often highly valued in the workplace. In fact, creativity experts such as Teresa Amabile of Harvard’s Business School focus on helping businesses to get their employees to be more creative, to have more of the above traits rather than fewer. It is easy to see, however, as Lehrer reminds us, that “crayon breakers” might not be as widely appreciated in elementary classrooms.
One of my challenges in teaching creative thinking to college engineering students has been to help them to rediscover the “imaginative kid” inside that might have gotten them into trouble in the past. We work to un-do many of the habits and practices they had perfected in grade school and high school.
An example of this rediscovery is finding and creating extra time for study and projects. Amabile has found that, contrary to what we might think, working under high pressure or tight deadlines does not make us more creative. In fact, she suggests that “very high levels of time pressure should be avoided if you want to foster creativity on a consistent basis.” She acknowledges that some tight deadlines are unavoidable, but she also advises “people not to kid themselves into thinking that they'll stimulate their creativity by avoiding working on a complex problem until the last minute. It's probably best to get started as soon as possible, laying out the problem in all its complexity and mapping out some strategies for tackling it.”
National Geographic photographer Dewitt Jones also supports the idea that working over a longer period of time can lead to more creativity when he urges us to look for “the next right answer.” The first right answer may be adequate, but unless we push to find more right answers, we may never discover our most creative ideas.
Article comments
1 - FEM4Eever
Spot on Lisa!!
Your article makes many important valid points.
'Valuable daydreaming' ...hmmm, actually, as far back as I could recall, the most creative ideas I had came to me while I was daydreaming!
2 - Dax Cheng
I am one of these trouble-makers. And I'm proud of it. :)
One thing I do not quite agree with is "What is interesting is that these are traits often highly valued in the workplace." In most companies I worked for, especially large multinationals, you either tow the line or get blacklisted.
What I think most trouble makers end up is running their own business like myself. Since we generally do not follow the rules, we make our own.
3 - AndyB
I believe that we are all creative to start with, just that society/conditioning is geared to discourage creativity.
4 - Joanne Huspek
Andy is so right. Society (especially modern society) is expert at dumbing down any creative thought a child might entertain. Parents are too tired to take the "trouble makers" (I find that concept hilarious) and channel their energy into creative pursuits. It takes hard work to raise a creative child.
5 - Lisa
Thank you very much for the comments. This is an issue that is very important to me and one I want to explore and discuss more in future articles. I'm glad to see that it resonates with others.
I really like the comment about creative people eventually owning their businesses... or perhaps becoming writers!