Creativity is our thing here.  And we are not alone.  Two articles out this week from CBS News and The New York Times have our back on the importance of this skill.  Yes creativity is in fact a skill; or as my go to text book Art and Creative Development for Young Children by Robert Schirrmacher states, “Creativity is an attitude not an aptitude.”  These articles offer great research to back up that point.

CBS news cited Daniel Pink speaker at Discovery Forum in 2009, as well as Dr. Nancy Andreasen, psychiatrist who specializes in creativity.  She’s noticed common threads in people who have “creative personalities:”

"They're not just curious about what they do, they're curious about all kinds of things," Dr. Andreasen said. "They're adventuresome. They push the envelope. They are rebellious. They have a sense of humor."

Sound like any 4-year-olds you know?  It reminds me of some of our regular young visitors who exhibit those personality traits here daily, sometimes all at once.  At this point you may be thinking,” Yeah, kids are creative all the time, that’s kids stuff, big deal.”

Enter The New York Times article on how the current trend in business schools is training future CEOs to think more critically and creatively about problems.  They profile Roger Martin, dean at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto who posits:

…students needed to learn how to think critically and creatively every bit as much as they needed to learn finance or accounting. More specifically, they needed to learn how to approach problems from many perspectives and to combine various approaches to find innovative solutions.

We live in challenging times where culture, technology, art and science intersect, and breed new innovations at a whirlwind pace.  And if your kids are going to compete- in business schools, art schools, medical schools ad infinitum you want them hang onto those creative thinking skill they have been born with.  There is no better place to practice then right here at the Bay Area Discovery Museum.

Want to learn more about how creative thinking has paid off for grown-ups?  Please join us at Forum on February 1st featuring Dana King in conversation with Steve Wozniak- the ultimate creativity success story.


 

This entry was posted on 01/11/10 and is filed under Heather Posner.
Tagged: Creativity, Forum