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I took this picture while taking a bicycle ride around the southern end of Manhattan Island with my youngest brother a few months ago. There were many places like this, where people could rest, read, talk, think, and engage in Tai Chi. |
I frequently talk about the arts and how they apply to living and working today. I think that one of the misconceptions that many of us have about creativity, when we think and talk about 21st century skills, is that we confine our notions to art, music, and drama. We look at a picture that a student drew for her book report and say, “You are so creative.” As I’ve written and said before, I prefer the term inventive over creative, because it implies resourcefully solving a problem or accomplishing a goal — which to me is a large part of what 21st century skills are about.
Inventiveness certainly does not exclude art and music, especially when the picture drawn for the book report expresses some aspect of the story in a way that would not be possible with mere words. Artistic, musical, and performance expressions are highly effective tools for solving problems of communication and fabricating useful experiences. I continue to maintain that the creative arts should be emphasized in schools to the same degree and often for the same reasons that we are emphasizing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Along these lines, I ran across this Twitter post from Richard Florida, announcing a webcast being sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts
Looking to the Creative PlaceMaking Event today with NEA & Canada Council RT @LivableCities -http://bit.ly/a2HbeP
The panelists (Carol Coletta [moderator], Richard Florida, Tim Jones, Rick Lowe, and Ann Markusen) will talk about the role of the arts in creating livable and sustainable communities. You can read about the 3:00PM (EDT) webcast in the News Room of the NEA web site and also at LAStageBlog.
Teaching children how to be creative or inventive would help them in all areas of education. Inventiveness or creativity lies at the top of the thought process pyramid. Teaching them how to be inventive may be easier with the creative arts. Jazz improvisation comes to mind and so does creative writing. These lessons should then be translated to math, science, engineering etc. Better yet, maybe we should strive to be creative in all things. Learn the basics, understand them, apply them and create with them.
I like the idea of switching to “inventive” term. Indeed, the 21st century skilled person is the one able to analyze and perceive new material, be able to accept other’s viewpoint and work out your own vision. Finding a new way will help the humanity chose the best way and hopefully help develop more tolerant society where each person is unique in his inventive way:)
The term “inventive” is what I’ve been searching for many years. When students get intimidated with problem solving, they need to get “inventive”. As a high school math teacher, I get frustrated trying to teach a group of international school students how to approach problem solving. Afterall, there are no prescribed steps–each problem is unique, and there are many different methods to solve them. Students need to find a way that makes most sense for them and become “inventive”.