Speculation about the private lives of figures in ancient history is fraught with peril, but of one thing we can be fairly certain: this wasn’t Archimedes’s first bath. It certainly was not the first time that he had attempted to estimate the volume of objects—in this case, the king’s crown. He arrived at this realization after many failed hypotheses and experiments. The eureka myth gives the illusion that creativity is about the moment of discovery, rather than the long process that preceded it.
Emphasizing experimentation means that Thomas Edison’s 9,999 failures were as important as the success that followed. We do not see the experimental canvases that Leonardo da Vinci rejected and destroyed. We do not get to wonder at the casts that Auguste Rodin smashed. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist and embody important experimental work that influenced the creations we know today.
Evaluation
The second element of our definition is evaluation. Scientific insights are achieved through a process of review, criticism, evaluation, and ultimately, validation. Creative insights, likewise, are not universally accepted but emerge over time after a process of public evaluation, deliberation, and debate. For an extreme example, the 1913 premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring in Paris inspired such spirited debate and evaluation as to its creative value that it included shoe throwing and fist fights (Pasler, 1986). Vigorous debate, dissent, and discussion are essential parts of the creative process. The melee of the Paris premiere of The Rite of Spring may not be a model of civil discourse, but it does illustrate the fact that conclusions regarding creative contributions are the result of a process of evaluation.
Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the global summit on climate change occurred in the same city in 2015. Amidst the creative solutions in future meetings in Paris and around the globe will be debate, dissent, evaluation, and perhaps even some shoe throwing. In the century to come, society will be best served not by remembering the proclamations of world leaders, but the contentious process that just might lead to creative solutions that will give generations to come a better chance at survival.
The critics of creative breakthroughs are often cast as villains or buffoons, but we must not be afraid to be critical when we evaluate new ideas. What if the shoe throwers of Paris led Stravinsky to more expressive compositions? What if Einstein’s critics, when the general theory of relativity was posited, were essential to the special theory of relativity? What if Johann Sebastian Bach’s early critics led him to be a better composer? Reflect on feedback you have received over the past year, particularly on creative endeavors, but also on any attempt at excellence. Which feedback led to your own breakthrough performances—the superficial and laudatory or the critical and evaluative?
Follow-Through
The third element of our definition of the creativity process is follow-through. Creators not only think great thoughts, they act. James Madison did not just think about democracy; he wrote the Constitution. Maya Angelou not only reflected on her childhood experiences, she put pen to paper, gave voice to the voiceless, and famously announced to the world that she knew why the caged bird sings. The implications for teaching and learning creativity are clear. Follow-through demands a level of discipline, organization, and focus that in popular mythology are the antithesis of the creative genius who is undisciplined, disorganized, and scatterbrained. That stereotype may be part of traditional definitions of creativity, but it does not accord with ours.
Creativity is not merely the idea itself, but the process that leads to the idea—the continual cycle of evaluation that makes the idea better and the follow-through that gives the idea endurance over time. Consider the common practice of brainstorming. It is a good bet that every reader has at some time been encouraged to generate creative new ideas through brainstorming focused around this primary rule: no judgment or evaluation—just get as many ideas, no matter how improbable they might be—on the wall. This was a splendid idea in 1946 for advertising executive Alex Faickney Osborn. Unburdened by evidence, Osborn (1963) dominated the creative consulting industry with his books and seminars about brainstorming. Although there were signs of trouble with studies starting in 1960 that establish this type of brainstorming as ineffective (Gobble, 2014; Mongeau, 1993; Orme, 2014), the enthusiasm of Osborn’s disciples remained undiminished.
Well into the 21st century, high-priced consultants with Ivy League pedigrees continue to suggest that strategic planning and other group processes begin with brainstorming. But the truth is that this kind of brainstorming is not only ineffective, it is counterproductive. This process buries important ideas and wastes time and energy on ideas that are popular, perhaps even funny, but are soon forgotten and never implemented. But tell educators, business leaders, or nonprofit executives that traditional brainstorming is an ineffective waste of time and resources, and you might be greeted with hostility or bewilderment. Although follow-through is an essential element of creativity, activities such as brainstorming offer a comfortable but futile alternative to follow-through. As amateur musicians, we would much prefer to think about the music rather than practice it. As writers we prefer languorous discussions of ideas to the more difficult challenges of putting those ideas into prose that readers will find useful. Creativity without follow-through is Picasso without the canvas, Mozart without the orchestra, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Nelson Mandela without societal and governmental structures with which to implement their ideas. In sum, creativity is not just about thinking or being, but about doing.
Our Creative Responsibility
Nearly every professional development session for teachers and school administrators includes an oration about the importance of creativity as a 21st century skill, but these educators routinely return home to face the reality of a system that undermines the creative efforts of students and themselves. Despite the rhetoric favoring creativity, the message teachers hear is, “We’ll get to creativity—just as soon as we raise our test scores.”
Even advocates of creativity undermine their case when they refer to creativity as a “noncognitive” skill (Gutman & Schoon, 2013). This wholly inaccurate understanding of creativity sends the message that creativity is a frill—something that competes with and is at the other end of the cognition continuum from “real” thinking and learning.
One reason that creativity myths are so prevalent may be that they remove the responsibility of being creative from individuals, teachers, and organizations and lay the onus on nature. People may feel that if creativity is the exclusive domain of the loner scientist or the eccentric aesthete, then they have no duty or ability to try to be creative themselves—believing that they either possess a certain creative quality from birth or they do not. What we must understand is that creativity is not a trait. It is a set of behaviors that can be developed through practice. Creativity is, to some degree, a way of life. But it is also a responsibility. Creativity is not just the way that the great geniuses of the past have enriched and given meaning to our culture, it is an obligation we all have to enrich and give meaning to our own lives and community. We hope that by exploring and explaining each of the seven main traits and modes of thought that support creativity in the following chapters, we can help in some small measure guide you, your students, and your colleagues to a more fulfilling and creative life.
CREATIVITY REFLECTIONS
1. Identify at least one thing you thought about creativity that changed after you read this chapter, and discuss with a partner or small group. If you have not changed your thinking, consider at least one or two ways in which your thinking has been challenged or reinforced. You might want to consult your responses to figure I.1 (page 8).
2. Identify specific sources of creative inspiration that you find most helpful. These might be nature, music, silence, visual images, or a thousand other sources. Just select two or three, and resolve to make time and space for those sources of creative inspiration this week.
3.
