Where does creativity come from?

Orenda Coulibaly

Harris-Barnett

English 101

Essay 3 rough Draft

Word count: 1500

Where Does Creativity Come from?

Nowadays, people see learning only as being a task that is done in school, but the truth is that learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study or by being taught. Indeed, learning is not a weakness but a strength, especially in this society in which we live. The problem is that if someone wants to have a minimum of consideration at the level of the society, he has to be willing to learn or needs to have proof that he has somehow completed academic studies. It's that simple. My intention is not to say that learning is wrong or obligatory, but that it is in some sort normal, for the purpose of living a normal life. Through learning, people become much more confident about themselves to the point where they develop a certain level of creativity and an ability to adapt easily to new situations. Since they feel at ease and free in what they do, the brain is also much freer to go on new grounds and not afraid of making any mistake. As much as learning is important and at the same time available to us all, people must remember that creativity comes from the fact that we love what we do.

            In his article “The Play Deficit,” Peter Gray assimilates learning to play. Gray starts his article by talking about his own experience in which he had two educations when he was a child: school and a “hunter-gather education” he says. He ended up declaring that what he has learned during hid hunter-gatherer education, was more profitable for him in his adult life than what he has learned in school. He believes that reducing school hours and increasing hours of play would be beneficial to children because they will better learn. For him, children should have the opportunity to play because they learn and develop many skills through their play. Also, he talks a lot about creativity. He declares that having the play spirit develops creativity and that it is just difficult to be creative when you have other people judging you every time. Gray says that children should have the opportunity to have fun without feeling forced.

The article “Master of Many Trades” by Robert Twigger discusses the differences between a polymath and a specialist. A polymath is a person able to study many fields at the same time, a multitasker. However, a specialist is a person who chooses to specialize in only one field. Twigger emphasizes how fun, and intelligent, the polymathic people are while treating specialists as boring and non-creative persons, “Over-specialization, eventually retreats into defending what one has learned rather than making new connections.” Talking about polymath, he states “It would, I believe, help build better judgment in all areas.” He indicates that learning is important and pushes people to learn new things regardless ages. For him, Innovation, creativity and multi-talented are synonyms of “Polymathic”. only those who choose to diversify, are creative.

Analyzing and comparing both articles, Both Gray and Twigger addresses the importance of learning nowadays through their articles. According to Gray, since playing is also a way for learning: "Playing is learning", he argues that children need to play a lot so that they will be able to learn a lot. Similarly, Twigger emphasizes the utility of learning as he reports that the more fields "of knowledge you cover, the greater your resource for improvisation." As he does that, he also brings out the role of creativity in a certain way. Also, Gray asserts that the fact that children really learn with gestures such as hearing things once and remembering automatically, has been proven by several adults. This definitely proves that we can learn everywhere. Like Gray, Twigger believes that everyone can still learn new skills outside of school and no matter the age but they should be careful not to give up but being determined to learn more.

On the other side, they have their different perspectives concerning the origin of creativity. Gray presents creativity as being freedom. For him, school is not an appropriate area to grow creativity because children are not free to do what they want, they are forced to do everything. As the psychologist Teresa Amabile shown, “The attempt to increase creativity by rewarding people for it…has the opposite effect” (qtd. in Gray). Maybe they do not like it, and it is known that if a child does not like something, it's hard for him to put on his own and give himself thoroughly. Gray even uses the example of SVS, a school where students study what they like and have the chance to interact with each other at any moment. In contrast, Twigger shows that the specialization in a particular field as the students in SVS do for example, is a bad idea for innovation, “Invention fights specialization.” He claims that only polymaths are creative: "But polymathic would not just be another name for innovation." He accused specialists not to be interesting and not to be funny. He sees the specialist as a person who has a thin mind and who always do the same thing. Which means who is not able to innovate.

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