hello,
i’m curious about what all the people here thinking about this.
do you guys think ‘creative’ can be taught?
if it’s not, how can we make others more creative?
creative in here means one can always comes with good ideas & different opinions.
many thanks.
My two cents. As a social anthropologist (ahem) I would say that “mainstream” creativity is driven mainly by socio-cultural factors, not so much by genetics and biology.
This means that individuals’ creativity is determined by the social and historic context in which they grow up (family, society at large, traditions, culture).
There’s quite a lot of cross-cultural research on factors that play a role in creativity, such as individualism, sociality, socially induced forms of perception and representation. Historical evidence (comparisons of creativity in Catholic-Latin cultures versus Protestant cultures for example) points in the same direction. Latin cultures have a very “sensual” view on life, which is the result of Catholicism’s materialism. This has led to highly creative cultures; Protestant and Calvinist views on life are anti-sensual and extremely cerebral, which doesn’t really stimulate artistic creativity (not many works of art come from Finland or from white Protestant Americans). It’s the difference between Brazilian samba musicians and Scandinavian architects. 
But then it all depends on how you define “creativity” in the first place.
Back to the role of the social sphere. If you were to be able to change a culture and its social mechanisms, you could probably enhance people’s creative skills. But this is only so for “groups” of people, not for individuals per se. There’s always the factor of “talent” that is probably genetically determined. Changing the social and cultural sphere in such a way that this talent can surface more easily, is probably possible.
On the other hand, there is some science suggesting that true geniality may be related to pathologies such as schizophrenia. This is genetics.
Then again, some cultures make a place for schizo-paranoid individuals and allow them to take on certain roles (artists, musicians, religious leaders, etc…). Other cultures put them in asylums or reduce them to autists. So here too social structures play a role.
In conclusion: I believe you can stimulate ordinary people’s creativity by intervening in their social environment (e.g. a non-authoritarian education, a family and peer environment in which artistic expression is encouraged, etc…). This could boost “mainstream” creativity. But genius and truly exceptional creativity are probably determined by genetics and cannot be taught.
Something like that, dude.
i think that creativity can only be taught to a certain extent.
it really depends on how creative you want to be too.
creativity can stem into different groups : modifying from an old product can be seen as a creative work.
churning out totally new concept is a higher order of creative thought
teaching open ideas and perspectives for the person to come up with new way of doing things. Hence it can be taught.
but if you want something really different, how could education teach creativity since everyone is using the same base knowledge of seeing things ?
genuine inventors rarely had education.
well known innovators like trevor bayliss and edison; architect tadao ando do not have a lot of education but have contributed in a great way.
issac newton only doted on 4 books to come up with the physics law.
leonardo da vinci did not attend a lot of school either.
Genuine Creativity is a result of chaotic interaction of your mental physical and environmental state. If it is predicable, it can be streamlined and ISOed out. The more it is streamlined the less chaos there is. Teaching is generally about reducing chaos and in some parts of the world to the point of eliminating it. Stundets then dont have to waste time. They can be efficient and create good designs similar to those wining prizes in magazines - which are raley seen in the real world. Every body involved in such excersise are then happily judged to be creative, and be awarded a prize for ‘creativity’ it in the next design competition.
In my opnion, a good way to teach creativity is to introduce the right level of chaos. Not too much not too little - the right amount to balance sanity with much needed insanity required for creative exploration.
Creativity is a talent and talent cannot be taught.
I generally say that creativity cannot be taught, but that’s usually when speaking with people regarding such things as college choice. By that point in your life, I don’t think it can be taught. But creativy can and is taught to very young children. During your first few years of life your brain is forming and your basic assumptions about life and reality and the way things work are being formed. At this time we have the ability to shape creativity, but as we get older it becomes harder and harder to teach.
Talent is recurring patterns of behavior,thought, and feeling. To be creative/talent you have to be engaged in what you do. You have to have the desire and love what you do. *You can’t teach someone to love something. You also have to know that people do not change that much.
There are gifts that comes naturally and things you are good that comes to you quicker and easier than other people. What is stimulating to one might be tedious to the other. So how can you stimulate someone and make whatever it is come quick to that person that you are trying to teach? That is why you are BORN with certain telents because you have a biult in love for it and it just develops over time naturally by your desire.
If you are talking about artistically creative then trying to teach that is an uphill battle; but you can make a Stonehenge out of three lego blocks and call that creative as well if you want 
I think being creative is about making connections, and is not as random as some people make it out to be. There are definitely techniques and tools out there to help so-called non-creative types make those connections and organize them. People are creative everyday, but they are not applying it in a focused way.
I’ve developed concepts for products by observing people who were creatively solving problems, but didn’t have the one tool to make it easier for them to do their job. I simply made that one connection they didn’t see, I don’t think I was any more creative than they were, I was just seeing it at a different angle. I think you can be taught to see things from that other angle.
In my opinion, the super, genius, creative people, Fuller, Einstein, Edison etc…are processing those connections much faster (and further) than I could ever do in their heads. It would be tough to teach that.
it was my thought initially. but after a particular seminar a few years back,
it sounds like ‘creativity can be somewhat taught’. If not, schools won’t be built.
I thought: if creativity can be taught, it has to be only to a certain level. But that won’t be anything new wouldn’t it ? Certain places want to teach creativity. If that cannot be taught, then why some colleges are able to take in any kind of student and groom them well ?
Just a thought.