NGUYEN 1 Kenny Nguyen Instructor: Malcolm Campbell English 1102 October 21, 13

Can we buy creativity? A friend that works in his own studio as an local artist once asked me: Why we cant buy creativity? Being an art student, Ive been practiced creativity everyday and I know that there is the most complexity and challenge question. I was not expected a perfect answer for that problem, however, that question gave rise to my mind another aspect of creativity. Is it necessary to buy something if you are owning it? Creativity is inherently uncertain. Even though we try to control it, plan it but we never know how its going to turn out. At some point, creativity is not something that we are born with but we can cultivate and develop. Creativity could hide somewhere in our brain and wait for us to find it. In this case, hide-and-seek is not a fun game, because we need creativity to manage our individual lives, to promote metal growth at children as well as to innovate in business. Creativity along with innovation are the most important tools achieving success. Creativity brings up many benefits such as the ability to solve everyday problems and the ability to develop our nature talent. Specially, we are living in times of technological explosion, not only each person need to be more creative but also that is the big socials challenge. Ken Robinson, the author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative (Capstone Publishing Limited, 2001) said: "The challenges we currently face are

without precedent. More people live on this planet now than at any other time in history. The world's population has doubled in the past 30 years. We're facing an increasing strain on the world's natural resources. Technology is advancing at a headlong rate of speed. It's transforming how people work, think, and connect. It's transforming our cultural values." In our modern society, children and young peoples are both easily affected by the change of living environment. Outside the frame of school and family is a powerful attraction from media and technology devices. If creativity is innate, it might not be lost. But it is necessary to be nurtured and cultivated. Particularly in education, does it really realize effectively its functions toward children and young people? Once again, Ken Robinson has been painted the big presage picture from the aspect of a future viewer: " Also, we're living in times of massive unpredictability. The kids who are starting school this September will be retiringif they ever doaround 2070. Nobody has a clue what the world's going to look like in five years, or even next year actually, and yet it's the job of education to help kids make sense of the world they're going to live in." Thus, he highlighted the two mainly reasons that strongly effected on creativity. There are technology and education. First, as an adult, we might recognize creativitys problems at different aspects. Most of us think creativity is the domain of children, young age peoples and the artists, but actually its just a belief and misconception. The same time, people argue that those people is always being more creative. Whether if we say the more we grow up the less creative we become? Unfortunately its true, psychologist shows At around about the age of five, we are using about 80% of our creative potential. We invent daily - no matter than our inventions have been invented before, the fact is that we are innovating at a remarkable

NGUYEN 3 rate. The scary coda to this story is that by the age of twelve, our creative output has declined to about 2% of our potential, and it generally stays there for the rest of our lives. Think back our childhoods when we were kids. We would learn new things in order to build up our capacities for knowledge and discover our own nature talents. Children are naturally curious and want to know what they dont already know. Thus the only question they dont ask is why they have to learn something. Children and young people demonstrate the very definition of creativity: alternating between divergent and convergent thinking, they arrive at original and useful ideas. In school, we learn there is one true way of thinking, one right answer for every problem, one instruction to follow in years. Instead of being interested, students were stick in boring classrooms and became afraid to creative. In reality, for the first time American creativity in decline declared on New York Time 2010. This marked a warning alarm for the whole education system in the nation. "For most, creativity has been buried by rules and regulations. Our educational system was designed during the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago, to train us to be good workers and follow instructions." said, Linda Naiman the founder of the website Creativity at work , coauthor of the book Orchestrating Collaboration at Work (first published by Wiley in 2003). Rules and regulations influence what people believe is right and wrong just as surely as a law or a norm. They contribute to limit the creative abilities because they provided a stable and predictable thoughts. On one hand, they keep us from fall into being wrong. On another hand, they are enemies of the creative process. To explain why, Ken Robinson continue to mention that " If you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original... If you're not prepared to be wrong and by the

time, they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong."

School systems certainly play a significant role to encourage and develop creativity by teaching and learning. Teachers help student develop the ability to choose environment that stimulate their creativity. That is great. But as a integral part of that process, testing or grading seem to emphasize the value of students creativity more than give them the opportunity to be more creative. Kyung Hee Kim, psychologist, professor of Educational psychology at The college of William and Mary said in her article The Creativity Crisis that: Teachers claim to value creativity in children, but in fact it is proven that they generally dislike creative behaviors and characteristics in the classroom because they are inconvenient and hard to control. According to U.S. educators, the greatest barriers to creativity in schools include: 21 percent an education system that it too reliant on testing and assessment, 14 percent school lack of proper resources, 12 percent educators are restricted from straying outside the curriculum. American creativity in decline effected by schools is not the warning alarm for only kids or young people but also for us, college students and adults. To conclusion for this problem in particular entrepreneurial students and students in general, Zong Zhao wrote: School in general reduce instead of enhancing creativity and entrepreneurial spirit because they have been design to prepare good employees. And the qualities of good employees in traditional sense are drastically different from what make a good entrepreneurial worker today. The majority of schools in the world today are facing increasing pressure to produce good employees and thus working hard at what is

NGUYEN 5 believe to produce good employees with prescribed standardized curricula, lock-step pacing guides, and standardized test that encourage memorization and compliance. Work class learner: Educating creative and entrepreneurial students (published 2012). In any aspect, we have to admit that losing creativity cause education factor is potentially disturbing and need to be solved. Second, we are in danger of allowing technology to reducing our creativity. What did happened when our older generations were kids without an I-phone, I-pad, computer, playstation, video games? And what is happening now for our kids in present world with the huge support from those technology devices? It is quiet sad when people say that todays children forgot how to be children. Technology contribute to decrease the ability to imagine and self-expression at kid. As study shows For younger children, the decrease probably arises more significantly from their home than their schools because research indicates personality development is most influenced by home environments. Research also indicated that more children are spending the majority of their time in front of televisions, computers, and video games, and less time engaging in what I consider creative activities. says Dr. Kim. Instead of reading book, kid more excited with new media devices. The progress of imagine was cut off because they get direct information from the screens and then they are done. They forgot how to imagine from the reading, the text, the pictures , the self-expression in their magic world.

There are several opposite ideas around that whether technology is actually bad for kid. Example as the impact of video game, in an interviewed Explaining the decline of Creativity in America Children Dr Kim mentioned that " Video games

constitute an ever increasing part of a childs day. There are different types of video games, and generally they are set in a fantasy environment, or even a realistic one, and hone hand-eye coordination. They may also offer some limited problem solving, as in figuring out how to get through a door or across a chasm. Programming or designing these games may sometimes be creative, but I do not believe playing them generally fosters creativity." We are not trying to emphasize the bad thing of video games or technology. In reality, we are using them a lots more than children. But if were standing at the aspect of the parents, should we be allowed to control a bit better the access their children have to technology? Or Shouldn't we help them develop social skills and imagination before giving them games?

As an employee, were experiencing how technology changing our workplaces. More than ever, we need to be creative to follow that tensely changes of working environment. Dont let technology left us behind, we created technology devices to help us not to control us inside the box. Psychological studies have revealed that positive mood can spur creativity. The idea is that positive mood awards us with greater flexibility in thinking because our perspectives are widened. Jonah Lehrer talked about the effects of technology to lessen creativity at work and solutions to foster creativity on his book 'Imagine How creativity works' published 2012 : If youre an engineer working on a problem and youre stumped by your technical problem, chugging caffeine at your desk and chaining yourself to your computer, youre going to be really frustrated. Youre going to waste lots of time. You may look productive, but

NGUYEN 7 you are actually wasting time. Instead, at that moment, you should go for a walk. You should play some ping-pong. You should find a way to relax.

In fact, people became more attention to figure out solutions help develop creativity in all ages. At kids, creativity is skills that can be develop and a process that can be manage. The innovation in education is necessary. We should give for kid the interested in the process more than focus on the finished product. Self- expression is also important because it will provide opportunity for kid figure out new ways to solving problems, frees to express new ideas and fosters their mental growth. Instead of encouraging creative expression by lessons, classes, schools and high-tech supports, parents should let their children have their own choice to play and discover new things. In recent years, many psychologist trying to figure out the ways to solving that problem but there are never one right answer. However, the good news is that creativity training that aligns with the new science works surprisingly well. Creativity can be taught for kids and adults. A research from Robert Epstein, published on Psychology Today shows Capturing skills can be taught to young children, to high school kids, to adults, to top executives. Teachers, parents, and managers can boost the creative output of a group many fold simply by providing some simple training and the right materials. US Department of Education suggests that Adults can encourage creativity by emphasizing the generation and expression of ideas in a non-evaluative framework and by concentrating on both divergent and convergent thinking. Adults can also try to ensure that children have the opportunity and confidence to take risks, challenge assumptions,

and see things in a new way." says Dr. James Moran, at Education Resources Information Center (US Department of Education). Once again, creativity problems was emphasized as a social challenge which need to be solve, particularly in business because the large impact of it to our future society." We need creative leaders in business. The lifespan of large companies will continue to shrink unless they learn to reinvent themselves. The lack of creativity is a problem a 2010 IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the number one leadership competency of the future but what are we doing to address it? Unlike the Flynn effect, in which IQ rises with each successive generation, creativity scores among U.S. children have been falling since 1990. We need to develop a new generation of entrepreneurial leaders capable of combatting this challenge." reported by Drew Hansen, Forber's reporter.

Think back to the question why we cant buy creativity?, of course, we could buy it if its in form of a physical product. Assuming that we could buy creativity but evidently its not yours. Creativity is a long period process of each individual in their life. We cant buy creativity because we have to inspire it by ourselves. Creativity is unique self-expression and invaluable.

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Work Cited Robinson, Ken. Interviewed by Amy Azzan. "Why Creativity now?". 15 Sep. 2009. ASCD. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. Robinson, Ken. How school killed creativity. Jun 2006. Huffington Post. Web. 29 Sep. 2013. Naiman, Linda. Can creativity be taught?. 23 Mar. 2012. Creativity at work. Web 29 Sep. 2013. Kim, Kyung Hee. "The Creativity Crisis". Newsweek. July 2010.Huffington Post. Web. 29 Sep. 2013 Kim, Kyung Hee. Interviewed by Britannica editor." Explaining the Decline of Creativity in America Children". 18 Oct. 2010. Britannica. Web 29 Sep.2013. Jonah, Lehrer. Imagine How creativity works. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2012. Print. Epstein, Robert. Capturing Creativity. 19 Jul. 2012. Psychology Today. Web. 29 Sep. 2013. Moran, James. Creativity in Young Children.Educational Resources Information center. 18 Feb. 2011. Education. Web. 15 Oct. 2013 Hansen, Drew. Steve Jobs isn't the only kind of Artist Leader. 29 Dec. 2012. Forbes. Web. 29 Sep. 2013. Steaker, David. Age and Creativity. 18 Oct. 2012. Creatingminds. Web. 28 Oct.2013 Zhao Zong. Work class learner: Educating creative and entrepreneurial students. 6 Jun 2012. New York. Published 2012. PDF file.