Celebrate Creativity

I have to begin this post by apologizing for not realizing January was "International Creativity Month," but it should never be too late to celebrate creativity, should it?

The intent of International Creativity Month (founded by motivational speaker and author Randall Munson) is to remind people and organizations to capitalize on the power of creativity. My personal belief is that we are all creative in our own ways, but we might feel our creativity isn't wanted whether at school or work and we kind of "lose" our creative ability.

I believe we should encourage creativity with students, educators, and across all levels of employment. As Dictionary. com states:

Creativity is the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination: the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts.

So why wouldn't we want to champion the creativity within individuals? Without creativity, as individuals, we become stagnant in our thoughts and development as do our products and services within a business setting.

In a belated celebration of International Creativity Month, I wanted to offer some resources for creativity:

The Link: International Creativity Month: found on ipl2 – news and information, this resource highlights Randall Munson's newsletter and  illustrates how creativity is implemented in workplaces, in education, with food, with children, and across cultures.

The Center for Creative Learning: this site believes that people of all ages can improve their skills and ability to use creative and critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making, and that research on learning style helps us to understand how people develop and use their talents in unique and personal ways. They offer free resources, i.e newsletter, journal article reprints, sample activities, and ideas on assessing creativity (Assessing Creativity: A Guide for Educators and Assessing Creativity Index: a database of creativity tests and inventories)

Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching: Created by Iowa State University, this site includes links to online resources, techniques for creative teaching, and evaluating creativity, etc.

The Torrance Center, University of Georgia: this site provides PowerPoint presentations, podcast lectures, activities and resources on creativity.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?:  This presentation is the most highly viewed TED talk of all time. Robinson argues that we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says.

Is Creativity Innate or Can it be Learned?: This post found on the CareerTech Testing Center blog highlights a study released by Adobe entitled, Creativity and Education: Why It Matters.

The Phenomenons Called Curiosity and Creativity: Another post found on the CareerTech Testing Center blog highlights the concepts of curiosity and creativity.

Happy Belated International Creativity Month!