Creativity and Learning How to Learn

“Modern studies indicate that creativity is not a rare, magic gift visited upon the isolated genius; it is the natural birthright of every human child and is a series of cognitive skills that can be taught, harnessed and applied to unleash what we are now discovering is the infinite creative capacity in every child. Learning How to Learn and Creativity need to be … woven into the fabric of every subject.” – Tony Buzan

I discovered this presentation by Tony Buzan on esnips. It goes right to the heart of the thought behind a PDS education and why creativity matters at every level and in every subject.

Here are my quick (linear) notes while listening to his talk, all the words are his:

• there is a decline in creativity throughout a child’s educational progression
• this is a global crisis…it is ademolition of creativity, a demolition of dreams
• around the world there is a cry for creativity
• the bad news: it is global, it is normal
• the good news: normal is not natural
• we are teaching uncreativity…we teach the children to have those natural skills decline
• we first teach how to learn- we teach creativity – and then we apply any curriculum we want
• we learned what to learn, we did not learn how to learn
• brilliance arises in every single one of us…every single child is brilliant
• the teacher is the provider of the soil to nurture the brilliance in every child
• intellectual capital is becoming the world’s greatest asset…60% of all jobs and professions within the next 10 years will be based on creative thinking.
• a new creative age is dawning
• we are not born with a brain
• when we teach we nurture the child’s creativity…the teacher is helping the child with its internal architecture of its thinking machine
• when we routinize and linearize we are physically disengaging their brain
• what more important job could there be on the planet?
• creativity is the engine of all curricula…it mut imbue, suffuse every subject
• creativity is the ability to generate thought
• we have to nurture nature
• there are no limits…brilliance arises in all of us
• every great creative thinker is incredibly disciplined. They are brilliantly focused and ordered. Amazingly imaginative. The ability to be original and make connections building on the thoughts and ideas of others. True innovation comes from making connections and create from there.