Sally Stuudio teachers conducted a creativity test to promote creativity among young people. We designed worksheets based on three basic shapes. Each of the worksheet was filled with one shape: triangles, squares or circles. We payed a visit to five secondary schools in Tallinn and asked about 200 students to continue the basic shapes drawing as many different objects, symbols etc they could imagine. Creative drawing was not as simple as it seemed at first. It took a lot of thinking to draw around fifty different images.
2011 / Various students from five schools in Tallinn
Creativity is considered to be an important key competence in 21st century. Society is changing rapidly and creativity has been considered to be even more important than knowledges and skills for facing new challenges. Creativity has been found to be connected with intelligence, talent and personality traits like opennes, extraversion and emotional stability. Supportive environment is very important for developing creativity - education level of parents, their active communication with children are the determining factors, but also paying attention to creativity in school plays an important role.
Among other things, creativity helps to motivate students, raises their self-esteem and positive attitude towards school (Cropley, 2008, 356). Unfortunetly, it is claimed both in Estonia and elsewhere that strictly structured education, orientation towards good results and examinations set borders to creativity. For developing creative thinking, children should be allowed to get experiences in variable disciplines and environments, develop creative problem solving and more time should be taken for creative solutions.
Aim
The aim of the task was to make young people realize that creativity is a useful quality for a future artist and also in other areas – business, science and everyday life.
Description of the process
At first we introduced creative solutions from different fields. We brought examples of people (Sir Ken Robinson, Steve Jobs, Stefan Sagmeister, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso) who have gained recognition due to creative approach in their field. They all have created new situations, objects, designs and emphisised the importance of creativity in their work. Our aim was to make young people realize that creativity helps you to differ from the ordinary and supports finding your own individuality. It is important to find your own talent, to believe in it and to develop it creativly.
During the practical taks, the students received a A4 paper, which was filled in with one of the basic shapes (triangle, square, circle). We were inspired by the creativity test of Panamericana School of Art and Design (http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/05/06/school-of-art-and-design-creativity-test/) and W.Kandinsky’s composition theory. Student were asked to continue the basic shapes drawing as many different objects, symbols etc they could imagine (similary to a part of the Torrance creative thinking test). Finally we asked students to select their favourite image and enlarge it. A video was composed of the selecteed images: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jG48Ir3lUk.
Analysis
The process revealed that a wide variety of images can be drawn from one basic shape. It was interesting to observe which of the shapes started to repeat, for example mushrooms were drawn out of all three shapes, also sunsets, eyes and sandglasses were common. On the other hand there was a lot of thinking outside the box, for example including all the shapes into a greater images. Drawing around 50 images appeared to be quite a difficult task. While the first ten images came quickly, the later required more thinking. We also noticed diffrence between art school students and general students – art school students fulled the sheet quicker. It proves that creativity can be developed. Supportive environment, in this case attending art classes, helps to develop creativity.
References
Child, D. (1997). Psychology and the Teacher. (6. tr ). London and Washington: Cassell.
Cropley, A., Cropley, D. (2008). Resolving the Paradoxes of Creativity: An Extended Phase Model. Cambridge Journal of Education, 38(3), 355-373.
Kaufman, J.C., Plucker, J.A., Baer, J. (2008). Essentials of Creativity Assessment. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Ruokonen, I., Vikat, M. (2005). The Creativity of Gifted Children in Estonia and Finland from a Musical and Environmental Perspective. Trames, 9(59/54), 49–68
Sepp, V. (2010). Andekusest ja andekatest lastest. Tartu: AS Atlex.
Smiths, P., K., Cowie, H., Blades, M. (2008). Laste arengu mõistmine. (4. tr). Tallinn: TLÜ kirjastus.