Children learn to think, as well as do
This site is dedicated to the collection, development, and research of Creative Thinking and creativity resources. Contrary to popular belief the ability to think creatively is not a divine talent, nor is it one that you either ‘have’ or ‘don’t have’. Creative Thinking – like Critical Thinking – is simply a thinking style. And, like all thinking styles, creativity needs to be developed, is associated skills and tools, and requires technical ability in some domain.
As such, this site is dedicated to thinking mechanisms, strategies, and techniques rather than instruction dedicated to technical expertise in a given domain. In other words – this site is about how to come up with an idea you might want to, say, paint, rather than how to do the actual painting. That said, where we can we will recommend experts you can consult in whatever domain you are after, in order to learn those also very necessary skills.
You see – thinking skill and technical skill go hand in hand. To be truly gifted, you need both. If you
Think about it this way: There are three components to every problem.
- First, is the ability to identify the problem. This includes skills such as critical analysis and problem articulation which are recognized as key abilities to have in any Design Strategy.
- Second, is the ability to innovate the goal. Any critic can identify a problem. Knowing what direction the solution lies in, however, requires a certain type of brilliance.
- And third, manifesting the solution requires a technical knowledge that is critical to high performance. You see, anyone might be able to glue two pieces of paper together, but it takes an artist to do it without any of the glue showing!
Most creative sites will teach you the technical skill by presenting a specific problem – solution pair and then showing you how to solve it. For example, the site might have you learn how to use your glue gun and some paints expertly by creating a little fairy garden out of recycled materials. They then take you through the step by step process of how to do this. While it is true that doing enough of these will begin to teach you how to use specific materials in unique ways, the learning is not targeted towards creative thought. Rather it is targeted towards creation skill. So, you have to work hard, not smart, to eventually become truly creative.
In contrast, this site will focus on the first components of the problem: how to identify problems, and how to innovate a solution to those problems. For more information on these skills check out the syllabus of our courses in the course section. And while you are in that section be sure to also check out the free materials and creativity aids that we provide. Also, like and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up to date with content and training videos based on the our techniques.
Happy Creativity!