Creative Assessment

Creativity is an ability that everyone is born with.   In proof, a child left alone will entertain himself with play. As a physical educator I have seen this form of creativity come from a variety of sources. According to Matthew Fox (2002),“ In  play, our imaginations not only get refreshed, they also get set up to connect with new and untried possibilities. Play is the mother of surprise.  Surprise is a sure sign of the Spirit at play”.  All children play, and they play in all kinds of ways.  From infancy we see delight in a peek-a-boo game to more sophisticated games that include made up rules.  I believe that if adults came back to their roots of “play”, that the spirit of creativity would be fostered in one’s own soul and then become emergent through their work.  The word recreation has a form of re-create in it.  Play is an opportunity to recreate oneself.

From the articles that we read, it was easy to correlate play with the potential of unlocking the creativity in each person and how this can contribute to the innovation of an organization.  Solitary play is when a child engages in an activity alone.  He or she becomes totally absorbed in the activity and is not reliant upon the actions or words of anyone else.  It is a form of self-exploration and learning.  A lot of the activity involved here is a result of trial and error, but through this type of play children learn through their actions.  A child learns to scoot, crawl, walk, skip, run, jump, and dance as creative expressions of the movement action through play.  As a child develops, their action, or creativity become more sophisticated and then more deliberate.  The important thing to recognize here is that the deliberate movement was born from the creative thought. Through play, children learn the skills necessary to effectively participate in their world.  Play provides children with natural opportunities to engage in concrete and meaningful activities that enhance physical, language, social and cognitive development (CPIS, 2004).  During play, children increase their knowledge and understand of self and others. 

Play nutures creativity, and play can take on many forms as a person grows older.  A key element to promote the growth and development of creativity is to provide an environment that stimulates the opportunity to create.  Whether it is building a sand castle or creating a new invention or process, it is important to have the time and place to play.  Once “play” becomes a social collaboration the possibility for creativity is multiplied.  “I have always found creativity to be all about juxtaposing concepts and ideas from different fields and places, making unexpected connections” (Play, 2010). Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, believed that creativity comes from play and fantasy.  When a person plays with his or her tools, inspiration, intuition, forms, colors, and the mind, play will take us to realms that are preconscious and pre-judgmental (2004). Fantasy occupies a big role in much if not most of what adults do and is a major element in our intuitive sense of the degree to which adult activities are play (Grey, 2008). An architect designing a house is designing a real house. Yet, the architect brings a good deal of imagination to bear in visualizing the house, imagining how people might use it, and matching it with some aesthetic concepts that she or he  has in mind. The house is really a pretend house in the architects mind before it ever becomes a real one.

William Klemm, in the article Leadership: Creativity and Innovation, states that leaders know in their gut that creativity and innovation are the lifeblood of their organization. I believe that leaders know in their gut that creativity and innovation come from the interaction of others in the organization through private thought or collaboration in play situations.  The play situation might look like private time during the work day, or the joining of forces to solve a puzzle or problem. 

Play provides a state of mind that, in adults as well as children, is uniquely suited for high-level reasoning, insightful problem solving, and all sorts of creative endeavors (Grey, 2008). Play is activity conducted for its own sake.  The playful student enjoys studying the subject and cares less about the test. In play, attention is focused on the means, not the ends, and players do not necessarily look for the easiest routes to achieving the ends.  One reason why play is such an ideal state of mind for creativity and learning is because the mind is focused on means.  It is the journey that is fun, rewarding, and important.  There is no fear of failure because players are not confined; they are free to incorporate new sources of information and to experiment with new ways of doing things (Grey, 2008).  The player’s attention is focused on the process more than the outcome.  The mind at play is active and alert and free from stress.  “Attention is attuned to the activity itself, and there is reduced consciousness of self and time (Grey, 2008).  Jung shares that the creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity (Grey, 2008).

Strong pressure to perform a certain way inhibits creativity.  It narrows the goal, thereby reducing the ability to focus on means.  In a pressured state, one tends to fall back on the well-learned ways of doing things.

 Lee Vygotsky said in his essay “The Role of Play in Development”, “When we pressure students to do well on their schoolwork by constantly evaluating their work, we put them into a non-playful, goal-directed state that may motivate those who already know how to do it to perform well, but inhibits experimentation and learning in those who don’t already know how” (Grey, 2008).

My Creativity Test score was a 119, which rates me somewhere above average.  In a scientifically cautious statement, (Maslow,1977) similarly noted "the concept of creativeness and the concept of the healthy, self-actualizing, fully human person seem to be coming closer and closer together, and may turn out to be the same thing."  Most people believe that creativeness is a component of self-actualization.  (Yonge 1975), reviewed research showing positive correlations between intelligence and creativity as they relate to self-actualization scores. 

Many believe that certain people posses special talents and personality traits that enhance creativity, but you do not have to possess exceptional artistic, literary, scientific, or entrepreneurial talent to consider yourself a creative person and live a creative life (Davis n.d.).

Creativity is a lifestyle – a way of living and perceiving (Davis, n.d.).  I found several areas in the creativity test to be ambiguous. The questions regarding, I have engaged in a lot of creative activities and most of my friends are unconventional, can’t really be definitive by any type of definition.  What makes a friend unconventional?  How do I know if I have engaged in a lot of creative activities?  By whose definition am I determining my participation of creativeness on a scale of one to five?  These types of tests put a particular mindset to the term creative. These tests “box” us into stereotypical definitions of the term creative. A Mesoamerican poet wrote, “We are creators at our very core.  Only creating can make us happy, for in creating we tap into the deepest powers of self and universe and the Divine self” (Fox, 2002 ).

According to Michael Fox, “It is not the essence of the human to be passive.  We are players.  We are curious. We are yearning to wonder.  We are longing to be amazed. We are eager to grow, to learn, to be excited to be enthusiastic, to be expressive.  In short, to be alive” (Fox

The Sufi mystic Hafiz once wrote, “All the talents of God are within you.  How could this be otherwise, when your soul derived from His genes” (Fox, 2002).  We came from the Creator and we were made in his image.  I believe that everyone has the creative spirit within them.  Creativity knows no age limits.  It can come from a natural expression of self, or stem from careful planning and experimentation.  Creativity can be alone or with others, but it can be increased to grow, because it exists in all of us.

According to Abraham Maslow, “Self Actualization” is the intrinsic growth, of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is” (Maslow, 1977 ).  I have always defined it as becoming the most you can be – living up to your potential.  Reaching self-actualization is a constant journey.  Events and environments can shake different areas of your life, and I believe that we are in constant flux with self-actualization. I think that the more self-actualized you believe that you are, the happier of an individual you will be.  I scored ninety-two on the Maslow test, which rates me highly self-actualized.

Maslow has fifteen characteristics of self-actualized people; the first characteristic being realistic.  Personally, I would not rate myself high in this category.  I consider myself optimistic, which generally overrides any faction of realism in my life. I often find myself in conflict with things the way they are and the way I hope or believe they can be.  This category is conflictive with the fantasy factor in creativity.  I tend to strive for a life that can be and not settle for the realism of what it currently is.  I find myself scoring high in acceptance, humor, spontaneity, and continued freshness of appreciation. I am ethical and moral, and I rate myself high in the areas of creativity, originality, and invention.  My age in life allows me to have a great deal of experiences to hold to on my journey for self-actualization.  I feel very connected to others and I am deeply committed to friends.  I believe that I am living my mission in life, and that I am actually enhancing it further with my doctoral quest.

I do recognize that I have areas of improvement as well.  I have constantly sought praise and I do not feel that I have a great degree of patience.  I feel that I need to work on handling the stresses of life better, but this has fluctuated with the different experiences I have encountered in life.  I am a bit too egotistical for my own good and lately I have not felt real comfortable with being self-sufficient and autonomous.  These are growth areas on my continued journey to realizing my own self and all that I can become. 

My areas of most peace and pleasure are in my “peak experiences” – moments of intense enjoyment.  My faith enables me to look at life in awe and wonderment.  I am truly convicted that something extremely important and valuable happens to us with each experience and that there is a message and meaning for our betterment in all of them.  From this hope I construct my existence.  I do feel that I have something to contribute and by doing so I am becoming more self-actualized.  There is a limitless horizon opening up to me, and I want to take the  path towards it.  Perhaps because I am by myself now, I can concentrate on my own “flow” and creatively pursue any avenue that lies before me.  I can “PLAY” any game that I want to in life now.

As a leader, I want to provide opportunities for others to have “peak experiences”. I want to provide others around me  with an environment where they can be creative.  People need the space and time to just be still from the daily rigors of life to re-CREATE themselves.

British scientist Peter Russell states “What most affects our development is no longer our genes, but our ideas.  With ideas and creativity to put them into action, we can turn space into a home away from home; we can turn places of 120-degree heat into dwelling places through air-conditioning.  We can live under the sea for months at a time.

I can do this on creative avenues of constructive thinking in the classroom to stimulate both critical and creative intellectual processes.  I want my students to think outside the box, inside someone else’s box, look for other boxes, and live in a no limits virtual transparent box.  3M is reported to encourage their research people to spend up to 15% of their time on exploratory projects, thinking out-of-the- box, while still accomplishing the 100% of their work they have contracted to complete within the other 85% of the time (Black, 1990).  Miles Davis is quoted as saying, “I’m always thinking about creating.  My future starts when I wake up every morning.  Every day I find something creative to do with my life.” As a visionary leader, I want to teach others the benefits of virtual box thinking, while I learn the benefits I have never considered that lie within the boxes where I already am. Let’s play!

Black, R. Out-of-Box, In-the-Box, New-Box, Other-box, No-Box Thinking. Retrieved on October 31, 2010 from: http://www.creativityforlife.com/full_article.php?article_id=37

Children’s Play Information Service. (2004). Retrieved on October 28, 2010 from www.ncb.org.uk/library/cpis

Fox, M. (2002). Creativity: where the divine and the human meet. Retrieved on October 28, 2010 from: http://books.google.com/books?id=L7zpIztJLgEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=creativity&source=bll&ots=IdSAyiSH4f&sig=EinvbzBVd5B-BOZOBwqAWXYgnwg&hl=en&ei=0PDOTOSMD4X6lweTo5CtBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=20&ved=0CIoBEOgBMBM#v=onepage&q&f=false

Gray, P. (19, November 2008). The Value of Play. Psychology Today   Retrieved on October 30, 2010 from: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200811/the-value-play-i-the-definition-play-provides-clues-its-purposes?page=2

Klemm, W. R. (2001). Leadership: Creativity and innovation. In R. I. Lester & A. G. Morton (Eds.), Concepts for Air Force leadership (pp. 449-461). Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press. Retrieved from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/au-24/cover.htm

Play- What is Play? The Importance of Play, Elements of Children’s Play, Social Elements of Play. Retrieved on October 28, 2010 from http://social.jrank.org.pages/492/Play.html#1xzz13zjDzRz

Retrieved from http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/07/12/games-and-the-creativity-crisis/

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