Question- Describe the nature and importance of creativity. How different kinds of educational programs can be organized in school for creative students ?

Answer-

Nature of Creativity

Many attempts were made by many psychologists to clarify the nature of creativity. To explain the nature of creativity, no completely satisfactory and universally accepted theory could be presented so far. Nevertheless, many psychologists presented the principles, characteristics, and nature of creativity in their own perspectives.

Ancient Theory

According to this theory, creativity is considered a God-given gift. According to this, the more a person is worthy of divine power, the more creative he is, only spiritual people support this ideology.

Creativity Equivalent to Insanity Theory :

Under this theory, creativity is actually a symptom of psychosis or mismanagement of the mind. This theory was probably propounded due to the fact that creativity and psychosis are often found together, but both mania and structuralism are not synonyms. The frenzied person keeps fulfilling his personal interest and selfishness by living in his own separate world. Due to his creative efforts, the behavior of a creative person may be somewhat different from similar persons. But it does not mean at all that he is a mentally abnormal or insane person.

Theory of Inborn Creativity: According to this theory, creativity is an innate cognitive ability or mental power as the nature of the individual is acquired at birth. According to the four sections, the ability of creativity is determined by its inheritance. It is not possible to learn or acquire this ability over a period of time. Great people like James Watt, Newton, Einstein, Ramanujan, Vivekanand etc. were born with the inner powers of thinking and thought process to understand the circumstances or to discover new things.

Theory of Environmentally Acquired Creativity: According to this theory, creativity is not merely a divine gift or an innate ability but as acquired and environmental ability like other human abilities. Creativity is developed in a free democratic and encouraging environment. According to this theory environment plays an important role in making a person creative.

Cerebral Hemisphere Theory: According to this theory, creativity is the result of the interaction of both the hemispheres of the human brain. The brain is divided into two cerebral hemispheres i.e. right and left hemisphere. Although both these hemispheres are connected by a bunch of filaments. However, the activity of these two hemispheres is also different in different types of tasks. Research has found that the right hemisphere is more dominant in creative people, while the left hemisphere is more dominant in rational people.

Psycho-analysis Theory: According to this theory, creativity is actually the means and result of emotional refinement. According to Fried, the creativity of creative individuals in the type inner attitude of their repressed desires primarily related to sexual activity. According to Fried, creativity is considered as the transformation of sexual energy into socially desirable and satisfying personality. According to Freudians, the unconscious also plays an important role in creative expression.

According to I. A. Taylor, level theory of creativity is explained in five successive levels which are as follows:
(1) Expressive Creativity
(2) Production Creativity
(3) Inventive Creativity
(4) Innovative Creativity
(5) Emergentive Creativity.

The level up to which a person reaches is called the creative person of the level. The expressive subjective level is the lowest level of creativity and at this level one can freely express one’s thoughts without emphasizing on originality and quality.

Identification of Creative Children

To recognize the creative children from the educational point of view and to give the right direction to their creative expression, it is very important to plan the way for its best development, psychologists studied creativity and tried to find out some of the characteristics to identify this creative child. For Ex. Torrence prepared a list of 84 personality characteristics of the creative person after studying the behaviour of many word soulmates. In the measurement of creativity, these 84 characteristics of creative personality play an important role. Some of its features are as follows:

(1) Accepts Disorder,
(2) Attempt Difficult Job,
(3) Adventurous,
(4) Attracted to Disorder,
(5) Strong Affection,
(6) Awareness of others,
(7) Altruistic,
(8) Determination,
(9) Courageous,
(10) Bashful outwardly,
(11) Energetics,
(12) Dominant.
(13) Emotional,
(14) Intuitive
(15) Industrious,
(16) Introversive,
(17) Discontented,
(18) Makes mistakes,
(19) Negativistic,
(20) Independence in justice,
(21) Independence in thinking,
(22) Full of curiosity,
(23) A Fault Finder.

Education for Creative Students

Creativity is especially important in education. Through education the structural power of the children can be developed through which a person gets success in various spheres of life. The successes in the modern era can be attributed to creativity. Education and infrastructure are closely related to each other. The main function of education is to develop the inherent powers of human beings. There is definitely some creativity in every person. Through education, the creativity of a person can be developed. Education provides such opportunities to the person that the creativity inherent in him can be helpful in solving the problems of life and doing new things. Therefore the importance of creativity will also have to be recognized while determining the objectives of education, curriculum and methods of teaching. For this, how the education system of the children is to be done, it is also an important question. Psychologists have given many suggestions to encourage creativity out of which some of the major suggestions are as follows :

(1) The freedom and tendency to react as well as to adopt new ideas should be developed in the students in the classrooms.

(2) In order to develop structuralism in children, it is necessary that their teachers are also creative in nature. In other words, it can be said that teachers should be able to encourage different types of creative expression in various fields like literature, science, art etc.

(3) Teachers should appreciate the work of the students, develop them the spirit of healthy competition and provide them opportunities for this creative work so that they can develop self-confidence.

(4) Teachers should invite their responses by posing problematic questions to the students. The original suggestions given by the students should be properly evaluated.

(5) The classroom and school environment by teachers should be such that it encourages students' activity as well as their productive thinking, diversity, originality.

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