On Nurturing (and Killing) Creativity
In another of my favorite TEDTalks, Sir Ken Robinson – an expert on education, creativity, and vocation (he calls it discovering your element) – identifies creativity as perhaps the most important quality for us to develop if we are to solve the problems of our generation. Yet he is concerned that most of our schools are not set up to nurture creativity at all and, in fact, often hamper its development. While he talks about education, however, don’t be deceived, this Talk is for all of us, as we think about how to cultivate creativity in all of our roles and tasks. This particular TEDTalk has been seen by more than 10,000,000 people, and for good reason. I regularly show it in class and am glad to share it with those who haven’t seen it yet. Enjoy.
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Great video and appreciate the challenge you pose to all of us regarding our individual creativity in roles and tasks, David. Questions I am posing to myself – what are implications and applications to all areas of education in congregational setting. Obvious first question would be about Sun. School and confirmation curriculum and teaching styles. But beyond that what about all our forms of Adult Ed too – bible study, small groups, Sunday Adult Forum hour. This pushes me also on the practice of encouraging congregation participation in sermons – as you often suggest in Dear Working Preacher.
I forwarded this to Sun Sch Superintendent and Adult Ed Chair. It’s a start.
Thanks!!
This is fantastic! As we experience changes in the church, I think it’s crucial that we, too, cultivate creativity in how we worship and how we “do church.” Because like other things in the world, we don’t know what the church will look like in the next 5, 10, 15, or 20 years. Fear of failure or just not knowing exactly what to do seems to paralyze us from experimenting and trying new things. However, if we cultivate our God-given and Holy Spirit-led creativity and take chances like the boy in the Nativity play, we could discover/uncover entirely new and wonderful possibilities. Thanks for the post, David!