14 year Ahmed built a clock that was suspected of being a
bomb and was promptly arrested and suspended from school. This same clock
issued him with an invite to the White House, whilst simultaneously Facebook
asked him to get in touch. President Obama tweeted “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to
bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like
science. It’s what makes America great.”
#StandWithAhmed was trending. This was an indication that
his unfair arrest happened due to his religion.
Are there barriers to our creativity, or is it an open
playing field. If there are restrictions, are you then not limiting the
creativity that you are trying to enrich? At what point do you say that ‘this
is right and this is wrong?’
Albert Einstein once said “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”
There is a myth
that people are either ‘left brained or right brained’, with creative people
being right brained. Certainly the different sides of your brain emphasis different
things, but overall,neuroscientists have found that the two sides of the
brain collaborate to perform a broad variety of tasks and that the two
hemispheres communicate through the corpus callosum. Everyone therefore is
creative, and has the ability to explore that creativity.
Nick Skillicorn is a graduate from Durham University and he
helps companies and individuals improve their creativity. Last year he was
voted #7 in the world
for his innovation blog and he has spoken on ‘Ted X’. He affirms that everyone
is creative and that all parts of your brain are used. However, generating an
idea is not enough, the idea needs to be executed. He speaks out that children
in primary school believe they are creative, but as they ascend into high
school this creativity decreases due to a standardization. We are taught to
give the right answer. We are taught to do something ‘properly’ and are awarded
with good grades. When we fail to do it, correctly,
we are punished with a fail. This allows the creative side of our brains to become
stagnant and lazy.
He asks the question if “art is the solution to creativity?”
His answer is no. Although it is important, it is not the solution. He draws on
an example of a composer and a violinist. Is the violinist creative? Or are
they merely performing someone else’s work?
Everybody has the ability to think of an idea. At an initial
attempt, this idea is draw from memories, but as we push ourselves beyond what
we think we are capable, we emerge in new territory and our ideas have the
potential to be meaningful and valuable.
So why does society not allow creativity? Why has society
categorized who has the authority and the means to be creative and who doesn’t?
Skillicorn describes that when we contain our impulse
actions, this is the work of the dorsolateral pre frontal cortex. This is also
part of the brain that prevents our ideas from extending their original form.
If we learn to control this, we have the capability to ‘become’ more
creative.
Joseph Campbell expresses that “To live a creative life, we must lose the fear of being wrong." I
think this piece of advice needs to be taken on board at every point of our
lives and we mustn’t allow ourselves to block out our creativity. Naturally, we
need to learn the work at school and put that in practice in order to progress
to the next educational level, but we should focus on creative exercises such
as improvisations, creative challenges or merely opening ourselves up to accumulate
more knowledge.
Should 14 year old
Ahmed have been arrested as a precaution because his teacher felt threatened,
or do you think there was more to it? Did the White House and Facebook do the
correct thing by supporting him?
Ahmed’s advice to others was, “Go for it,” he said. “Don’t
let people change who you are.”
We should all listen to Ahmed and delve into our creative
side.
