SELECT * from blog WHERE id = 94Creativity BASE Education - Best Coaching for IIT-JEE Main & Advanced, NEET UG, KCET, Foundation
Alerts :

Share:

Created On : 2018-11-29 05:50:52

Created On : 2018-11-29 05:50:52

Creativity

Most of us have heard the story of an intelligent crow that put pebbles into a jar of water, till it could reach water to quench its thirst. The normal thing the crow could have done was to fly all over, till it got water. Instead when its beak could not reach water, it found a way for the water to reach its beak. This is a beautiful example of creativity.

Creativity is all about finding unconventional solutions. Such solutions require imagination and out of box thinking. It involves seeing connections between apparently unconnected things, seeing hidden patterns and evolving solutions. Creativity doesn’t end with imagination. It involves actions. Therefore it is creative people who can think differently and produce new ideas or products.

Often creativity is considered an attribute of right brain function, meaning, it is required for imagination, art, music, intuition, feelings, visualisation and so on. The left brain is responsible for logical thinking, analytical capabilities, mathematics, computation and so on. It is obvious from the small list given, that participation of both hemispheres of the brain can lead to best creative ideas and products.

The best examples for the most creative designs in nature range from a human body to a bird’s nest to a crawling worm. Also nature’s designs are the most efficient designs. Thus, instead of simply looking at some solution for the things around us, it is good to think of creative solutions.

Every child is born creative. It is only because of environmental factors that few children evolve more creative than others. Creativity in children is generally spontaneous, like that of the boy in the following story. Once a huge truck got stuck while passing an underbridge on a highway. It created a huge traffic jam. The police, the fire brigade and the engineers arrived to find a solution. One of them suggested to chip the mortar, the other suggested to unload some material the truck was carrying. A young boy who was walking back home from school saw the commotion and asked the policemen what the problem was. One of the policemen explained the situation and said “Don’t worry, experts are working on a solution.” The boy chuckled and said,”Why take such a long time for such a small problem? All you need to do is to deflate the tires of the truck.” The engineers who overheard this conversation were too delighted to implement this simple and spontaneous solution.

As students, you are in the intense learning phase of your life. It is for this reason that you should acquire a high degree of creativity. Few steps to nurture your creativity are as follows.

Break away from routine – Think and act differently, question the rules with “why this way and why not the other way”. This leads to inventions.

Add value to existing things – Candles were used as light sources. Thomas Alva Edison discovered light bulb which was far superior to candles in many ways. He failed 1000 times, but did not give up. Creative people should accept failures as a part of learning.

Chase your curiosity – If you have found something interesting, that excites you but not pursued, start working on it immediately. Set small creative tasks each day and complete it. This will energise you to take up bigger creative tasks.

Spend time with nature – Get away from the monotony and get into a state of peace. Your imagination works better as nature brings calmness in you.

Acquire good reading habit – This gives you new ideas along with your own. It helps in creating new solutions.

Here is an interesting story behind today’s galloping technology world built around communication systems and computers. The story centers around a material called silicon discovered in 1824 by Jons Jacob Berzelius, a Swedish chemist. This material was initially considered useless since it was neither good as a conductor nor as an insulator. The material was named semiconductor. It required a creative mind to convert this apparently useless material to one of the most sought after material today. The material was first used to make a device called a semiconducting diode. In 1947 Shockley, Brattain and Bardeen fabricated a semiconducting device called the transistor. This further led to microelectronic devices and electronic chips. Today’s unimaginable big industry of a global trade amounting to $335 billion is the product of a creative mind which converted an apparently useless material into the most sought after material.

The above is a great example to highlight the need for being creative.

​​

If we do not function creatively, we may lose a lot of opportunity in life. The following is an example of colossal failure, causing the delay of the industrial revolution in Europe.

Marco Polo, a merchant from Venice traveled extensively across Asia for about 24 years. He shared his experiences in his book. The book attracted the imagination of elite of Europe. Apart from his experiences, he also had added a lot of imaginative fiction stuff such as dragons, unicorns, and birds so huge that it could lift elephants.

One great fact he wrote was that the Mongols used rocks dug from the ground to produce fire. He also added that these rocks worked better than the dried wood. Europeans never thought that this was true. If they had thought creatively and asked “Why only wood for burning and why not rocks under the ground” then they would have figured that it is coal that he was talking about. By failing to be creative, they started the coal mining industry by about 600 years later.

One of the takeaways is to start asking questions like “Why this way and why not the other way?”. List few more takeaways.

Write about your learning and feedback to pramod@base-edu.in

BASE ENTRANCE & SCHOLARSHIP TEST (IIT | NEET | CET | FSNT) UPTO 100% SCHOLARSHIP