Serendipity and Learning

Does creativity need to be taught? And if so, what are we teaching? How does one teach creativity? My own belief is that creativity does not need to be taught. Neither can it be taught. Because it is not like physics or music that it can be taught in the manner of a process. But creativity is all about opening minds - and if that is the definition, one can take people/students through the process of openings one minds so that one is more open to ideas, receptive and so on. The second part is that creativity is often an attitude. A person who is creative is just as creative in life as well. Creativity requires one to be open minded, open to new learnings, experiences and therefore, it is but natural that it will flow into ones lives as well. ( Note: Logical, but does not always work - so that is a caveat .) So, what can we teach? We can teach people possibility. We can teach people to observe. We can teach people to pause. We can teach people to question. We can teach people...

A lot of times when we discuss about inculcating creativity into peoples lives, one of the most obvious ways people come up with is 'art'. So, in general, a typical session on 'creativity' is about painting (mostly), theatre (sometimes) or some other art (rarely). There are two issues with this approach. One is that someone who is a theatre artist or a painter or a follower of some art  - also knows this craft very well - that means that she pursues this art over many years and masters it. This does not imply that they are 'creative' though this is the cliched approach to creativity. Second, just because a nuclear scientist paints one (or ten) picture (s), will not lead her to discover a new atomic particle. So, if someone attends a session on creativity - and paints a bit and dances a bit, it will do zilch to their creative life at work or otherwise. Sure, it will open their minds - but like in any learning experience, unless it is followed up with, ma...