What is Creativity and How to Encourage Creative Thinking | Montana Mosby | TEDxYouth@IESSanJose
Creative thinking is not an intrinsic ability but a learned skill requiring a willingness to look at the world from a new perspective, exemplified by how examining *Don Quixote* through the lens of the census revealed deep philosophical concepts, and how language reveals un-translatable concepts like the Spanish *esquina* versus the English "corner."
## Theses & Positions
- Creativity is the ability to look at life from a new perspective, which involves imagining new results, challenging norms, and asking questions simply for the opportunity to see something as more than what it appears.
- Creative thinking is not limited to artists or writers; it is applicable to sciences, mathematics, and efforts to enact social or environmental change.
- Creative thought is fostered not by telling, but by creating situations where students are forced to think for themselves and see subjects as more than just words or memorized facts.
- Creativity is the foundation for language, literature, philosophy, and life itself.
## Concepts & Definitions
- **Creativity:** The use of imagination or original thought to create something.
- **Thinking Creatively:** Entails looking at life from a new perspective, imagining new results, challenging norms, and asking questions for the opportunity to see something as more than what it is.
- **Tangibility verifies existence:** A philosophical revelation connecting the physical existence of things to their concepts.
## Mechanisms & Processes
- **Invoking Creative Thinking (Education):** Creating situations that force students to think for themselves, moving beyond mere memorization of facts or words on a page.
- **Cross-Disciplinary Analysis:** Linking literature to external fields, such as viewing *Don Quixote* in relation to the census to understand the concept that *tangibility verifies existence*.
- **Linguistic Deep Dive:** Discovering concepts that cannot be adequately described by the vocabulary of another language, suggesting conceptual existence independent of existing words.
## Named Entities
- **Miguel de Cervantes:** Author whose work, *Don Quixote*, was noted for its innovative writing techniques and for forcing readers to question the line between reality and fiction.
- **Don Quixote:** The literary work used to illustrate the challenging of established boundaries between reality and fiction.
- **Odin and Athena:** Used as examples to illustrate noticing intricate world details when one possesses the requisite vocabulary.
## Numbers & Data
- No specific quantitative data points were presented.
## Examples & Cases
- **Darwin:** Challenged accepted beliefs despite being told multiple times he was wrong; his persistent questioning led to an entirely new field of science and history.
- **The *Don Quixote* analysis:** A class assignment forced the speaker to investigate *Don Quixote* relative to the census, leading to the realization that *donkey what they were talking about they tangibility verifies existence*.
- **Spanish/English Word Pairs:** Demonstrating conceptual differences across languages:
- English concept: "corner" (seen as an entire entity).
- Spanish concept: *esquina* (distinguishing between the inside and outside of a corner).
- Comparative example: The South American spider *wrinkled Netanya esquina dunya*, which does not evoke the same meaning as the English "corner."
- **Language Barrier Concepts:** Citing concepts that may exist only within a speaker's native language due to a lack of vocabulary.
## Tools, Tech & Products
- None explicitly mentioned; the focus is on cognitive tools (imagination, questioning).
## References Cited
- **Darwin:** Charles Darwin, cited for his role in advancing science through questioning.
- **Miguel de Cervantes:** The author whose work (*Don Quixote*) was discussed.
## Trade-offs & Alternatives
- **Learning Mode:** Memorizing vocabulary and grammar versus developing the ability to question and connect concepts across disciplines.
- **Conceptual Limitations:** The limitation of language itself—the idea that concepts may exist but remain undescribable due to vocabulary barriers.
## Methodology
- **Academic Inquiry:** The process of connecting a literary text (*Don Quixote*) to a real-world system (the census) to derive a philosophy.
- **Linguistics Class Project:** An experimental project on second language acquisition conducted with no guidelines or directions, forcing the speaker to develop personal research methods.
## Conclusions & Recommendations
- To foster creative thinking, one must continue to ask questions and encourage new ideas and perspectives.
- Educators should focus on *how* to think, rather than *what* to think, by designing challenging situations for students.
- The ability to explore linguistic nuances is crucial because language dictates what concepts can be articulated.
## Implications & Consequences
- Creativity is the fundamental basis that allows for the development of language, literature, science, and human progress.
- Without the freedom to question established norms, both scientific and cultural progress stalls.
## Verbatim Moments
- *"reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge it is thinking that makes what we read."*
- *"creativity is the use of imagination or original thought to create something anything."*
- *"being creative is not limited to only artists or writers."*
- *"the opportunity shouldn't be given right."*
- *"don't you what they had to touch things before he realized that they were not what they were in front of him so to me I realized that donkey what they were talking about they tangibility verifies existence."*
- *"I was told to do an experiment regarding second language acquisition that's all we got no guidelines no directions"*
- *"you have wooden guns and the schema and in English we have only corner for example in South America there's a spider called the wrinkled Netanya esquina dunya can't exist and corner spider doesn't really evoke the same meaning right"*
- *"creativity is the basis for language and literature and life and to continue moving forward we need to continue asking questions and continue encouraging creative thought"*