"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.
While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility." -- Lee DeForest, inventor.
When People Lack Creative Vision…
We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.
Main Ideas
Main Ideas
Creativity is in large part a decision—to “defy the crowd.”
DESIGN (a new system of government for the classroom, a scientific investigation, a comfortable home
INVENT (a new means of transportation, a new life form)
Teaching for Creative Thinking
IMAGINE (what life would be like in another country, what it would be like to be president of a country, how bees communicate with each other)
SUPPOSE (worldwide temperatures keep increasing, people were paid to inform on neighbors who do not support the political party in power)
Assessing for Creative Thinking
Draw the Earth from an insect’s point of view
How could you tell if there space aliens hiding among us ?
Less Creative Response
Test their knowledge of countries on the Earth to see if they know what the names of the major countries are
More Creative Response
Test their knowledge of television shows and movies that Earth children would have been likely to see when they were children
What would the world be like today if some major event in history had come out differently?
Creative Essay: “What if…”
If the Trojans had heeded Laocoon’s advice and thrown Odysseus’ wooden horse into the sea, they would have defeated the Greeks at Troy. Aeneas would then never have had reason to flee the city, and he would never have ventured to Italy to found Rome. Without Rome, neither the Roman Republic nor a Roman Empire would have existed. Concrete, the arch, plumbing, and the sauna might never have been invented. The modern implications of Rome never having existed are indeed drastic. Lacking even concrete floors, people would resort to sleeping in the mud, and, without plumbing or saunas, they would be perpetually filthy and, generally, quite chilly. France could not have built the base of the Eiffel Tower without arches, so tourists would be unable to purchase miniature collectible Towers in Parisian convenience stores.
Good but Less Creative Essay: “What if…”
What if the ratification of the nineteenth amendment did not pass and women were never given the right to vote? What would life for women, like me, be like in the United States? For one thing, I probably would not be writing this essay. If women were not given their right to vote, I probably would stop going to school after this year and it would be unlikely that I would receive a college education. Without suffrage, my career options would be limited, if a career were a possibility at all. My accepted practices would be limited to staying home and taking care of the family. Rather than being equals, women would be subservient to men. I might not drive, I might not dress in the way in which I choose to, and I might not be able to live my life the way that I can in the twenty-first century.
The Rainbow Project
Measuring creativity (and practical thinking) via paper-and-pencil or computer can
Double prediction of first-year undergraduate grades