How to become a superstar student, part 6

What has creativity to do with school? Probably everything.

Michael Geisen simply defines creativity as the ability to come up with something new (new to you or new to the whole world) that has value or use. It can happen anywhere, in any field, at any time. Including in school.

To create something, he says, you have to be willing to change the way you have always done things. At school, one of the easiest ways to do this is to ask the teacher about an alternative assignment, one that gets at the same concept to be learned, but from a different approach. This is not asking for extra credit to replace a poor grade – it is asking the teacher for you to learn the material in a new and different way.

Using a bit of creativity (making a change) in how you study, how you do projects, even how you ask questions will make learning more fun and make the information stick better in your brain. Jump-start a new way of doing things and voila! A new you!

You were born being creative – ask your parents how you explored your new world when you were one and two and three, poking and pointing, asking hundreds of questions. You need to approach learning now in the same childlike wonder, as if it is a game or adventure. You didn’t worry as a toddler about being judged or graded, winning or losing – you just wanted to learn. You were wired to learn. And you still are.

One way to approach new concepts is through brainstorming, an activity with which you are probably familiar. Did you know that research shows that you will learn more when you brainstorm first by yourself and then combine your ideas with others’ ideas later? In brainstorming, you just write down anything and everything that comes into your head, whether or not it is useful or relevant or important. This is called divergent thinking. Its purpose is to create a list of possibilities. You can decide later which one or ones to use.

In step two, called convergent thinking, you evaluate and refine the ideas you have just produced into something you can use.

Another approach creative people take is the willingness to fail. Failure becomes an essential part of the creative process. Where would we be if Thomas Edison gave up on the electric light bulb at Experiment 2,999? It took him at least 3,000 tries to invent a light bulb that would work. Without risk, you will never come up with anything new.

If sitting at a desk stifles your creativity, get up, get out, get moving! If your brain blanks out at seeing a list of random words, try connecting them to unrelated words. (Most creativity is based on making connections between two or more things that do not naturally go together.) Read a book you would never otherwise read, talk to someone new, exercise to ready your mind for better thinking. Creativity keeps you from becoming obsolete! You will be better able to meet new challenges that come your way.