CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT

CHILDHOOD ENVIRONMENT CONGENIAL TO CREATIVITY: 1) Childhood Home Environment: Rigidity, conventionality and authoritarianism depresses creativity. Parents who encourage hobbies, interests, careers and do not over emphasize on academics tend to stimulate their childrens creativity. Respect for children, low sentimentality, the mother having her own career are also influential in improving the creativity of children.

2) School environment: Following factors found to influence creativity in the school environment. Open environment Active use of creative skills Result of previous knowledge

Disciplined use of creative skills

An association with artists Opportunities for children to interact with creative people. Positive involvement of learner

Ego building behavior Encouragement to curiosity and experimentation Opportunities for social interaction Open ended activities, not tied to marks

The following factors were found to foster creativity in teaching.

Availability of superior teachers for observation by other teachers.

Small class Flexible daily schedule Freedom from conformity Help in preparing teaching aids Ample instructional space Careful planning of lessons Principals skill in releasing the creative potential of teachers Empathy and rapport Departure from routine Adoption of creativity as a basic philosophy of the school

The factors that inhibit creativity are Teachers fear of authority Discouragement for experimentation Restrictive administrative policies.

ADULT ENVIRONMENT CONGENIAL TO CREATIVITY

SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT:Certain periods in history have a disproportionate number of geniuses. Ex: Classical Greece, Ming dynasty in China, Gupta period in India, Italy during the Renaissance.

It has been found that three socio psychological processes are likely to be central to the production of creative geniuses.
The potential genius must have access to numerous role models very early in life.

They are i)

ii) Exposure to cultural diversity nourishes the preconscious youth.

iii) In periods preceding political revolutions or during independence struggles, increase in probability of mind leading to innovativeness is observed.

The following factors were observed while examining the social influences that shaped the outstanding renaissance geniuses, Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci.

- Members of the families, associates and master art teachers recognized early the creative talent of both boys.
- The values of the elite in society seemed to nurture creativity - The patrons of arts, mostly merchant princes were relatively liberal

- Personal contact with eminent minds in various fields was an important broadening factor.
- Both had access to art workshops where they could study, get instruction and practice their skills in a city with great art centre.

ADULT LEARNING ENVIRONMENT:- The creative learning environment at college is the one where the students are treated as individuals and were encouraged to be independent. - The teacher is dynamic, interesting and served as a model, the teacher interacted with students outside the class. - The teacher indicated that excellence was expected, the students creative work was rewarded etc. - The creativity inhibiting environment was where ideas and creativity were discouraged,

Where the instructor was hypercritical, dogmatic, rigid, lacked enthusiasm, has not kept

up in the field, has narrow interests, not available outside the class for interaction. WORK ENVIRONMENT:- The following factors found to influence creativity. - Unsupportive leaders and colleagues, rigid adherence to rules, no reward for creativity, risk avoidance and defensiveness at work, resource shortage for trying innovations, too much centralization and too much emphasis on hierarchy.

Encouragement to creativity and training in creativity at work can increase in the work situation.

FACETS OF ENVIRONMENT THAT STIMULATE CREATIVITY (TRAITS OF CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT):1) STIMULATION:A stimulating environment arouses creativity, monotonous task dampens creativity. It is also necessary to have somebody to stimulate.

2) NURTURANCE:-

An environment that encourages and rewards creativity, innovation and experimentation.

Competition or rewards increases fluency and flexibility. Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity but extrinsic motivation is detrimental.

When people are primarily motivated to do some creative activity by their own

- Interest in, and enjoyment of that activity, they may be more creative than they are when primarily motivated by some goal imposed on them by others. 3) RELAXATION:- A relaxing environment that does not induce defensiveness and fearfulness by premature criticism or evaluation encourages creativity. - A tension inducing environment in which any new idea is quickly dismissed as half baked, stupid, impractical or wrong discourages creativity. - Moderate anxiety helps creativity. - Thus creativity tends to be greater when people involved in a task are relaxed but alert, and not feeling defensive.

4) CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK:- If the person receiving feedback has a high need for autonomy, then the members get benefit from a feedback that encourages members of each group to look at the creative work of each other without evaluating it. - On the other hand, groups in which members had a high need to be given directions tended to benefit most when the feedback was evaluative i.e. when the members of the group were asked to evaluate each others products in the light of examples of good performance that were provided to the group. 5) LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES:-

- Environment that provides opportunities for rigorous technical training at the hands of

creative tutors stimulates creativity - Where the training is sloppy or tutors were mediocre dampens creativity. 6) DIVERSITY OF VIEW POINTS:- Environment rich in diversity of views and intellectual ferment encourages creativity - One which emphasizes uniformity and conformity dampens creativity.

7) FREEDOM WITH ACCOUNTABILITY FOR EXELLENCE:- An environment which provides freedom of thought and action but equally demands responsibility, accountability and effective performance encourages creativity. - Freedom without responsibility and an authoritarian environment are equally destructive of creativity. - Self discovery method of learning produces a greater variety of responses and greater creativity than the authoritarian methods. 8) CREATORS AS ROLE MODELS:- An environment in which pioneers, innovators, creators and transformers of the status quo such as reformers and change agents are looked up to as models stimulates creativity. - One which extols duty bound conformists may nurture morality but it discourages creativity.

9) FACILITIES FOR EXPERIMENTATION:An environment that provides reasonable physical or social facilities for experimentation practice, trying out innovative ideas etc encourages creativity. Too great a physical deprivation and too little also inhibits creativity.

10) NORMS FOR PARENT OR BOSS FIGURES:- An environment in which admired or loved high status individuals (parents, teachers, bosses, social leaders etc) hold norms favoring creativity and communicate expectations of a creative effort, stimulates creativity. An environment in which admired high status persons either hold anti-innovation norms or are indifferent to creativity or fail to communicate their expectation of creative effort to the individual, or communicate the expectation of a conformist response, discourages creativity.

HARNESSING A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT FOR CREATIVITY:The following techniques may be used to make a hostile environment more congenial to creativity. 1) COALITION:Support from people receptive to creative new ideas at home can be helpful to the children.

2) MAKING ONES SELF ATTRACTIVE TO OTHERS:- Being helpful to others, especially those with power or influence increases credibility. 3) SELLING OF CREATIVE IDEAS:- Ideas are usually accepted or rejected by others on the basis of whether they are likely to help or hinder them in meeting their personal goals. - If an idea can be shown to help another feel more secure, or help a person get ahead or get him prominence or give him a thrill, it is more likely to be accepted than a recitation of its technical or moral advantages. 4) CHOICES:-Environment alters with every choice one makes concerning friends, spouse, job, hobbies and residence. Social environment: Conformist friends vs creative friends. Occupation/Organization environment: Aggressive but under managed, rapidly growing vs professionally managed, over manned, monopolisitc.

Spouse: Creativity vs splendor for jewellary

Children: Type of school, friends and their parents