There’s a class at UIUC which teaches ‘creativity’

My favorite holiday is definitely Christmas. Ask any of my friends on campus and they’ll tell you I was probably too hyped for Christmas this year. Like, so hyped that I put a full-sized Christmas tree in my dorm room with lights and everything.

The problem with Christmas is I hate wasting money.  I have no problem with buying nice presents for people I care about, but wasting money is a big no-no for me. And there’s not a single bigger waste of money than those fucking Christmas cards you buy in the Walgreens Hallmark aisle.

These stupid things have basically been required purchases in my family for my whole life, but I never really had a problem with them until I got older and actually had to buy them myself. That’s probably cause I never realized how expensive they are; at $5 to $10 a pop, this year I racked up a hundred dollars in charges on just these stupid cards.

By far the worst place on Green Street.

Eventually I said I wouldn’t let Hallmark screw me over anymore and tried the impossible. I attempted to make my own Christmas cards. But I hit an obstacle pretty much straight away: I suck at being creative. I couldn’t think of what I should draw on the front. What funny joke with Santa or Rudolph or what stupid pun should I make? After trying and trying, I jumped back in my car and begrudgingly drove back to Walgreens.

My attempt to fight the corporations failed, but it made me think about creativity in a way I never had before. Can you be taught creativity? Do I have some secret creative potential I just haven’t reached yet? Can I escape the greed of the holiday card industry?

According to Professor Bruce Litchfield, the answer is yes to all of these questions.

Yeah, I’m not totally screwed.

Litchfield specializes in teaching creativity at UIUC. He’s conducted numerous studies on creative learning and currently teaches a class where students of all majors can enhance their creativity. He’s even given a TEDxTalk on the subject in 2013.

“Of course, we all have different levels of natural creativity, but as with any skill, and that’s the key part, that it’s a skill, it can be enhanced. Just like throwing a football or doing math or writing journalism articles, you can get better by learning things and practicing them and getting feedback,” Litchfield said.

So how do students actually become more creative? There are many ways, according to the Professor. For one, you can take his creativity class Engineering 333: Creativity, Innovation, and Vision. While this is an engineering class, students of all majors can and do take the class, so don’t feel intimidated if you’re a liberal arts major like me.

“One of the best things you can do is read one of the great creativity books,” Litchfield said. “In my class, we read four books that point out stuff like being curious, looking for problems, reframing problems as opportunities, generating lots of ideas for solutions rather than jumping on the first one and going with that, giving yourself time to solve problems, and being comfortable with taking risks.”

Professor Litchfield during his TEDx presentation.

The problem doesn’t entirely lie with the students though, Litchfield clarified. He thinks instructors have an even larger role to play in helping students become more creative and innovative.

“There’s a big opportunity here, and teachers could change completely how they teach to help nurture creativity. Some instructors do a lot of background and prep work to get to a place where they can just write notes on the board, but backing away from that and asking something like ‘How might we do this?’ A math instructor, instead of developing an entire proof might say ‘How might we prove this?’ Letting students wrestle with the open ended questions is great.”

This doesn’t seem like a lot to ask, but it would require a drastic change to an American public school system that currently  teaches  for high scores on tests, the least creative format ever. Litchfield is confident change can happen, but it’s gonna take time.

“I’m optimistic because it seems both needed and obvious to me,” Litchfield said. “Of course there’s a lot of inertia in the school system though. If ever the metaphor of turning an aircraft carrier applied, it’s to the educational system.”