How creativity has helped me to develop my way of thinking
Just after moving from South America to Italy, at the age of eleven I had to babysit my younger brother and sister.
I went from being a very spoiled child, growing up in a big villa with a nanny who lived with us, having all sorts of toys and everything I asked for, always going to parties and travelling, to moving to a small house with no friends and my parents working both full time with no choice but to leave me at home with my siblings (I know nowadays it would be considered unacceptable).
Everything changed for me … culture, language, friends, weather, money. Things were not the same as before but today I consider those years the best years of my life!
As we had only a few toys to play with, I started to create our own ones and new ways of playing too. With paper, shoe boxes and toothpicks (for the injection needle) we made a personalised doctor’s bag that when opened transformed into a bed for medical examination with all the necessary tools inside; we sewed by hand our stuffed favourite dolls; we built that Indian house that was so advertised on TV, including the fridge and kitchen worktop; we made our own TV with an invented episode to “watch” on a rolling system; we created our own special Christmas tree as well as presents; and much more. All this with no one teaching us what or how to do things and by making sure that homework was done and the house was tidy before mum and dad came back from work.
While growing up and my parents settling in, we still kept the habit to create our own stuff, very keen to use different tools and experiment with other materials (working and cutting wood to make jigsaw puzzles or particular frames for our pictures, inventing our own comic books, board games re-produced on a “human” scale on the floor of our terrace to then play as human pieces, painting on glass, making portraits with threat and nails, sewing our own skirts or t-shirts, cooking and baking, and the list goes on).
Three children with different personalities and still, we developed (and keep doing it) many skills by exploring and using our creativity in everything we do.
The lack of toys, that sense of responsibility by being the one in charge of looking after my little siblings, the patience of teaching to and learning from them, the freedom of creating what we “needed” and wished for and the feeling of being proud of what we created with lots of dedication, stimulated exponentially our creativity developing several and different skills and a positive and enthusiastic approach to life.
Creativity helps me to look at things in different ways where the “impossible” can become “possible” and most of the time in an original way. I find ways to fix things that people would normally throw away or even transform them into something new to use for something else. I am intrigued by learning a new technique or a software to create a cool video effect or make a great spreadsheet with macros and pivot tables to calculate some costs. I face issues in life with optimism thinking that there is always a better way to do things and lessons to learn when things don’t go as planned. I am curious and I never give up when there is a challenge. Actually, I love challenges! They have always taught me something new, opening my mind and bringing growth.
Do you think creativity is a prerogative of only some children or a dormant skill that every individual can develop if triggered correctly?
How do you think education influences creativity? Do you think social rules and current standard educational system constrain creativity?
I would love to know your thoughts!