Creative skills. Features of the formation of creative abilities

Creative skills. What do they depend on?

Additional education is defined as a harmonious unity of knowledge, creativity and communication between children and the teacher, which is based on a free search for the path to mastery and comprehension of the meaning of life. Life itself, its modern rhythm, the need not only for movement, but also for its beauty, are put forward as a natural necessity for nurturing the artistic taste of children, teaching creative thinking and introducing the younger generation to the world of beauty - the world of art. Every person is endowed with creative abilities, and all people are born capable of creativity. Based on this, you just need to develop these same abilities, teach creative activity, and familiarize yourself with the techniques of creative imagination.

What is CREATIVITY and what are its components? From the encyclopedic dictionary we learn: “CREATION - this is an activity that generates something qualitatively new and is distinguished by uniqueness, originality and socio-historical uniqueness. Creativity is specific to humans, as it always presupposes a creator-subject of creative activity.

What should a person focus on when engaging in creativity in any business? For a dream? A dream is a desire. Desire alone will not get you far. To move from desire to action, one thing is always missing - motive. Love is the motivation that leads to the fulfillment of dreams. When a person loves his job, he puts all of himself into it, constantly improving in it. Love itself is the source of work, improvement, pleasure and success. She is a wonderful and miraculous force capable of giving joy, life and the desire for life. What is the basis of creativity? Scientists-researchers claim that the search. It is the search that every person intuitively carries out in his work. Before you can do what you love, you need to find it. Having found a favorite activity, a person looks for interesting areas of study that he likes. For example, a dancer is looking for directions of choreography that he likes. It can be classical, folk dance, ballroom dance, etc. The main thing is to decide. Having decided on the areas, a creative person studies what has already been done in them, chooses what he likes and suits him harmoniously. Every person strives to be needed, so he promotes his creative product to society. This is a search for the target audience, that is, an audience that is interested in his work. Without what is there no creativity? No inspiration. What is inspiration? This is a state in which a person is able to create productively, efficiently. Where does this inspiration come from, that is the question? But there are conditions that help you find this inspiration:

Constant knowledge and improvement of oneself;

Love for your work;

Having a goal and motive;

Totality, i.e. complete concentration or absorption;

A healthy lifestyle, which helps to live a quality, productive life and create;

Communication, without it, human development is inhibited;

Study and research of other people's creativity. The more fully you understand someone else’s work, the more perfect yours becomes.

And the ways of learning about other people’s creativity are different: reading books, watching films, concerts, recordings of competitions, listening to music and much more. Without trying to create, a person will not become a creator. True creativity reaches people the shortest way - from heart to heart. It touches, excites and touches people. Everyone finds something of their own in it. There is no better or worse creativity. After all, creativity was created in order to reveal the soul of every creator, and a better or worse soul simply does not exist. Creativity is not a competition, because there are no criteria that evaluate a person’s soul. In order to create freely and productively, you need to get rid of fears. Fear is one of the most ancient feelings. Fear is the most perfect weapon that destroys and kills from within. The main and only reason for fear is ignorance. A person is afraid when he does not know what will happen to him, to his environment or to the whole world in the next moment, in the near or distant future. The path of getting rid of ignorance and fear is one of the ways of getting rid of fear. Only by learning and improving can you get rid of it. And therefore, throughout life it is necessary to learn and improve. Self-confidence is the first and necessary condition for the success of all creative endeavors. Uncertainty prevents us from being individuals, being creative, creating something new and original, and achieving our goals. It exhausts our body, nervous system and psyche, taking a huge amount of energy. We need to end it once and for all. Self-confidence is the most important quality for a creative person. People who go about their business become so immersed in it that they forget about everything and thereby automatically gain confidence. Confidence comes with practice and training. Try, search and train. Harmony rules the world. It is in everything. Human harmony lies in the fact that a person is an integral system, consisting of spiritual and material, the elements of which complement each other, interact and are inextricably linked. If you improve one thing, another improves. By improving the body, we improve the spirit, and vice versa. (A healthy body means a healthy mind.) Harmony lies in complementation, not destruction. They say that life is a struggle. This is not entirely true, because the essence of struggle is destruction. And the meaning of life is not in destruction, but in life itself, in creativity, in bringing something new. Creativity is always an interaction between soul and body. And therefore, for productive creativity it is necessary to take care of the soul, mind and body. After all, only through their harmonious interaction is true creativity born. We are all unique, inimitable, talented and brilliant in our own way. It makes no sense to copy Mozart or Einstein, Rachmaninov or Igor Moiseev, but you can and should learn from them. At the same time, you need to learn to be yourself. This is real art. A person cannot make good life choices until he begins to listen to himself, to his “I” at every moment of his life, in order to calmly say: “Yes, I don’t want this, or “Yes, I don’t like this,” or “Yes, it suits me.” Any educational process is an interaction between student and teacher. At every moment of our life we ​​are either in the role of a teacher or in the role of a student. If we always learned from each other, we wouldn't make so many mistakes. Each of us needs a teacher, and we often find one within ourselves or in the outside world. You always want to be next to a person who radiates tenderness, care, joy, and who has something to learn from! But many of us don't become good teachers. What should a good teacher be like? Any effective educational process must be aimed at action, because knowledge is meaningless without practical application. As Mephistopheles said to Faust, “Theory is dry, my friend, but the tree of life grows lushly green.” Knowledge is needed, but only through action is their understanding formed, as well as the skills and abilities necessary for a person. Therefore, real education does not consist of memorizing information, but in a system of practical tasks through which a person acquires the necessary knowledge and develops the appropriate skills.

The first and main principle of the teacher is “Do no harm!”

And the second principle is “Never do anything for a student.”

The teacher can guide, suggest, but do nothing for the student. Otherwise the student will not learn anything. Every creative person is not only a creator, but also a giver, distributor, and seller of his creativity. What are we giving? The results of creativity, i.e. spectacular things, ideas, etc. In fact, all this is just a mediator for transmitting JOY.

The words “glad” and “gift” sound similar. The root "Ra" means "SUN". We make you happy – that means we fill you with light and love. A smile, external or internal, is one of the signs of love. Who do we give joy through creativity? First of all, to ourselves. An educator, a teacher gives the world joy not only through himself, but also through his students. Students are drawn to the teacher. They learn from him a certain profession and life experience. The purpose of this communication is to convey not only information, but also feelings, emotions, and energy. Creativity is the knowledge of your abilities, yourself, the world around you through the creation of something new, through overcoming certain situations, life exams, through overcoming your weaknesses. Many creative people do not know who they are, what they expect from life, and what they can be seriously passionate about. They go through life aimlessly and uncontrollably, rushing from side to side. Having a goal in life, a passionate desire to live, a sense of one’s purpose, one’s own chosenness – this is what many lack. Each of us has a huge reserve of strength, energy, and creative potential. When a person finds his goal, these forces awaken, and the person overcomes all kinds of obstacles. The invisible forces of the Universe begin to help, people come to the rescue. A person discovers that the world is filled with a huge amount of opportunities and resources for the successful implementation of any goal. Life is filled with joy and happiness. And it all starts with a clearly defined goal. What is a goal? For a teacher-choreographer, this is a certain clear image (no matter how you perceive it: realize, feel or see), realized at a certain point in time. If you want to create, create, because creativity is the sacred mission of every person, in which we improve and improve the world around us. If you wanted to create something - forget about everything, throw away all thoughts, sit down and create! Give yourself over to creativity, dissolve in it and enjoy the unique moments of your life! Creativity is art. A creative person, through overcoming himself, his weakness, discarding distracting thoughts, is able to enter a state of relaxed inner harmony with himself and create masterpieces, receiving an ocean of pleasure and improvement from this. All actions, thoughts, words have the meaning that we put into them. The form may be the same, but the meaning is different. In order to put meaning into your creativity, you need to work hard, work on your spirit, soul, mind and body. But it's worth it! When the result of creative work is filled with deep meaning, you don’t want to talk, there is only a desire to enjoy the beauty of the created miracle. Consciousness is not given the ability to understand this; it can only be felt with the heart and enjoyed here and now in silence and inner peace. But you can't deceive your heart. It knows everything and feels everything!

Educational and creative abilities differ from each other in that the former determine the success of training and education, a person’s assimilation of knowledge, abilities, skills, and the formation of personal qualities, while the latter determines the creation of objects of material and spiritual culture, the production of new ideas, discoveries and works , in a word – individual creativity in various areas of human activity.

Capabilities– these are individual characteristics of a person, which are subjective conditions for the successful implementation of a certain type of activity. Abilities are not limited to the knowledge, skills and abilities an individual has. They are revealed in the speed, depth and strength of mastering the methods and techniques of certain activities and are internal mental regulators that determine the possibility of their acquisition. In Russian psychology, the greatest contribution to experimental studies of abilities was made by B. M. Teplov.

There are general and special abilities:

1) general abilities provide relative ease and productivity in acquiring knowledge and carrying out various types of activities;

2) special abilities are a system of personality traits that help achieve high results in any field of activity.

Each ability has its own structure, in which leading and auxiliary properties are distinguished. For example, the properties of literary abilities are: features of creative imagination and thinking, vivid, visual images of memory, a sense of language, the development of aesthetic feelings. And the leading properties of mathematical abilities are: the ability to generalize, flexibility of thought processes, easy transition from forward to backward train of thought. For pedagogical abilities, the leading ones are: pedagogical tact, observation, love for children, the need to transfer knowledge.

The following ability levels are distinguished:

1) reproductive (provides a high ability to assimilate knowledge and master activities).

2) creative (ensures the creation of new, original).

Talent presupposes the presence of various creative abilities.

Creative abilities are divided into three main groups:

1. Abilities related to motivation (interests and inclinations);

2. Abilities related to temperament (emotionality);

Creative abilities, in contrast to special abilities that determine success in specific types of activity, are manifested in any activity in that specific style of its implementation, which can be called creative.

The creative style at all levels of activity is characterized, first of all, by independent formulation of problems, the so-called intellectual initiative, an independent, original way of solving ready-made topics and problems, etc. In other words, creative initiative is characterized by the absence of a template, functional fixation and rigidity in mental and executive activity.

Some thinkers believe that the creative style of thinking is the primary and natural form of brain function. In this regard, creative abilities are inherent in all people without exception, but they manifest themselves differently depending on the severity of special abilities for various types of activities. Templates and cliches appear under the influence of social influences and, mainly, as a subject of the existing system of education and training.

However, it is well known that with the same system of education and training, some people develop stereotyped thinking, while others retain or develop an independent and creative style of mental activity.

This makes us think that some individuals have a certain resistance to the pattern, which manifests itself not only in the style of thinking and performing activity, but also in some personal characteristics, such as independence, independence (lack of conformity of agreement), etc.

It is not without probability that resistance to the “pattern” may turn out to be the most fundamental internal quality in the structure of creative abilities, the nature of which is most likely determined by certain biological inclinations. It is possible, however, that there is an alternative assumption that this quality is secondary, due to other qualities of intellectual activity (flexibility, breadth, etc.) or personal formations.

Human creative possibilities are unlimited and inexhaustible, and creative activity is one of the main definitions of human essence. It is the ability for creative activity that characterizes a person and emphasizes the superiority and originality of his psyche. Man created such complex and perfect machines that they began to talk about the possibility of building a machine that could surpass man himself, which would be able to think and create. But a machine is not able to create, to create something new. The ability to be creative is inherent only to humans. The problem of identifying early abilities interests many. We are talking, in principle, about singling out, identifying capable people, about their appropriate training, that is, about the best solution for selecting personnel.

A creator, like an intellectual, is not born. It all depends on what opportunities the environment will provide for the realization of the potential that is inherent in each of us to varying degrees and in one form or another.

As Ferguson (1974) notes, “creativity is not created, but released.” Therefore, in order to understand how creative activity developed, it is necessary to evaluate not only and not so much the basic level of intelligence necessary for this activity, but also the person’s personality and the ways of its formation.

Thus, in the system of stages of creativity, the following most important qualities can be listed:

1. Stage – a sense of novelty, unusual, sensitivity to contradictions, information hunger (“thirst for knowledge”).

2. Stage – intuition, creative imagination, inspiration.

3. Stage – self-criticism, perseverance in getting things done to the end.

Of course, all these qualities operate at all stages of the creative process, but not with predominance in one of the three. Depending on the type of creativity (scientific, artistic), some of them may appear brighter than others. Combining with the unique features of a particular person, as well as with the peculiarities of creative searches, the listed qualities often form an amazing alloy of creative individuality.

The development of science and technology, the pace of the scientific and technological process are such that it is absolutely necessary to “supply” science and technology with new ideas, to build new projects, therefore, in connection with the challenges facing society, the question of the nature of creative abilities has acquired enormous practical significance.

Today, creativity is becoming a necessary tool for professional and everyday existence.

Thus, the development of children’s creative abilities becomes one of the main tasks of raising a harmoniously developed personality in modern society. Possessing creative abilities, a person becomes successful in any activity. One of the main means of developing creative abilities is elementary music playing.

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Educational hour on the topic:

« Creativity and capabilities

person"

Show the children that the development of initiative, creativity,

modern society;

Focus students' attention on what is creative

Everyone has abilities, they just need to be developed.

Progress of the lesson

Introductory words from the teacher:

Guys, after graduating from school, each of you faces a problem.

determined the direction where they can express themselves to the maximum, realizing

where to study, who to work and what to strive for in career growth and

professional skills. However, today we will pay attention to

the other side of your self-determination in life, let's try together

think and answer on questions:

What are human creative abilities and capabilities?

How to demonstrate yourself and your abilities?

Discussion of typical situations:

“Are everyone talented or only a select few?”

Genius is such a divinely rare gift... She,

on the contrary, it is not uncommon and is everyone’s lot.

P.K.Engelmeyer

Abilities are personality traits that give her the opportunity to successfully

learn, acquire knowledge, abilities, skills to implement

certain activities. For example, teaching drawing, music, languages

And etc. Moreover, abilities are not manifested in the knowledge, skills and

skills, but in the speed of their acquisition. From a modern point of view

psychology, the highest degree of ability is genius, further

comes talent and giftedness.

Previously, it was believed that creativity and invention were the lot of the few,

chosen ones, i.e. people who, since childhood, have shown obvious talents in some

or areas (musical, artistic, literary, technical

capabilities). It is believed that complex psychological structures that

provide creative abilities and are inherited.

the great-grandmothers of A.S. Pushkin and L.N. Tolstoy were sisters. At five

Over the generations of the Bach family there were 16 composers. We know

outstanding writers and composers: Dumas - father and son, Strauss the father

and son. What about contemporary artists? Each of us can lead a mass

examples: grew up in a family of actors Andrei Mironov, Kristina Orbakaite,

Alexander Shirvind, etc.

many facts when poets, artists,

musicians, writers, inventors. Research by scientists has shown that

Outstanding and brilliant people do not form any separate breed and

can be born into any ordinary family.

Examples of talented celebrities who were born in simple

Lomonosov. I. P. Kulibin, S. V. Ilyushin and others.

"Spring of technical progress"

If we define it in psychological terms, what is

spring is ingenuity.

A.V. Lunacharsky

Since ancient times, humanity has been engaged in inventive

creativity. Through him, humanity came to modern benefits

civilization.

The vital needs of people are obtaining food,

preservation of fire, creation and improvement of housing - put forward tasks

production and continuous improvement of tools and means for

hunting. How to sharpen a stone, how to make a spear? These questions stimulated

mental, inventive activity of ancient man.

The process began with the invention of the first tools

"humanization" of our ancestors. From the Stone Age came to us the most

A significant discovery is the combination of a light ax with a heavy ax.

Since ancient times, millions of discoveries have been made. And what

Surprisingly, when inventive problems become more complex, methods for solving them

almost unchanged. Typically, inventors went to their goal along a well-trodden path.

"trial and error".

The other most important, from the point of view of modern technology,

The invention of the wheel was a discovery. It was invented in two

stage. First used:

drag);

An axle with bearings was invented (the first lubricant was

lamb fat was used);

The first spoked wheel appeared in Egypt and Eastern Persia in

2000-1500 BC e. Today, from the height of the achievements of civilization, it is impossible Not

marvel at the great ingenuity of our distant ancestors.

“His Majesty happened...”

Not everyone helps chance, fate bestows only prepared

L. Pasteur

Through trial and error, scientists worked hard on problems

which completely captured their existence. Contemporaries of T. Edison

they joked that if an inventor was given the task of finding a needle in a haystack

hay, then he, without wasting a second, will begin the search, shifting the straw to

with a straw. There is some truth in this joke. For example,

Edison obtained his alkaline battery after performing 50,000 experiments;

Charles Goodyear tried a lot to improve the quality of rubber

variants of its mixtures with various substances: sand, salt, pepper,

sugar and even with soup, until I accidentally, absent-mindedly, put the mixture

rubber with sulfur onto a hot plate, thus discovering the method of vulcanization

and rubber;

F. Le Bon accidentally threw a handful of sawdust into the

glass vessel - and invented the gas lamp;

From history, information came from Pliny that the Phoenician sailors

They sheltered their ship with a load of soda at the mouth of the river during a storm. Cooking

food on the sandy shore, put pieces of soda under the cauldron and lit a fire.

Having removed the cauldron, they discovered a transparent mass on the sand. That's how it was invented

The chemist E. Benedictus accidentally dropped a glass flask,

contaminated with collodion solution, and found that the flask did not break. This

served as the basis for the invention of unbreakable glass;

A. Fleming, the owner of the chemical laboratory, was no different

neatness; and in a moldy laboratory dish that needs

was thrown into the trash a long time ago, a yellow one was accidentally discovered

powder. This is how penicillin was discovered;

French physicist Antoine Becquerel accidentally exposed

photographic plates wrapped in black paper. As a result, he found out that

Uranium salts emit some invisible rays. This is how the phenomenon was discovered

radioactivity;

Russian chemist K. Falbert, after working in the laboratory, admitted

sloppiness, being hungry, sat down at the table with unwashed hands. At lunch

All his dishes had a sweet aftertaste. Interested in this, great

a chemist discovered a substance 500 times sweeter than sugar - saccharin;

William Murdoch accidentally ignited the gas while heating pieces of coal in a kettle.

coming out of the spout. This is how gas lighting was invented.

When Newton was asked how he made his discoveries, he replied:

« I constantly thought about them... I constantly keep the subject of my

research and wait patiently until the first glimpse gradually and little -

little by little it will not turn into full and brilliant light.” On developing your own

Newton worked for twenty years and even fell ill from overwork. So

Hard work, purposeful, selfless - that is the goal and

reason for opening!

The fact that nature has endowed man with extraordinary abilities,

is proven by factual materials. For example, an Indian woman

Shakuntala Devi won competitions with a computer in the most difficult

calculations, ahead of his actions by tens of seconds.

Many composers had a brilliant musical memory (V. - A.

Mozart, S.V. Rachmaninov). A funny thing happened story: Sergei Rachmaninov

decided to play a trick on his colleague and hid in the next room, where

Alexander the Great, Napoleon and other outstanding commanders

they remembered their soldiers by sight, and some by name. There's nothing here

supernatural. These are the requirements of the profession. For example, many

teachers remember their students, doctors and nurses know theirs

patients, and waitresses and bartenders know their regular customers.

Based on these examples, it can be argued that the overwhelming number

people constantly show ingenuity in everyday life and in the field of

human relations.

Thus, every person has inherent potential in nature.

opportunities for creative activity that need to be developed.

"Eureka!"

Always choose the hardest path on him You Not meet

competitors .

Charles de Goll

Archimedes after the discovery of the law using a rather original method. And the task

Archimedes was faced with a purely practical problem - find out if the crown is made

Is it pure gold or does it contain impurities? Scientist - brilliant philosopher

solved this puzzle.

Scientists are currently trying to create a science of creativity -

heuristics. Until recently, there was an opinion that creativity exists only

in literature, art, and inventive activity was classified as

handicraft work, and also considered it impossible to study

The ability to be creative and create something new has always been highly valued in society. And it is not surprising, since people who have this gift are unique generators of the development of human civilization. But creativity also has subjective value. A person endowed with them creates the most comfortable conditions for existence, transforms the world, adapting it to his needs and interests.

It would seem that everything is simple: you need to actively develop these abilities. However, humanity has been struggling for hundreds of years with the question of what is the secret of creativity, what makes a person a creator.

Before we talk about creativity, let's first understand what abilities are in general.

• There are general abilities needed in different areas, e.g.
• And there are special ones associated only with one specific activity. For example, a musician, singer and composer need an ear for music, and a high sensitivity to color discrimination is needed by a painter.

The basis of abilities are innate, natural inclinations, but abilities are manifested and developed in activity. To learn to draw well, you need to master painting, drawing, composition, etc., to achieve success in sports, you need to engage in this sport. Otherwise, in no way, the inclinations themselves will not become abilities, much less turn into.

But how is creativity related to all this, since this is not a special type of activity, but rather its level, and a creative gift can manifest itself in any area of ​​life?

Structure of creative abilities

The totality of creative abilities and their active manifestation in the life of an individual is called creativity. It has a complex structure that includes both general and special abilities.

General level of creativity

Like any other abilities, creative ones are associated with psychophysiological inclinations, that is, the characteristics of the human nervous system: the activity of the right hemisphere of the brain, the high speed of nervous processes, the stability and strength of the processes of excitation and inhibition.

But they are not limited to innate qualities and are not a special gift received by us from nature or sent from above. The basis of creativity is the development and active, persistent activity of a person.

The main area in which creative abilities are manifested is the intellectual sphere. A creative person is characterized by a special, different from the standard, including logical. Various researchers call this thinking unconventional or lateral (E. de Bono), divergent (J. Guilford), radiant (T. Buzan), critical (D. Halpern) or simply creative.

J. Guilford, a famous psychologist and creativity researcher, was one of the first to describe the unique type of mental activity inherent in creative people. He called it divergent thinking, that is, directed in different directions, and it differs from convergent (unidirectional), which includes both deduction and induction. The main feature of divergent thinking is that it is focused not on searching for one single correct solution, but on identifying multiple ways to solve a problem. The same feature is noted by E. de Bono, T. Buzan, and Ya. A. Ponomarev.

Creative thinking - what is it?

They studied throughout the 20th century, and a whole range of features of the mental activity of people who are characterized by this type of thinking was identified.

• Flexibility of thinking, that is, not only the ability to quickly switch from one problem to another, but also the ability to abandon ineffective solutions and look for new ways and approaches.
• Shifting focus is a person’s ability to look at an object, situation or problem from an unexpected angle, from a different angle. This makes it possible to consider some new properties, features, details that are invisible with a “direct” look.
• Reliance on the image. Unlike standard logical and algorithmic thinking, creative thinking is figurative in nature. A new original idea, plan, project is born as a bright three-dimensional image, only at the development stage acquiring words, formulas and diagrams. It is not for nothing that the center of creative abilities is located in the right hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for working with images.
• Associativity. The ability to quickly establish connections and associations between the task at hand and information stored in memory is an important feature of the mental activity of creative people. The creative brain resembles a powerful computer, all of whose systems constantly exchange impulses carrying information.

Although creative thinking is often opposed to logical thinking, they do not exclude each other, but complement each other. It is impossible to do without logical thinking at the stage of checking the solution found, implementing the plan, finalizing the project, etc. If rational logical thinking is undeveloped, then the plan, even the most ingenious one, most often remains at the level of an idea.

Creativity and Intelligence

When talking about a person’s ability to think, they most often mean. If the connection between intelligence and the development of logical thinking is the most direct, then the same cannot be said about creative potential.

According to the standard intelligence quotient (IQ) test, people who score less than 100 (below average) are not creative, but high intelligence does not guarantee creativity. The most creatively gifted people are in the range from 110 to 130 points. Among individuals with an IQ above 130, creatives are found, but not often. Excessive rationalism of intellectuals interferes with the manifestation of creativity. Therefore, along with the IQ, the creativity quotient (Cr) was also introduced, and, accordingly, tests were developed to determine it.

Special abilities in creativity

The presence of general abilities in creative activity ensures the novelty and originality of its product, but without special abilities it is impossible to achieve mastery. It is not enough to come up with an original plot for a book; you also need to be able to present it literary, build a composition, and create realistic images of the characters. The artist must embody the image born in the imagination in the material, which is impossible without mastering the technique and skills of visual activity, and the development of a scientific and technical invention presupposes mastery of the basics of the exact sciences, knowledge in the field of mechanics, physics, chemistry, etc.

Creativity has not only a spiritual, mental, but also a practical side. Therefore, creativity also includes applied, special abilities that develop first at the reproductive (reproducing) level. A person, under the guidance of a teacher or independently, masters specific methods and techniques of activity that were developed before him. For example, he learns notation, masters playing a musical instrument or art technique, studies mathematics, the rules of algorithmic thinking, etc. And only after mastering the basics of a specific activity, developing the necessary skills and gaining knowledge, can a person move to the level of creativity, that is create your own original product.

Special abilities are needed for a creative person to become a master, and his activity (any activity at that) to become art. The absence or underdevelopment of special abilities often leads to the fact that creativity is not satisfied, and creative potential, even quite high, remains unrealized.

How to determine if you have creative abilities

All people have a predisposition to creativity, however, creative potential, as well as the level of creativity, is different for everyone. Moreover, placed in certain strict conditions (for example, while performing a task), a person can use creative methods, but then not use them either in professional or everyday life and not feel any need for creativity. Such a person can hardly be called a creative person.

In order to determine the presence and degree of development of creative abilities, there are many test methods developed by psychologists. However, in order to adequately evaluate the result obtained using these methods, you need to have knowledge in the field of psychology. But there are a number of criteria by which everyone can assess their own level of creativity and decide how much they need to develop their creative abilities.

Levels of intellectual and creative activity

Creativity presupposes a high level of intellectual and creative activity, that is, not only the ability for mental activity, but also the need for it, independent use of creative thinking techniques without pressure from others.

There are 3 levels of such activity:

• Stimulating and productive. A person at this level conscientiously solves the tasks assigned to him and tries to achieve good results. But he does this under the influence of external stimuli (an order, a task from above, the need to earn money, etc.). He lacks cognitive interest, passion for work and internal incentives. In his activities, he uses ready-made solutions and methods. This level does not exclude some random original solutions and findings, but having used the method he found once, a person subsequently does not go beyond its scope.
• Heuristic level. It assumes a person’s ability to make discoveries empirically, through experience, often reducing to trial and error. In his activities, the individual relies on a reliable, proven method, but tries to refine it and improve it. He values ​​this improved method as a personal achievement and a source of pride. Any found interesting, original idea, someone else’s idea becomes an impetus, a stimulus for mental activity. The result of such activity can be very interesting and useful inventions. After all, man invented the airplane by watching birds.
• The creative level involves not only active intellectual activity and problem solving at a theoretical level. Its main difference is the ability and need to identify and formulate problems. People at this level are able to notice details, see internal contradictions and pose questions. Moreover, they love to do this, possessing a kind of “research itch” when a new interesting problem arises and forces them to postpone activities that have already begun.

Despite the fact that the creative level is considered the highest, the most productive and valuable for society is the heuristic level. Moreover, the most effective is the work of a team in which there are people of all three types: the creative gives birth to ideas, poses problems, the heuristic refines them, adapts them to reality, and the practitioner brings them to life.

Parameters of creative talent

J. Guilford, who created the theory of divergent thinking, identified several indicators of the level of creative talent and productivity.

• Ability to pose problems.
• Productivity of thinking, which is expressed in the generation of a large number of ideas.
• Semantic flexibility of thinking is the rapid switching of mental activity from one problem to another and the inclusion of knowledge from different areas into the thought process.
• Originality of thinking is the ability to find non-standard solutions, generate original images and ideas, and see the unusual in the ordinary.
• The ability to change the purpose of an object, improve it by adding details.

To the characteristics identified by J. Guilford, another important indicator was later added: ease and speed of thinking. The speed of finding a solution is no less, and sometimes more important, than its originality.

How to develop creativity

It is better to start developing creative abilities in childhood, when the need for creativity is very strong. Remember with what delight children perceive everything new, how they enjoy new toys, activities, walks in unfamiliar places. Children are open to the world and, like a sponge, absorb knowledge. Their psyche is very flexible and plastic; they do not yet have stereotypes or standards on the basis of which the thinking of adults is built. And the main tools of children’s mental activity are images. That is, there are all the prerequisites and opportunities for the effective development of creative abilities. This process is especially successful if adults encourage children to express their creativity and organize joint activities and games themselves.

As for adults, in this case it is also possible to increase the level of creativity, make professional activity more creative, or find an opportunity to realize your need for creativity in some kind of art, hobby or hobby.

The main thing for an adult is precisely the presence of a need, since people often complain that God deprived them of talent, but do nothing to find an area in which their personality could be realized. But if you realize the need to develop your potential, then there is such an opportunity.

Any abilities develop through activity and require mastery of skills, that is, training. Considering that creative abilities are primarily a set of qualities and properties of thinking, it is the thinking abilities that need to be trained.

Entire trainings have been developed specifically for the development of creativity and thinking, and exercises from them can be performed independently, especially since they often resemble an exciting game.

Exercise “Chain of Associations”

Associative thinking plays an important role in creativity, but it is most often involuntary, spontaneous, so you need to learn to manage it. Here is one of the exercises to develop the skills of consciously working with associations.

1. Take a piece of paper and a pen.
2. Choose a word. The choice should be arbitrary; you can simply open the dictionary on the first page you come across.
3. As soon as you read the word, immediately “catch” the first association for it in your head and write it down.
4. Next, write down the next association in the column, but for the written word, and so on.

Make sure that the associations are consistent, for each new word, and not for the previous or the very first. When there are 15-20 of them in a column, stop and carefully read what you got. Pay attention to what sphere, area of ​​reality these associations belong to. Is this one area or several? For example, the word “hat” may have associations: head - hair - hairstyle - comb - beauty, etc. In this case, all associations are in the same semantic field, you could not get out of the narrow circle, jump over stereotypical thinking.

And here is another example: hat - head - mayor - thought - thinking - interest - reading - lessons, etc. There is an associative connection, but thinking is constantly changing its direction, entering new areas and areas. Undoubtedly, the second case indicates a more creative approach.

When performing this exercise, achieve similar transitions, but do not think about the birth of associations for too long, because the process should be involuntary. The game with associations can be played in a group, competing to see who will have more associations and more original transitions over a certain period of time.

Exercise “Universal object”

This exercise helps develop a whole range of qualities: originality of thought, semantic flexibility, imaginative thinking and imagination.

1. Imagine some simple object, for example, a pencil, a pot lid, a spoon, a box of matches, etc.
2. Having chosen an item, think about how it can be used, other than its intended purpose. Try to find as many uses as possible and try to keep them original.

For example, a lid from a saucepan can be used as a shield, as a percussion instrument, as a basis for a beautiful panel, as a tray, as a window in the absence of one, as a hat, as an umbrella, as a carnival mask if you drill holes in it for the eyes... Can you continue?

Just like the first exercise, this can be done in a group, giving it the form of a competition. If the group is large enough, for example, a class, then you can offer to name the new functions of the subject in turn. The player who cannot come up with a new one is eliminated. And in the end, the most creative ones will remain.

These are just examples of exercises. Try to come up with such games yourself, and this will also be good training.

The question of a person’s presence of creativity and the need for self-realization has been and is relevant from ancient times to our time. The ability to create - what is it, a given or the result of enormous efforts of the individual on the path of development and self-improvement? There is no clear answer to this question and it is unlikely that anyone will ever be able to answer it comprehensively.

An animal or plant adapts to its surrounding nature purely biologically; either for this he develops the necessary organs, or develops the necessary behavior, or with the help of special physiological processes, etc. Man, along with biological adaptations, received from nature another, purely social adaptation. It consists in the fact that a person purposefully changes the surrounding nature, adapting it to himself, while making it possible to realize the development potential of nature. In this way he becomes a significant and powerful factor in its development (more significant and powerful than animals). The process of such transformation is usually called creativity.

Such creativity is a human need. If it were not inherent to us, we, being weak biological creatures, would not be able to adapt to the physically strong world around us and would inevitably die. People are forced to oppose the power of the surrounding world with their own power, and this power is created in the process of their creative activity.

These forced actions, as in the case of acquiring new knowledge, are supported by the enormous pleasure and joy that a person receives during the period of creativity and upon the successful completion of a creative task, regardless of whether this task is performed in the process of mental or physical labor. The power of satisfaction from creativity is even stronger than the pleasure obtained from acquiring new knowledge, which was discussed earlier. In this satisfaction is the pleasure of triumph over the world around us and cooperation with it, the pleasure of struggling with the difficulties that life puts before us, the joy of a pioneer on a path that others have not been able to take so far, the pleasure of achieving new heights, new achievements, the joy of your contribution to improving the lives of others. This is an exciting feeling of competition with fellow creators and with myself (I couldn’t do this before), a feeling of pride in the results of my creative work, which people need. All this has a beneficial effect on the condition of each person and society as a whole.

But in addition to the beneficial effects, adverse effects are also often observed. The unfavorable influence of creativity occurs when it is not aimed at the benefit of society, but only at obtaining personal pleasure from it. And this happens when satisfaction from creativity takes on the form of pleasure from domination over the surrounding world, which one can supposedly change at will. We’ll tell you a little later what this kind of creativity leads to.

Because of the satisfaction, pleasure that a person who performs a creative act receives, work based on creativity, out of obligation for the sake of survival, profit, etc. turns into pleasure. Anyone who has even a little contact with creativity knows this. So the authors of these lines, by creating this brochure, also receive great satisfaction, which, without any coercion, encourages them to engage in this creative work.

At the same time, the direction and quality of creativity significantly depend on the nature of society’s interest and its ability to provide initiation, the process of creativity, bringing the results of creativity to the level of readiness for their perception and use, and, finally, to ensure their use itself.

Creativity is based on the knowledge and skills available to the creator. Knowledge and skills are a social product. Creativity is also not the work of just one person, but the work of the whole society, especially since people often create not alone, but by entire teams. Creativity is also a social phenomenon.

Moreover, since creativity is associated with the transformation of the world around us, and therefore is a factor in its change, its development, its evolution, and has an impact on the whole world, it can be considered not only a social, but a universal phenomenon.

Thus, a human ancestor could be considered a human only when he developed the ability to create, and he realized this ability. Animals have almost no such ability; as far as we know, in contrast to the ability to obtain and use knowledge, they actually do not even have the rudiments of creative activity, which is what makes humans different from them. Since the emergence of creativity in human society, it continues to delight and sadden us throughout our history. Moreover, the scale of creative activity increased exponentially based on the same growth in knowledge, skills and previous creative achievements.

The rapid growth of creativity, on the one hand, generally improves people's lives, but on the other hand, it becomes dangerous for it. The danger is this.

Creatively transforming the world around him at will, trying to adapt it to himself, a person, willy-nilly, interferes with the course of natural processes that occur independently, independently of him and do not need outside intervention. By doing this, he forces the world around him to change, regardless of its readiness for change, thereby committing an act of violence against the surrounding nature, the scale of which has already increased to alarming proportions with the growth of human power.

He interferes in the affairs of other people and entire nations, interferes with processes occurring inside organisms, cells, molecules, in processes occurring in water bodies, in soil, in the atmosphere, in space, etc.

Intoxicated by the success of such violence inflicted by him, man imagined himself almost as God, believing that he could subjugate everything to himself. It's just a matter of time: some processes can become subject to his will today, and others - tomorrow. Is this really so? Is man omnipotent in nature? Is the expression attributed to Archimedes true: “give me a point of support, and I will turn the world upside down”?

It turns out not. It has long been noted that forced transformation and change does not bring the desired success. On this occasion, back in 1883, F. Engels expressed a thought in “Dialectics of Nature”: “Let us not be too deluded by our victories over nature. For every such victory she takes revenge on us. Each of these victories, however, has, first of all, the consequences that we were counting on, but secondly and thirdly, completely different unforeseen consequences, which very often destroy the significance of the first ones.” . Earlier, Hegel called this effect in relation to social processes “the irony of history.” And this happens because such interference disrupts the natural course of processes that the creator wants to change at will, regardless of their objective independence from human desire, with the possibility of changing only an object ready for this, without full knowledge of the possible consequences, which is fraught with an unfavorable outcome , both for the process itself and for the human creator who changes it.

The denial of human omnipotence and the punishment of people who do not take this reality into account is also indicated by any religion that imposes a taboo (ban) on attempts to change the environment and interfere in processes beyond its control. According to various religious beliefs, they are subject only to a certain deity who does not allow a person to invade a world that is alien to him and punishes him for this invasion. Such beliefs, naturally, were based on the experience of a person who at every step felt his weakness in front of the forces of nature, the personification of which was God, good and evil spirits, etc. They already then - at the time of their emergence, even at the dawn of the development of mankind - warned man: your attempts to forcibly change the world independent of you will be unsuccessful and will end in disaster for you (God's punishment).

We live in a class society in which domination and violence of some over others is natural. The person in him constantly feels competition and dictate over a person from other people in determining his social behavior: children - from their parents, students - from teachers, workers - from their bosses, soldiers - from their commanders, the poor from the rich and so on. And dictators, small and large, having this or that power over others, inevitably use it for violent actions against the latter. Violence in our society is universal. So our creator-dictators are growing up, from whose creativity, its violent nature, everything around us suffers, and with today’s manifoldly increased opportunities, such an unreasonable, violent transformation of the environment can lead to the complete destruction of humanity.

Others may say (and do say) that since humanity is so unreasonable that it is ready to commit suicide, then let it destroy itself. Nature will not suffer from this. Having said this, they would be completely wrong. Nature will still suffer from the death of humanity and, perhaps, this will be a real catastrophe for the world around us and even a catastrophe on a universal scale. There is only one way out in this situation: the destruction of the system of domination of some over others, the power of some over others, which gives rise to violence, including the violent nature of creativity. It is not domination that should rule in human society. It is not found anywhere in nature, except for us humans; nowhere is there dominance of some over others. Mutual assistance, cooperation, and interdependence of everyone on each other should rule, as is the case between the mentioned pairs of integral objects. These objects are integral because they are interdependent. Because of this, it is impossible to destroy them, since each part of this pair cannot exist separately without the other for a long time. And they exist only in pairs. The destruction of one component of the pair automatically leads to the disappearance of the other. In the case of the elimination of domination in human society, the same rule applies: if there is no master, there will be no subordinate serving as an object of violence on the part of the master. And in the absence of the phenomenon of domination in society, it will naturally disappear from creativity.

There is nothing unexpected or surprising in the manifestation of creative abilities: these abilities are inherent in everyone since childhood. They are often simply forgotten. Remember your childhood, when you, using the pictures you saw, heard or read from someone else’s life stored in your memory, purely intuitively, from your imagination alone, composed such stories that adults, if they managed to hear them, were amazed. It is not for nothing that children are considered the greatest dreamers. Unfortunately, as people grow up, in their activities they increasingly use logical operations with gradually accumulating false information, and with this they drive their former creative abilities deeper and away from real knowledge, problems and opportunities. But they can be extracted if you neutralize thinking and give free rein to intuition, uncontrollable human fantasy and imagination - mental intuitive actions, as suggested above (for example, seclude yourself or leave the situation that prevents you from listening to the “inner” voice, or by an effort of will, isolate yourself mentally).

Most often, a person does not have complete knowledge about the interdependencies of the created object with its environment, although ideally it is desirable that they exist in order to avoid negative effects from creativity. And since there is no complete knowledge, then one should not expect the result planned the day before from the creative act, or at least expect the result immediately. In order not to be disappointed in your activities or to avoid doing something stupid, you need to know some rules of creativity that must be followed in this case.

Rule 1. You cannot expect the same results with the same impacts on different objects to be transformed (objects of transformation).

Rule 2. In this case, do not try to forcibly change the objects of transformation in order to still get what you need, since such violence will not only not give the desired result, but can also become a source of danger, both for those around you and for the creator. In order to still achieve one’s goal, it is necessary, with the help of appropriate purposeful actions and the creation of appropriate conditions, to first bring the objects of education to the desired state (“maturity”), and then only transform it.

Rule 3. Creativity lies in creating qualitatively new elements in our environment - objects with new relationships to the surrounding world, i.e. with new properties.

Rule 4. An object of transformation can be considered qualitatively changed only when it has at least two opposite properties (qualities) and for the manifestation of each of them it is enough to change the environment in which the object of transformation is located.

Rule 5. If at the first stage of creativity the object of transformation has acquired undesirable properties, then changes continue in the direction of eliminating the shortcomings obtained at the first stage until the planned results are obtained.

Rule 6. Creativity should be aimed at results that are positive for humans and the environment.