Interview with Raúl García Piñeiro, founder of Sacodejuegos, creator of recreational experiences, consultant in pedagogical environments, and coach in aspects related to creativity and the pedagogy of play.
- How would you define creativity?
There are many definitions of the concept of creativity, but the one that I think best reflects what it means would be the one that says that "creativity is the ability to combine existing elements to create new and innovative ideas". In some cases, the definition of creativity includes the obligation that these ideas should also be useful. I do not think that is necessary. A person or workgroup can have creative ideas that do not have a direct or immediate use and that does not mean that they are not creative ideas.
I think that sometimes we impose too many restrictions on creative thinking and that leads us to be too afraid to think differently because we want to avoid being judged on the outcome. One of the main conditions to develop this capacity is precisely to avoid being affected by this type of prejudice.
- How important do you consider creativity to be today?
According to Tony Warner (principal researcher at the U.S. Learning Policy Institute and innovation communicator), creativity is going to be one of the most sought-after skills of the future. Knowledge is no longer an element that serves to differentiate us from the rest since knowledge is increasingly available and accessible to everyone. Creativity, on the other hand, is an ability that enables us to go where technology does not allow us to go, and it is a skill that not all of us have developed to the same extent.
Schools, universities and, in general, any educational centre should include creativity as a concept to be contemplated directly or indirectly in the curricular content of these centres.
- Can creativity be developed? Or rather, do you consider that there are creative people and non-creative people?
All people are creative. We are all born creative, but we gradually lose this ability (unless our environment enables us to cultivate it). If we do not attach importance to it, creativity diminishes within our cognitive capacities. In the early stages of our lives, we do not place restrictions on thinking, imagining, or linking concepts. When we are children, we ask hundreds of questions and have no prejudices, and this is one of the main seeds of creativity. As we grow up, we ourselves, our environment (and above all the current educational structure), lead us to assume that there is one answer to every question or problem and this concept is cancelling this innate capacity in human beings.
- Is it possible to enhance the creative capacity at school and especially among the older groups of young people?
Of course. Many techniques help to recover or strengthen this skill. If a person wants to be more creative, he or she must first be aware of the prejudices or factors that limit us and that we have inadvertently assumed. This awareness helps us to eliminate the barriers we put up and opens a new path for us to recover a way of thinking that we once had when we were younger.
The next step would be to perform activities that help us improve this ability and change our mental structure. There are hundreds of exercises we can develop and daily habits that we can assume that will help us improve this skill quickly.
