When We Teach for Positive Creativity, What Exactly Do We Teach For?

Positive creativity is creativity that makes the world a better place—that makes a positive, meaningful, and potentially enduring difference to the world. Positive creativity can be a bit of a slippery concept in that, what is positive to one person or one group may be neutral or even negative to an...

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Main Authors: Robert J. Sternberg, Aakash Chowkase
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021-05-01
Series:Education Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/11/5/237
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spelling doaj-66d063063da64354b0c66b68c77388fb2021-06-01T00:03:43ZengMDPI AGEducation Sciences2227-71022021-05-011123723710.3390/educsci11050237When We Teach for Positive Creativity, What Exactly Do We Teach For?Robert J. Sternberg0Aakash Chowkase1College of Human Ecology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USADepartment of Educational Studies, College of Education, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USAPositive creativity is creativity that makes the world a better place—that makes a positive, meaningful, and potentially enduring difference to the world. Positive creativity can be a bit of a slippery concept in that, what is positive to one person or one group may be neutral or even negative to another group. Much of teaching young people for positive creativity, therefore, involves providing the tools to decide what positive creativity means to them, and teaching them how to defend their decision. This essay focuses especially on alternative conceptions of what positive creativity means. It considers a variety of approaches, such as definitional models—objective and subjective betterment; ratings, including from layperson and experts; philosophical models—utilitarian and categorical-imperative models; decision-theory models—minimax, maximin, and maximax models; psychologically based models—a Four-C model and a model based on wise creativity. The essay also discusses steps toward teaching explicitly for positive creativity.https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/11/5/237creativitypositive creativityneutral creativitynegative creativitywise creativity
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Robert J. Sternberg
Aakash Chowkase
spellingShingle Robert J. Sternberg
Aakash Chowkase
When We Teach for Positive Creativity, What Exactly Do We Teach For?
Education Sciences
creativity
positive creativity
neutral creativity
negative creativity
wise creativity
author_facet Robert J. Sternberg
Aakash Chowkase
author_sort Robert J. Sternberg
title When We Teach for Positive Creativity, What Exactly Do We Teach For?
title_short When We Teach for Positive Creativity, What Exactly Do We Teach For?
title_full When We Teach for Positive Creativity, What Exactly Do We Teach For?
title_fullStr When We Teach for Positive Creativity, What Exactly Do We Teach For?
title_full_unstemmed When We Teach for Positive Creativity, What Exactly Do We Teach For?
title_sort when we teach for positive creativity, what exactly do we teach for?
publisher MDPI AG
series Education Sciences
issn 2227-7102
publishDate 2021-05-01
description Positive creativity is creativity that makes the world a better place—that makes a positive, meaningful, and potentially enduring difference to the world. Positive creativity can be a bit of a slippery concept in that, what is positive to one person or one group may be neutral or even negative to another group. Much of teaching young people for positive creativity, therefore, involves providing the tools to decide what positive creativity means to them, and teaching them how to defend their decision. This essay focuses especially on alternative conceptions of what positive creativity means. It considers a variety of approaches, such as definitional models—objective and subjective betterment; ratings, including from layperson and experts; philosophical models—utilitarian and categorical-imperative models; decision-theory models—minimax, maximin, and maximax models; psychologically based models—a Four-C model and a model based on wise creativity. The essay also discusses steps toward teaching explicitly for positive creativity.
topic creativity
positive creativity
neutral creativity
negative creativity
wise creativity
url https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/11/5/237
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