What Are the Most Appealing Ideas Expressed by the Author(s)?
Creativity is a concept that may seem inescapable, acting as a guiding factor in any person’s life and affecting every type of job, from technical to social. Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom and David Kelley aspires to unlock this human-possessed potential, urging the reader to take conscious steps and even risks when overcoming mundane obstacles (2). Through multiple real-life examples and the demonstration of various inspirational techniques to aid brainstorming and problem-solving, Creative Confidence becomes a compelling illustration of how adventurousness remains a decisive factor in success. Nonetheless, the idea that child-like bravery retains a place in the life of an adult when making educated decisions is a progressive one.
The confidence aspect of creativity may prevail as an essential facet of ingenuity, giving it a definite purpose as opposed to a continuous but hollow generation of ideas. Being courageous and, consequently, taking credibility for devising and pursuing a personalized approach to issues requires people to believe in themselves and be discontent enough with the current state of events, which stimulates their productivity (Kelley and Kelley 13).
This kind of attitude permits overcoming the “limits of their capabilities,” which people tend to ingrain in their minds subconsciously, and instead pursue a human-centered approach (Kelley and Kelley 31). Strengthening character and exercising enough integrity to take credit for personal decisions may be a necessary step for all people, as humans are presented with a multitude of different and, often, self-eliminating choices every day.
Through the development of character, people may generate ideas at will, structure, and condense them to their most useful basics. Creative Confidence presents a multitude of techniques that are necessary to achieve command of these promised bursts of creativity, from seemingly excessive notetaking to brainstorming on post-it notes (Kelley and Kelley 185). In particular, the chapter “Move: Creative Confidence To Go” remains essential to educators, as it proposes some activities that may be useful in the classroom setting (Kelley and Kelley 212). Despite the undeniable influence of business strategies on the suggested exercises, their repurposing into a less corporate design may be possible and even beneficial in education.
What Are the Implications of the Ideas in the Book for You as an Educator?
Any job must require a degree of self-awareness from its employees, making sure that they recognize the overall effect of their actions while working. The human-centered approach permits adopting a more compassionate outlook on the human condition, which balances between an emotional and rational status (Kelley and Kelley 21). Educators who do not consider that their students may be individuals, with fears and aspirations as varied as their backgrounds and characters, may set themselves up for failure as teachers. Being human-centered requires taking into consideration not merely the needed result, but focusing instead on the means chosen to achieve the outlined outcome (Kelley and Kelley 22).
Influencing students’ motivation to secure an academic attitude among pupils may be more effective than regressing to tactics meant to intimidate learners into blind obedience, thus constricting them creatively.
Nurturing a personality that permits others to express themselves and their ideas without considering them as foreign and wrong could be a serious step towards achieving professional integrity. The conception of creativity as a muscle allows entertaining the idea of exercising it through continuous and recurring exercises, which in turn permits seeing its effect on an individual’s character (Kelley and Kelley 2). My personal opinion is that educators may require this kind of creative flexibility to react appropriately to students’ ingenuity when approaching their assignments. The necessity of taking “creative leaps,” therefore, becomes vital to inspire others by the example of a successfully idea-oriented personality (Kelley and Kelley 48).
Supporting others may not be a viable option if a person refuses to back even themselves up in various endeavors, this kind of creative constriction leading to overall, life-long and self-imposed constraints.
What Ideas of the Author, If Any, Do You Challenge? Why?
Business tactics intended to inspire those adults, who have already partaken in the professional life and, therefore, could present a resume rampant with both successes and defeats, may not be appropriate when applied to students. The idea of a “failure resume” may seem pleasant and supportive at first, as it shifts the focus from personal achievements, permitting people to gain confidence even in their failures (Kelley and Kelley 52).
However, young pupils may not perceive it as an exercise in self-motivation and instead think of it as a depreciatory technique meant to demotivate them. The modern world may demonstrate an overzealous leaning towards shortcomings, where authority figures prefer to focus on a lack of something, instead of having an appreciation for the present skills and circumstances. Therefore, instead of promoting students’ glorification of their failures, especially at their formational years, urging oneself to focus on their achievements may be a better option for a teacher uplifting the people forming the future.
Students are not business professionals, and preparing all of them for a corporate setting should not be an educator’s goal. The classroom setting could be meant as a testing ground, which permits pupils to explore various professional worlds with appropriate guidance, reassurance, and support. Giving students “a chance to fail as soon as possible,” therefore, seems contradictory to the idea of promoting individualized learning (Kelley and Kelley 44). However, since learning from mistakes is a viable option, controlling this kind of process may be beneficial, provide better results in education, and prevent possible grievous errors at future workplaces. Teachers should support creativity, as the motivational factor behind risk-taking and progress, and satisfy its prerequisites to secure a sense of confidence in students.
Work Cited
Kelley, Tom, and David Kelley. Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All. Crown Business, 2013.