Creativity and Math

I am listening to an interview on http://radio.lds.org/mc/eng/ of a professor (Mark Henderson?) from weber state university--a conversation about creativity. People tend to be suspicious of, or judge as weird, those who are creative. They also point out that teachers struggle to encourage students to take risks. They talked about how when the wall came down in Germany, students who were asked to draw a picture did not draw because they were not told what to draw--they were told to draw what they wanted--and they didn't get it.

President Uchtdorf said that it is part of our nature to be creative. To improvise. It is part of who we are.

I think I realized something during this. Most people dislike math; I love math (not as much as many, but it's great). I think I began to love math when I saw it as an outlet for creative thought. Even though math is very restrictive with rigid rules, there comes a point where concepts can be applied in new ways. You may be restricted by the rules, but you can still create a proof or a problem, then solve it. I also loved math because I was thinking about how I would teach it to someone else. It might have started as a study technique, or not. Teaching is also a creative activity. For me, math came alive when I was able to exercise my creativity with it--especially in problem solving, especially in Algebra and Geometry. I think of the analogy of the kite--the string both restricts it and holds it up. In the same way, creativity in mathematics and any other field must be held up by the very rules which restrict it. Without those rules, whatever they are, I believe there could be no creative endeavor.

Perhaps students fail at math, and dislike math because they are not shown or taught how to be creative. They are given rules and problems, and they do the homework. They either get the answers right or wrong. They are rewarded for conforming to rules like everybody else. They are being acted upon, more than they are acting. The only things they can create are a correct answer. They are rarely if ever rewarded for an original approach, an original solution, and even less common is to ask students to create a problem or teach.

For any teachers out there--is there something new students could do, to learn how to be creative and free because of math?