Teaching Creativity Whether creativity can be taught has been a point of contention for a number of years. Some believe that creativity is just like anything else, and it can absolutely be taught by the right person, to someone who is receptive to learning (Florida, 47). However, creativity is not like math or science. It is not a finite subject or concept, with rules and guidelines that can be imparted in the minds of other people. Because of that, creativity cannot actually be taught. Creativity is inspired by thoughts and ideas in the minds of the person, and those are not things that can be taught by other people (Balzac, 19). There are skills that can be acquired that can help a person become more creative, but these do not teach creativity itself. Instead, they teach a person different ways to think about things, which can help that person focus on a more artistic side (Florida, 56). While some people are more creative than others, everyone can learn to be creative. However, that does not mean creativity can be taught.

People have to learn creativity on their own, because each person has ideas and thoughts about the process and what it could...

As they consider different scenarios that interest them, they focus on ways to create the kinds of things that matter to them. These could be articles, books, paintings, sculptures, or many other kinds of things. What would be considered creative to one person would not be seen as creative by another, which is another reason that creativity really cannot be taught. Each person believes being creative to be something different from what another person would believe to be creative, so there is no real agreement on how the term is used or what it even means (Balzac, 20). With the differences of opinion in what each person sees as being creative, and the ways in which each person must decide that issue for himself or herself, there is no large-scale consensus on creativity (Balzac, 20). It is far different than teaching a person to do something that may be considered a creative pursuit.
In other words, a person can be shown the fundamentals of something, like the proper way to write fiction or how to paint nature scenes. The fundamentals can be practiced, and the person can even get good at them. However, that does not…