Todd Benzin

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From the course by The State University of New York

Ignite Your Everyday Creativity

181 ratings

The State University of New York

Ignite Your Everyday Creativity

181 ratings

Creativity is an essential skill for the 21st Century that is innate in all people and can be nurtured. We constantly need new and better ideas for almost every aspect of our professional and personal lives. The goal of this course is to help you recognize, develop and act upon the creativity that you already possess. We will accomplish this using three methods: b aware, b inspired, and b creative. Upon completion of this course participants will: Recognize the inherent creativity in yourself and others. Identify characteristics of a creative person that relate to yourself. Develop creative problem solving skills using the basic elements of the creative process. Examine qualities of a creative environment in real world settings. Evaluate an idea using the creative product criteria.

From the lesson

The Creative Press

In this module, we will be featuring the skill Enjoy and Use Fantasy. This skill is about imagination, and it is an integral part of creativity and learning. The ability to enjoy and use fantasy is a skill that can be applied to many facets in life. Though it is often misconstrued as inconvenient or inappropriate (especially as we get older), fantasy has been shown to motivate learning while providing a non-threatening environment. The employment of the skill Enjoy and Use Fantasy improves thinking, logic, and communication skills! For example, imagine you’ve been given access to the world’s first time machine. As of right now, it only has one setting: to take you on a journey 1000 years forward in time. Just think! You will be the first person from the present to see what the future looks like: what people will be wearing, what businesses will be in place, what governments will be standing, and the effects of the human race on the entire planet. With 100% assurance that the time machine is 100% safe, you hop in and press the One Button: GO! How do you feel? Is your mind racing with ideas of what you might see? Are you excited to be a part of an unknown future? Are you nervous about running into a future relative? Good – that’s the point! As you go through this module’s lessons, we would like you to consider the following things: Are you fully experiencing the joy and child-like nature of fantasy? How does the deliberate use of fantasy spark your imagination? When deliberately employing this skill, do you feel more creative? Ready? Let’s get started!

Todd Benzin4:42

Meet the Instructors

Dr. Cyndi Burnett
Associate Professor
Creative Studies
Dr. John F Cabra
Associate Professor
Creative Studies

[MUSIC]

A high point in my professional life as an improviser came a couple of years ago.

I've actually been in an improv group for a long time, several years, but

a few years ago we were asked to do an improv festival.

And at this improv festival normally we would book a four-person show.

And the four of us would do a show, sometimes with a piano accompanying us.

But in this case only two of us were available.

And we didn't want to turn down the show.

So we figured we'd have to come up with a creative way to kind of entertain

these people with an improv show.

So we were driving down to Fredonia.

And literally on the car ride there we were trying to discuss, well instead of

doing the short games and scenes that we usually do, maybe we could just get one

suggestion at the beginning and riff on it for an hour and see what happens.

And it was kind of a big risk for us, we, it's not something we were used to,

it's something we were aware of other people doing.

But to just get one suggestion from the audience, then improvise a short play for

45 minutes to an hour was something we'd never done before.

And it actually went very very well.

The audience was very receptive, and afterwards,

we kind of felt like rock stars because we kinda committed to it and it worked.

And it was a great experience.

The beliefs that we had in ourselves is that we knew we had this experience

in improv.

And maybe we weren't approaching the show in exactly the same way that we usually

did, but we had confidence in ourselves as performers.

And we trusted each other too, and that's a big thing that I think helped us.

When you're working with other people that you trust and

other people that you also feel are creative,

then you know that you can come up with a product that's going to work.

And you know that you're not going to have any negative feelings toward each other.

You're both going to kind of, you're both going to approach the situation with

the same enthusiasm, positive attitude, in kind of a creative atmosphere.

So that you know that whatever happens, it's going to work for both of you.

I think some of the things that could have potentially gotten in our way in this show

situation were, obviously, we could have bombed.

But we were also working in a format we weren't used to, and

this happens in everything.

In your job, sometimes you're thrown,

some wrench is thrown into the system that you're not used to.

Maybe you're working shorthanded for the day.

Maybe as a parent, one of the parents has to go to a meeting so

you're kind of on your own.

And you have to come up with a creative way to deal with all the things that

you've been used to dealing with all along.

But knowing that you can trust yourself, be confident in your own abilities, and

trust the other people that you're working with,

I think that really opens up a lot of possibilities for you.

And gives you the confidence to still tackle a problem,

even though you're not used to tackling it in the way that you may have all along.

I think the characteristics of the other people involved that really

helped this situation for me.

There were only two of us, obviously.

But the partner that I was working with in this improv show,

he had a positive outlook on the situation.

He was confident in his own abilities, and he trusted me.

And I think all of those things together helped us to be able to put on this show.

And to go into the show knowing that we could work with each other, and

that we wouldn't really have to be worried too much about the format, or

the content, or anything like that.

That as long as we trusted each other, and we were listening to each other, and

working together towards this final goal of creating a product that would entertain

people, that we were going to be okay.

If I had a magic wand to grant wishes in order increase the creativity of people,

I would say that one thing definitely would be to grant people

the confidence to kind of be able to take chances and to be creative.

Another one is to be able to trust the people that you're working with,

if you are working with other people in any situation.

And the third wish would be that they're allowed to kind of live and

work in an environment in which they can be creative.

They don't have to do things the same way that they've always done, or

that their parents have done, or that their supervisors have done,

or whatever the situation may be.

I think that's the most important thing

that I wish that people could work in,

is an environment where creativity is not

only encouraged, but is helped along.

[MUSIC]

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