Creative Vs. Critical: Thinking
Categories are an important part of life, as people group up everything into some sort of category. Time is made into periods, entertainment split up into genres, political ideals into parties, categories are a way to take the clutter of life and make them into neat piles. Broad or narrow, everyone and everything can fit into some sort of category. However, being in opposite categories do not make things incompatible, as creative thoughts and critical thoughts are dependent on another for balance. Despite their apparent differences, their ability to work together is an important task that overall makes both stronger overall. Being labeled as a creative thinker does not limit you to creative thoughts only, and …show more content…
Creative thinkers are complex, expressing themselves in a broad range of of intelligences, such as musical, linguistic and kinesthetic just begin a few (Baker 3). They are the ones who invent new ideas, looking at pre-existing notions and twisting them to create something original. Their brains work in a way that involves expanding existing concepts in the mind, crafting them into original ideas. Anna Abraham, writer of “Creative Thinking as Orchestrated by Semantic Processing vs. Cognitive Control Brain Networks”, describes it as “the process of overcoming knowledge constraints” (Abraham 2). When engaged in this expansion, the brain process works in a way that information that currently exists gets in the way of the creation of new ideas. To deter these ideas from ruining the creative process, the brain goes against itself to push this already existing information to the side to make room for the new ideas (Abraham 4). They go beyond the preconceived limitations of the brain, figuratively thinking “outside of …show more content…
It’s not at all uncommon for individuals to share common traits between these two categories, as most people are a mixture between the two. Using both skills within the creative and critical categories are what help keep people balanced. In “Relationships between Critical and Creative Thinking”, Matt Baker describes traits of a critical thinker, “Traits of critical thinkers include independent thinking, empathy, curiosity, faith in reason, intellectual civility, and intellectual responsibility”, but also goes to state, “These traits are not only present in critical thinkers, they are consciously utilized to guide the thinking process” (3). Overall, this is a reasonable conclusion. Every problem does not have to be met with jumping through hoops or finding a brand new, original way around it. Many problems can be solved the way a critical thinker would, direct and to the point, using preexisting notions. With more complex situations, creative thinking would be not only helpful, but even called for and praised, with phrases like, “thinking outside of the box” being popular when coming up with new ideas. All areas of life can be improved with involving both critical and creative thinking together. An artist can use their creative side to make a painting, but then use their critical thinking to assess the painting, and find
Categories are an important part of life, as people group up everything into some sort of category. Time is made into periods, entertainment split up into genres, political ideals into parties, categories are a way to take the clutter of life and make them into neat piles. Broad or narrow, everyone and everything can fit into some sort of category. However, being in opposite categories do not make things incompatible, as creative thoughts and critical thoughts are dependent on another for balance. Despite their apparent differences, their ability to work together is an important task that overall makes both stronger overall. Being labeled as a creative thinker does not limit you to creative thoughts only, and …show more content…
Creative thinkers are complex, expressing themselves in a broad range of of intelligences, such as musical, linguistic and kinesthetic just begin a few (Baker 3). They are the ones who invent new ideas, looking at pre-existing notions and twisting them to create something original. Their brains work in a way that involves expanding existing concepts in the mind, crafting them into original ideas. Anna Abraham, writer of “Creative Thinking as Orchestrated by Semantic Processing vs. Cognitive Control Brain Networks”, describes it as “the process of overcoming knowledge constraints” (Abraham 2). When engaged in this expansion, the brain process works in a way that information that currently exists gets in the way of the creation of new ideas. To deter these ideas from ruining the creative process, the brain goes against itself to push this already existing information to the side to make room for the new ideas (Abraham 4). They go beyond the preconceived limitations of the brain, figuratively thinking “outside of …show more content…
It’s not at all uncommon for individuals to share common traits between these two categories, as most people are a mixture between the two. Using both skills within the creative and critical categories are what help keep people balanced. In “Relationships between Critical and Creative Thinking”, Matt Baker describes traits of a critical thinker, “Traits of critical thinkers include independent thinking, empathy, curiosity, faith in reason, intellectual civility, and intellectual responsibility”, but also goes to state, “These traits are not only present in critical thinkers, they are consciously utilized to guide the thinking process” (3). Overall, this is a reasonable conclusion. Every problem does not have to be met with jumping through hoops or finding a brand new, original way around it. Many problems can be solved the way a critical thinker would, direct and to the point, using preexisting notions. With more complex situations, creative thinking would be not only helpful, but even called for and praised, with phrases like, “thinking outside of the box” being popular when coming up with new ideas. All areas of life can be improved with involving both critical and creative thinking together. An artist can use their creative side to make a painting, but then use their critical thinking to assess the painting, and find