If you are taking a classroom or standardized achievement- type test such as the GRE (Graduate Records Examination), leave your creative mind at the classroom door. Simply answer the question, stop thinking about the possibilities, and move on to the next item. Creative-type thinking can get you into trouble. You are more apt to choose an answer that doesn’t agree with the test writer’s “best answer”. Also, it will slow down your responses, you may lose time, and you could fail to complete the test on time.
Testing/Classroom Fact-Recall Example: Which of these is not a legal baseball pitch?
A. Slider
B. Screwball
C. Spitball
D. Knuckleball
Convergent Thinking.
Fact-Recall Thinking asks, "What's the right answer?" Remember what the text book said about this or what your coach said in his lecture last week. This is limited thinking - this is the type used in achievement testing and in non-creative classroom teaching. Correct Answer - C.
Real Life - Creative-Inquiry Example:
It’s the last of the ninth inning. You are leading 5 to 4. Your opposing team has runners on first and third. You are considering whether to keep your present pitcher on the mound or to make a change.
Divergent Thinking
Creativity-Inquiry asks, "What are the possibilities?" You are considering all of the elements involved: What’s the status of your present pitcher? Who and what do you have as a replacement? What is the best pitching strategy? What do you know about the batter? What do you think may be the strategies of the opposing coach, etc, etc.? Then you will make your decision.
These kinds of experiences happen naturally in all areas of our lives and we must use our minds in making decisions. Creative thinking (a modern term is "Thinking outside of the Box.") is essential for optimum use of the brain.
It is nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in the need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. – Albert Einstein
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