Creativity and Problem-Solving Are Critical for Innovation in Today’s World

Reprinted from Traditions, Winter 2017-2018
April 5, 2018

A recent CEO survey by IBM (2010) revealed the most valuable trait for leadership is: creativity. The study conducted one-on-one interviews with 1,500 corporate leaders in 60 countries and in 33 industries. Businesses, in a broad spectrum of industries, have embraced innovation as its central mission and relied more on creative problem-solving or risk-taking to weather tough economic times, rather than sticking with status quo and formerly accepted best practices.

Creativity is defined as the “ability to transcend traditional ideas rules, patterns, relationship, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc; originality, progressiveness or imagination.”

Nick Giles ‘03, Art Department sees creativity on a daily basis and believes the critical element of creativity comes in equal parts of both process and product. “Half of a student’s success in Fine Arts, for instance, comes in how well a student tries, fails and tries again.” His rubric for assessment evaluates critical thinking and problem-solving and the student’s ability to apply the technique to their own project.

Creativity is Cross-Curricular

While some would assume that teaching creativity rests solely in the Fine Arts, CDH offers students many ways to approach creativity across the board so that this particular trait is exercised over and over by our students.

Giles believes that creativity needs to be a cross-curricular endeavor. He points to the impact of mathematics on art. “We use geometry and angles all the time as we draw figures,” he explains.

In addition to the Fine Arts program, students are challenged in both academic and co-curricular ways to be creative problem- solvers. With MILS (Multiple Intelligence and Learning Styles) as
a foundation, CDH students have a wide range of opportunities in our STEM Program (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), and in core subject areas such as English
and Social Studies and Religion for opportunities to express themselves creatively in a way that purposefully solves problems for the good of the community:

• Explore how to build a better wheel axel for a balloon-powered car using CAD (Computer Assisted Design) technology and a 3D printer to create the parts.
• Construct a robot to compete against other schools in a pre-designed challenge by trial and error of significant parts that need to be engineered to work together.
• Share a story of someone special through a tribute diorama using memorabilia and audio clips of the voice.
• Respond to a social issue such as sex trafficking by designing a button for sale as a fundraiser.
• Express a sense of tradition in a wall mural through the design and artistic rendering of the schools’ founders.
• Produce a news broadcast about a current issue relevant to the student’s reading assignment.
• Develop and plan a new Senior Women’s retreat outside of school hours to address the social and spiritual needs of young women.
• Construct an oversized, person-powered moving horse figure to bring a character alive for a children’s play.

Creative Careers

In fact, many Raiders go on to use their creative art experiences as a foundation for creative problem-solving in both the arts as well as many other careers. Katie Kreitzer, Theater, points to a nurse, who had been in theater at CDH, who now values her theater background even though she is not in a performance career. She believed that the self-awareness, confidence and risk-taking that was required of her in theater helped her professionally at all levels.

In addition, several of our alums have distinctive careers in the arts which were stimulated by their experience in the arts at CDH. The list is impressively long, but it ranges from actor Ian Anthony Dale ’96 (The Bucket List, The Hangover, and TVs Hawaii 5-0 and American Horror Story), actor Brittany Farlardaeau ’09 (The Gallows 2, The Guest and TVs Criminal Minds and American Gothic), comedy writer, Matt Hunzinger ’04 (Second City, Chicago and the Onion News Network), to Head Sound Engineer, Dillon Cody ’00 (Mean Girls with Tina Fey on Broadway).

“Whether our alumni pursue careers in the arts or not, the seeds of creativity in problem-solving or innovation or even confidence, must be sown in these critical high school years,” noted Kreitzer.

This article and more are featured in the Winter 2017-2018 issue of the CDH magazine, Traditions.