Creativity and Innovation

While creativity is the first step of innovation; it is having an idea of doing or making something new, innovation on the other hand is the act of putting those ideas into actual practice. To make innovation happen, surroundings play a significant role. Both the internal and external environments are crucial for an individual to express his full potential.Dr. Albert Szent said, “Innovation is seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” In fact, knowing what not to do or say becomes more important to an innovator. In Innovation, one puts his ideas to practise as he gets out of the comfort zone, ready to embrace disappointments and failures.

Who is an Innovator and what makes Innovation happen?

He has no fear of failure, the singular factor that scares people to try out new things. Effective innovation happens in collaboration, when a team of passionate people conjures bright ideas. These are the people who are willing to leave their comfort zones in order to innovate and develop together. Ironically, even corporations do not think they have the employees suitable for the task or are even scared to take risks. We have instances of global industrial giants which had to give way owing to lack of innovation. General Motors, a firm in the USA established In 1908, closed down in 2009 for lack of innovation. RadioShack, selling electronic goods, lost out to major firms like Amazon. Blockbuster, a video-rental, shut down as OTT platforms gained the market.

Innovators always see opportunities ahead of them without being weighed down by obstacles. Even if it is one simple thought, they start off and there follows a stream of thoughts through collaboration.

 

Innovation in everyday life

There are a lot of examples of innovations in everyday life. Youtubers and bloggers have made good use of technology and opened online businesses as well. They have become innovative and have used different styles of font for their business descriptions, different styles of calligraphy. Similarly education can also be made creative and interesting with new methods of making it fun.

 

Innovation in education

In today’s world, Education is no longer a linear concept. In fact it is multidimensional and multi-faceted and we should explore how to channelize the information widely available so that it provides every learner optimum benefits.
Several innovations in education have been implemented during the Covid times, such as Video streaming, Flipped Classrooms, Digital textbooks and use of AR and VR. These sources were used widely that made education possible and fun during this period. However, innovation in education is more than technology. It is about solving a real problem in a simple, swift way that promotes equity and improves learning. The perspectives of the stakeholders also in education needs to undergo a radical shift. The focus in learning should shift from rote learning to creative thinking. Instead of an examination that focuses on memorising a portion of the text we need to have problem-solving workshops. Today a section of students are also interested to learn non-traditional subjects such as dance, sports and swimming in school. Such thoughts need support from the environment for these children to flourish and bloom in their areas of interest.

 

 

About the authors

The article has been contributed by the following students and teacher from St. Joseph’s HIgh School, Matigara, Darjeeling: Sneha Agarwal, Tanya Hembrom Kumar, Additiya Nag, Khushi Pradhan (students) and Pooja Saha ( teacher).