Learning to Think Outside the Box

Creativity Becomes an Academic Discipline

By LAURA PAPPANO FEB. $5,2014$

Students in creative studies at Buffalo State College posted key points to being a creative thinker.

IT BOTHERS MATTHEW LAHUE and it surely bothers you: enter a public restroom and the stall lock is broken. Fortunately, Mr$.$ Lahue has a solution. It's called the Bathroom Bodyguard. Standing before his Buffalo State College classmates and professor, Cyndi Burnett, Mr$.$ Lahue displayed a device he concocted from a large washer, metal ring, wall hook, rubber bands and Lincoln Log. Slide the ring in the crack and twist. The door stays shut. Plus, the device fits in a jacket pocket.

The world may be full of problems, but students presenting projects for Introduction to Creative Studies have uncovered a bunch you probably haven't thought of$.$ Elie Fortune, a freshman, revealed his Sneaks'n Geeks app to identify the brand of killer sneakers you spot on the street. Jason Cathcart, a senior, sported a bulky martial arts uniform with sparring pads he had sewn in$.$ No more f$$rgetting them at home.

"I don't expect them to be the next Steve Jobs or invent the flying car," Dr$.$ Burnett says. "But I do want them to be more effective and resourceful problem solvers." Her hope, she says, is that her course has made them more creative.

Once considered the product of genius or divine inspiration, creativity $-$ the ability to spot problems and devise smart solutions $-$ is being recast as a prized and teachable skill. Pin it on pushback against standardized tests and standardized thinking, or on the need for ingenuity in a fluid landscape.