How to Cultivate Creative Thinking in Our Students

In this post, we’ll continue last week’s thread by discussing the right approach for cultivating creative thinking in our students. The basis of creative thinking is intuition. New creation comes from what is unseen in the realm of new potential, possibility, and connections that have not previously been made. Intuition is exactly that which gives us access to the unseen, so to cultivate it is to cultivate creative thinking.

So, where does intuition come from? It emerges from the wholeness of the universe. Another way to put it is that reality is a living system of parts, and intuition is what sees that. When I, for example, see a look of distress on a friend’s face, I intuit that she needs help. Creative moral action springs from that intuition, and I can be helpful. Intuition is what draws the world back into harmony, and so serves as the basis for creativity.

An Interconnected, Living Universe – the Basis of Creative Thinking

The Steiner-Anthroposophical approach to science recognizes that an original wholeness manifests into the four kingdoms of nature – mineral, plant, animal, and human. Within this matrix, objects and living beings appear as separate by dint of our senses. In actual fact they are not. The plant composes itself from the air, water, minerals, and sunlight permeating the wider world. The human body performs a similar process, drawing its sustenance from the world-all. In other words, we are the world that has come into form as a node of consciousness. Creative thinking begins with this recognition.

Our sense-bound existence, though necessary for the universe to understand itself (through us, as us), carries the danger of hardening us to material reality. The deepest of these dangers is growing up with a lack of intuitive, creative thinking, thereby entombing us in our material selves. That makes us susceptible to manipulation and dogma of all kinds – religious, scientific, political, etc. The other peril is growing up feeling alienated from anything transcendent, from each other, and from ourselves. This leads to the current meaning crisis we see (which I have written extensively about here and here).

Senses alone can never recognize the wholeness of nature. They give us percepts, aka sense data like, “light, air, water, minerals, sun, plant growth.” It is thinking that strings these percepts together to grasp the reality of the plant or any other phenomenon of nature. Another way of saying it is that nature is one giant living system that manifests into apparently separate entities. Senses perceive these distinctions and intuitive, creative thinking strings them back together again into a whole.

The History of Creative Thinking (and Uncreative Thinking)

Intuitive, creative thinking has been the norm for the majority of human history. This natural intuition was a free gift given us by the living system of nature at our birth. Nobody would have questioned such wholeness until modern times with the advent of materialistic science. While not a bad thing in itself, materialism has led many to callous thinking that can no longer see the full reality of the world. It can only see the outer part. Put another way, materialistic thinking focuses on the tip and ignores the iceberg.

While this has led to problems like environmental degradation, the obsession with transient identity, and chronic disease, among others, this loss of intuitive, creative thinking is not by accident. It is a necessity, for what was previously given as a free gift must now be earned consciously. It’s like growing up and leaving home. All that was freely provided by parents to us as children we now have to learn to provide for ourselves. The same is true of our inner lives.

Creative Thinking for the Future

Intuitive, creative thinkers are those who will lead humanity into its bright future. They will be the ones who, recognizing the interconnection of all life, will lead humanity into its golden age. How we educate our children, therefore, matters. This path of holistic science is exactly how we teach here at Enkindle Academy.

How We Can Help

Enkindle Academy offers prerecorded and live lessons for students in grades 5-9. We teach all academic subjects plus fine arts, creative writing, and empowerment groups for teens. We also offer 1-on-1 tutoring on all subjects including fine arts. Visit our website for more info and for free sample lessons. Remember to subscribe for weekly updates, tips for homeschooling, and special offers.