Bon Bon 7: Creativity and the South African youth – a case of nature or nurture

NWU Business School

Experts agree that although everyone is born with the ability to be creative. This ability, like many other talents, differ widely among individuals. Creativity is at its highest when children are young, and the younger, the more creative they are. However, although there are many benefits to a structured school and education system, the creative stimulus it is not one of them. Structured thinking is not conducive to develop youth creativity. This then raises the question if creativity can be successfully reinvigorated by learning, or is it a case that if creative thinking is lost, it is lost forever? This is also true for business creativity. If there is a learning component in creativity, how is this done, and can this also apply to business solutions? Astute and new entrepreneurial thinking originates from creative thinking. Creativity can differentiate South African entrepreneurs form their competitors and play an important role to develop products and services, create employment, and contribute to the South African economy. In this Bon Bon interview, prof Christo Bisschoff of the NWU Business School interviews prof Ziska Fields on youth creativity. Prof Fields is PhD Alumnus of the North-West University Business School and employed at the University of Johannesburg. Prof Fields has performed focussed creativity research and developed two models to measure and improve creativity. One model dealt with university students, and the other model investigated the non-tertiary youth of South Africa. This model to measure creativity university students has been employed internationally in comparative studies at the Radboud University of the Netherlands, College of Nursing at the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines, and at the Faculty of Teacher Education at the University of Rijeka in Croatia. Prof Fields also discusses the issue of learning creativity and uses practical examples to explain aspects of youth creativity in South Africa.