Of Haikus and Creative Thinking

Brenda and I were pleasantly surprised to learn that Ethan, our 6-year-old, had won a Top 10 position in the biennial Japan Airlines World Children's Haiku Competition (Singapore), out of a field of more than 5000 entries. These were submitted by primary school children aged between 6 to 12 years. A greater surprise was that he was the only 6-year-old in the Top 50 who were awarded Certificates of Merit. The top 10 entries from each of the various participating countries will be sent to Japan for shortlisting, to be included in a volume of haikus published by the JAL Foundation.

This year's competition theme was 'House', and Ethan's haiku was on a house of a different sort:

No doors, no windows,

No roofs, no walls and no floors -

House for a spider.

While I was roundly proud of the little guy's achievement, I was reminded again of children's ability to see things from a perspective, altogether different from adults. As students and teachers of 'better' thinking, sometimes it's marvellous to see the ease with which young children access a different mode of 'looking' at the world. It is even more impressive when one considers that Ethan had to frame this view-point into the strict 5-syllable, 7-syllable, 5-syllable structure of the haiku! (Of course, this is his dad saying so!)

So what really is creativity? Is it merely 'different thinking'? Creative thinking recognises the rules which are imposed by any given situation, yet simultaneously produces a solution that circumvents the very restrictions that the rules imply. The merit of Creative thinking and by extension, paradigm shifts in thinking, can only be decided within the boundaries of existing knowledge.

The question of children finding it easier to be creative is easily answered: they recognise less of the rules that form the basis of adult rationality and logic. As these rules have yet to impose themselves (through modern education system), children form very unique perspectives about the world and make connections that go beyond the logical boundaries of knowledge disciplines. Hence, making the connection between a house and a spider's web is not too difficult, considering that both have residents and serve the purpose of accomodation.

Perhaps, the vital question is not so much why children are more creative than adults, but rather how adults can retain their creative modes. That certainly would be a million-dollar question because the answer has implications in how corporations can leverage on creativity and innovation in pursuit of their business goals. More of this in a later blog entry.

Noel Tan

Resident Philosopher (And proud papa!)

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