Imagine That!

Annals of Ordinary and Extraordinary Genius

Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein are co-authors of Sparks of Genius, The 13 Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People (Houghton Mifflin, 1999). See full bio

November 13, 2008

Teaching Creativity with TLC

Last year, we had the incredible opportunity to discover first-hand an amazing school called The Learning Connection (TLC for short) located in Wellington, New Zealand. TLC is an art school that is more than an art school. It is, quite purposefully, a school for creators, no matter what road they take in life. Read More

October 30, 2008

Can Creativity Be Value-Neutral?

An inquiring mind wants to know. And the answer is, no. It is almost impossible to talk about things that are novel and effective without bias. There is always a value judgment involved. Disclosure: Personally, we value the kind of novel effectiveness that makes possible this electronic conversation. Do you? Read More

October 27, 2008

(Almost) Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Creativity

What does it mean to be creative? Creativity is effective novelty. To be creative, then, can be as simple as seeing something everyone else sees, but thinking what no one else thinks. (Is that a bird or a flight of fancy?) For more straightforward answers, check this post!

October 13, 2008

Dance Your Experiment

Have you ever noticed that the word "dance" has "dna" in it? Read More

September 29, 2008

A Peek at Human Cognition: How Do YOU Think about Martha Graham?

Before the language of expression, comes the inspiration of first thoughts. Before the dancer creates her first step, she imagines it in her mind. Surprisingly, she may not initially imagine it as bodily movement. Using the dancer-choreographer Martha Graham as an example, we can take a peek into human cognition. And what we find can give us a clue to what's going on in our own heads.

September 15, 2008

Creative Explosions, or Loïe in the Laboratory

In case you were wondering, tinkering and thinkering are not just for scientists and engineers! Read More

September 1, 2008

Thinkering, Part 2. Does Exxon-Mobil Have It Backwards?

We've been arguing that "thinkering" is the way many creative people work. Thinkering, you may recall, is the conceptual thinking that goes along with tinkering - making things with your hands. That's what Einstein, Edison, Faraday and Maxwell did. Steven Chu understands this; Exxon-Mobil doesn't. Read More

August 21, 2008

Thinkering

We argued in our previous blog that kinesthetic feelings and visual images precede symbolic expression of knowledge. Physicist Michael Faraday exemplifies this pattern perfectly and helps us to understand the results of Jeanne Bamberger's educational experiments in hands-on instruction with school children.

August 6, 2008

Aping Einstein

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July 26, 2008

Body Think

In our last post we posed a primate puzzler. How did the chimpanzee in Wolfgang Köhler's experiment reach the banana hung from a hook in the ceiling? Here's what happened. Read More

Books by Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein

Sparks of Genius: The Thirteen Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People

Discovering

Boulevard Theater and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Theater and Dramatic Studies)

Creativity Basics

Even those of us not in explicitly creative fields must come up with new ideas and insights in order to move ahead. How can we shake up our thinking patterns?

Go to the Creativity Basics page for more on Creativity including:

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Everyday Creativity

How to start living creatively and reap the benefits.

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Books by Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein

Creativity Basics

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