The Creative Abilities
CLM aims to highlight those abilities which could be defined as creative, i.e. those basic abilities enabling individuals to generate thoughts and actions which are not merely mechanical, boring, de-personalising but innovative, more adapted to reality, “dissonant” and yet more consistent with one’s actual living context.
It is now possible to provide a first definition of the AREA OF CREATIVE ABILITIES: groups of creative abilities (i.e. pushing individuals to think or act creatively) which differ from each other in terms of the individual sphere they tend to stimulate.
In the CLM, creative abilities have been subdivided into 5 areas:
INVENTIVE ABILITY (area of originality)
Keywords: PROBLEM SOLVING AND IMAGINATION
Abilities establishing a direct contact to an individual’s originality, as they allow his expression and determine his style. These abilities contribute to a better integration between acquired knowledge and learner’s mental patterns, world and experiences. They are therefore fundamental in the process of motivation to learning and of self-esteem development. Developing such abilities is vital to the development of creative intelligence, what is connected with the removal of the mechanisms causing functional fixities. This mind-accelerating process is more and more necessary to succeed in a world which is increasingly linked with innovation.
CONNECTIVE ABILITY (area of link comprehension)
Keywords: IDENTIFYING AND ESTABLISHING LINKS
Abilities orienting individuals towards deep understanding and meaningful learning. They base on knowledge construction and de-construction operations through which the learner can move and find his/her away among acquired notions in a dynamical and autonomous way. Improving these abilities is especially fundamental within an increasingly systemic and reticular concept of knowledge which requires that our conceptual maps are constantly reelaborated and updated.
EXPLORATIVE ABILITY (area of knowledge expansion)
Keywords: RESEARCH AND CURIOSITY
Abilities relating to the possibility to research, discover, acquire and expand knowledge within a certain sector. These abilities establish a special, though not exclusive, relation with the basic know-how from the various spheres of human knowledge. They allow to take the most advantage from the natural curiosity expressed by people as they learn, and they prove to be fundamental to stimulate learners’ sense of self-efficacy.
EMOTIONAL ABILITY (area of intra-personal behaviours)
Keywords: FEELING MANAGEMENT AND INVOLVEMENT
Abilities relating to people’s intra-personal behaviours, which determine the between learning process and an individual’s emotive experiences. This area encompasses those productive behaviours which are directly bound to the good management of emotiveness and the feelings raised and challenged when learning. The attention paid to this type of abilities aims to embrace and clarify a teaching perspective which closely relates readiness to learn and emotive facets of intelligence.
RELATIONAL ABILITY (area of interpersonal behaviours)
Keywords: PARTICIPATION AND EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION
Abilities relating to interpersonal behaviours, social skills and management of relationships. These abilities turn out to be strategic in a process basing on the synergic strengthening of both individual and group energies, whereby one’s actions are never geared to competition as an end in itself, as they turn out to be a functional resource for any group member. Among these abilities are the capacity to communicate (both verbally and non-verbally) in an efficient, situation-consistent way, thereby also transmitting feelings, wishes, needs, opinions; the capacity to listen to the others; the capacity to establish positive relationships to the others, thereby becoming able to manage conflict situations in a constructive way.