Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Creating Space for Creativity

Kids are experts in taking any object and applying them to completely unrelated uses. In our house we have a set of Jenga stacking blocks. Those blocks get used for almost everything. They become floor art since they are multi-colored. They become the guides for miniature golf courses. Each block becomes a ticket to a talent show. You may even get served a bowl of Jenga blocks for imaginary breakfast. So we use them for everything but the game of Jenga.

This is common for almost all the toys we have. Golf clubs are used for everything but golf. That’s what the swords are for. It’s almost as if each toy is an exercise in divergent thinking — coming up with different ways to use it, different solutions for it, or creative applications.

Kids are great at this. Coming up with novel ideas to problems. Taking things that adults wouldn’t normally consider and trying them out.

In an interesting experiment, flies demonstrated divergent thinking while bees could not. Karl Weick, a professor at the University of Michigan, demonstrated the difference between flies and bees. He put six bees in a glass bottle and six flies in…