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Expansion via Creativity

K.Kuhn

Karen Kuhn, Senior Lecturer, The Adam Mickiewicz University

In April, the IB welcomes Karen Kuhn as a presenter at the 2015 Peterson Academic Symposium, The Hague, Netherlands.


Karen Kuhn is a Senior Lecturer in South African Studies at The Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of English, in Poznań, Poland. She teaches Language Acquisition, Literature and Cultural Studies. Karen is a published author of Afrikaans poetry, a curriculum developer, as well as a writer for film and television.

  1. The theme of the symposium is “Why does creativity matter?” Can you give us a taste of what you will be presenting at the symposium?

 
Creativity causes expansion within a class-room, within a career, within oneself, by means of synchronicity. By being creative one utilizes what the psychoanalyst Carl Jung called ‘archetypes’, instead of being stuck within stereotypes. The more we become aware of us being creators and not consumers, the better we are equipped to synchronize our imagination with our physical experience.

  1. What is creativity?

I think creativity is the manifestation of our imagination, generating expansion, by synchronicity.

  1. Creativity has been a hot topic of conversation in education for many years. Why do you think creativity an important topic in the current educational climate?

Nowadays knowledge and information are available and limitless. Creativity in itself cannot be taught, as each individual undergoes his or her own unique process, but space, motivation and the opportunity to translate or interpret knowledge by means of self-expression provides learners with tools to elicit that which inspires them.

  1. With your work as a poet, you are obviously a creative person. Do we all have the capacity to be creative?

We are the writers of our own stories. Whatever our profession, the moment we become creators, we expand our imagination, our dreams and our experiences.

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