We failed miserably. Everyone from the Spring 2010 ADV450 creative class. Our first little test of whether those creative juices flowed within us.

The test was simple. We were told to pick a number from 1 to 9. Our lecturer then had us all put our hands up. Every time he called out a number and it corresponded to the one we had in mind, we put down our hand. It only took him 9 tries to get everyone’s hand down. But of course, there can only be 9 numbers from 1 to 9 right? WRONG. What happened to 3.5 or 2.3333333 or one and a quarter? Aren’t those numbers too? He didn’t say to pick a WHOLE number from 1 to 9. We just assumed it.

The lesson was to not let our assumptions limit us, our creativity.

That I will have to argue. I told Jayce about that little interesting test. Even he said that only a creative class would allow for such answers. Any other class would just have you labeled as the class joker and smart aleck.

Because this is how the world functions. How society has shaped the majority of us to be. You would need some guts to go against it, to allow yourself to be that class joker or smart aleck kid and not be bothered by how other people think of you.

That’s exactly how Singapore functions. We mug and mug to become the elite. We mug and mug to give the correct answers in class. Creativity? Sure, they talked about thinking out of the box and all, but how come I still cringe when the teacher calls on me? How come I’m so afraid of making mistakes? How come I’m still afraid that my classmates will think I’m stupid.

I’m afraid I can’t teach you anything just because I studied overseas and you probably think I can bring fresh ideas to the table. No. I do not have the magic or capability to change how things have been done in a certain way for X number of years. Each of you have it in yourselves. You can either do it the same way you’ve been doing for X number of years or you can prepare yourself and allow the change to be made.

I’m sorry, the last paragraph is kind of a rant over a job/work.