In their book, The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World, Anthony Brandt and David Eaglemen identify three “B”s or three basic strategies that are at the root of all creative thinking: bending, breaking and blending.
In blending, the brain combines two or more ideas in novel ways. Consider for example the post-it-note which is a blend of note paper and glue. Superheroes are often a blend of animal and human characteristics such as the combination of a spider, bat or cat with a person (spiderman, batman, catwoman).
Bending- In bending, an idea or product is modified from its original version. In the movies Honey I Shrunk the Kids, The Borrowers, and more recently, Antman, humans are shrunk to encounter worlds of giant objects. Manufactures took our favorite candy bars and made them huge, family size, and bite size. The telephone is an example of technology that continues to “bend” from something tethered to the wall to a device that goes with us everywhere.
Breaking- Brandt and Eagleman describe breaking as the process of breaking a whole into parts and reassembling the parts to create something new. They describe the Cubism movement in art as an example of breaking. The images of Cubist such as Picasso appear broken and put back together from different angles and perspectives. Numerous examples of “breaking” can be found in art, music, science and technology. Possible classroom activities:
· Teach students the concept of “bending, blending and breaking” and have them find examples of each in art, music, technology, engineering and so forth.
· Have students “take apart” a scene from their home, neighborhood or community, list the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures and use the details to create a setting for their own story.
· Students research inventions that are inspired by nature such as velcro, and the Shinkansen Bullet Train. Students generate and illustrate their own ideas that blend technology with animals or bend an idea in nature to make it useful for humans.
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