Stepping Away from Creativity

Meghan McLaughlin to present at Tuesday’s SAC Conference

By Kalicia Kamranian

Young children grow to understand the world around them through trial and error. They fail forward to success. Freshman Meghan McLaughlin believes that as we age, the development of our creative minds decreases. McLaughlin will discuss this issuer in her SAC presentation, “Stepping Away from Creativity.”

Double majoring in studio arts, with an emphasis in sculpture, and theater arts, with an emphasis in theater technology and design, McLaughlin clearly has a passion for creativity. She likes people to see different perspectives in both art and life. Her presentation is inspired by TED talks, a series of documentaries based in the U.K., and by the late philosopher Alan Watts, from whom McLaughlin has studied ideas on creativity in life.

Throughout life, we learn with our senses, we reach goals, and once we have reached a goal, we move on to the next. Life progresses and we work less with our creative minds and more with the fear of failure, McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin hopes she inspires people to take away a new idea, or an old idea with a new person saying it. “I want them to have the understanding that we need to change something in school. It is okay to feel fear, but face it.”

McLaughlin will discuss the reasons our minds slowly lose the creativity we had as children, and plans to include information and quotes from well-known inventors and philosophers, such as Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison.

McLaughlin hopes others will share her desire to change how we learn things as we age. “Some people might feel it’s important, and that’s what I hope for.”