Creativity Solves The Problems – Creative Writing Journal Entry 1

Creativity Solves The Problems – Creative Writing Journal Entry 1
1. On the first question, she answered that she would be holding a white pebble while she is putting her hand inside the bag to choose one pebble, and would take it out after several moments, pretending that she had picked the white pebble. This is a possible solution to

the problem, but also a rather dangerous one, as the merchant might notice the trick while she is still holding the white pebble in her hand and cancel the offer of withdrawing her father’s debt.
While solving this, Maya didn’t think for too long. After I repeated the question for the second time, she had already come up with the answer.

2. She didn’t offer an answer to this question…. The process of recombination took her more than 5 minutes, after which she rejected to continue thinking about the problem.

3. Again, she wasn’t able to respond to this problem either. She kept on connecting the dots with five straight lines, but didn’t stop trying and asked me to hide the answer from her, as she wanted to come to it by herself. I left her to practice the different combinations…

4. Maya found this problem rather bizarre. According to her, the fact that the number of times for the boat to cross the river was not limited, it was very easy to respond to the question. She said that the kids would get off the boat, and the soldiers will, one by one, get on it. Then the children could continue with their play. However, she disregarded the fact that after the last soldiers gets to the other side, the boat will stay on his side, and the kids on the other one.

5. This was probably the most difficult problem for Maya. After a short period of time she became very inpatient and started to ask me about the answers right after I had posed the question. Her answers went in this order: brown; candle; empty; ghost; clock; honey; old man; poker; murder; artist; tsunami; hand; safe; summer; sword; prison; talk; dog; Christmas; interview. Apparently, she didn’t get none of them correct.

*Alex (creativity/solved most of the problems)

1. Alex’s answer to the first question was identical to the one offered in the book. I was surprised by how fast he came to the answer, and he said that he hadn’t heard of the problem before.

2. In order to place a burning candle vertically on the wall, Alex said that first he would place it inside the box of the candles and then light it and move the box next to a wall. In that way the candle would be burning in a vertical position and would still be touching the wall. It took him more than 5 minutes to come to this solution and he offered several very illogical solutions in between.

3. Alex connected the nine dots after a minute. He said he had done this before, and needed a minute to recollect the memory. He was very satisfied when the answer came to him.

4. The problem with the soldiers and the boat with the two children was the most time-consuming from all. It took him around fifteen minutes to come to the right solution.
He suggested that one of the boys gets off on the other side and the other boy gets off at the side where the soldiers are. Then, the soldier would pass the river. After that, the boy that’s on the other side would come and take the one that stayed with the soldiers and leave it on the side where there’s only one soldier. Then he would get off on the side with the seven soldiers, and another soldier would get in the boat…. etc.

5. Alex missed almost all of the answers on this exercise. This is what he answered: water; winter; Sisyphus; boxing; waiting; Ireland; England; hidden ace; paper; polish; flood; posh; photograph; sun; surprise; bell; Johnny; rabbit; jewelry; boring. He thought that the exercise was extremely culturally biased and that he didn’t feel guilty for having given so many wrong answers.