Alike: A Short About The Importance Of Creativity

Alike is a short that allows us to reflect on the importance of taking care of children’s creativity so that they do not lose it when they become adults.

Alike is an animated short that everyone should see. In fact, it has won countless awards, including the Goya Award for best animated short film in 2016.

These great recognitions are due to the excellent way in which its creators, Rafa Cano Méndez and Daniel Martínez Lara, describe the importance of creativity and how it has been lost over the years  due to a monotonous and dull society .

In this article we present a brief summary of this wonderful video. But, in order to appreciate and understand it, you have to visualize it. Have you not seen it yet? What are you waiting for?

What is creativity?

Before talking about the importance of creativity, you have to know what this concept consists of. Thus, according to psychologist Joy Paul Guilford, being creative implies the presence of the following three skills:

• Fluency : ability to find a wide range of solutions to the same problem.

• Flexibility : ability to see situations from different angles and propose different solutions.
• Originality : thinking in a different and unusual way.
  

In fact, Howard Gardner, the creator of the theory of multiple intelligences, postulates that each of the eight intelligences expresses creativity itself within itself. Therefore, it is essential for the correct cognitive development of children, so it is convenient to allow and encourage children to express their imagination through:

• Music.
• The painting.
• The game.
• Dance.
• Writing.
• The handcrafts.
• Theater.

Alike : a short about the importance of creativity

Alike shows us the sad reality by graphically describing a sad and boring society  in which citizens simply follow the established routine on a daily basis. The little protagonist of the story tries not to follow that gray and monotonous life, but his way of understanding the world does not fit with that of the rest.

Thus, their creativity is penalized and punished until they lose hope and illusion, accepting the rules and becoming one of the herd. Luckily, e l father of this child realizes what is happening: your child is no longer so vital and cheerful as before.

For this reason, it provides a solution to this serious problem, in such a way that it makes the little one see that it is necessary to be creative to enjoy a life full of color, teaching him that he must continue on that path to enjoy happiness.

Conclusions after viewing the short

Thanks to this short, we can conclude that, as mothers, fathers and educators, we have a duty not to let children’s creativity die,  so that teachers must ensure that school attendance does not consist solely of developing academic skills, but also the creative, social, emotional, etc.

Likewise, at home, you must give your children, regardless of their age, freedom to express their thoughts and ideas through art and imagination. Therefore, we must prevent the little ones from losing their essence and identity. We must assume that each person is different, and that is enriching and necessary to achieve a healthy and balanced society, because a world without creativity is an unhappy and useless world.