Jason renshaw on creativity and teaching ESL

He was interviewed by TEFL.net.  Here's an excerpt and follow the link for more.

I guess I have always been full of ideas, and I think that can be traced to five aspects of my childhood:
1. Growing up without much in the way of TV or video games.
2. Being crazy about Lego from a very young age (and never all that interested in making the model on the box cover – always wanted to make new stuff!).
3. Spending my formative teenage years in a tiny rural town in Victoria, where to have fun you needed to be creative!
4. Being an avid reader and story-writer all the way through school.
5. Being a regular player (and later gamemaster and materials writer) of adventure role-playing games.
Other than that, I think I’ve been heavily influenced by my father in terms of always doing a job to the best of your ability, including being willing to challenge authority or the “done thing” when and where necessary. I had a range of different jobs (everything from supermarket work to managing pubs and even tourism marketing) before getting seriously into teaching, which gave me a good wide perspective about living and working, but also gave me chances to be creative in roles one might otherwise assume were boring or without much scope for thinking outside the box. I also went to one of Australia’s most prestigious universities and found it awfully stuffy… I think rebellion is a natural part of a lot of the creativity we see in people!

via his own blog.