“We’ve come to a point in our history in which continuing to do what we’ve always done is no longer an option. We must do better. It begins, as it always does with each of us taking a stand. Imagine if . . . “
Kate Robinson
“Ready or not. Here I come!” The pandemic disruption for education arrived riding on a whirlwind of global chaos. Who could imagine, in this day and age, a disruptor of this magnitude? Ramifications were immediate, some profound and others irritatingly annoying. Within a short period of time, all educators realized how impacting and long-lasting this “ride” was going to be.
At the peak of the crisis, UNESCO data showed over 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries out of school. Over 100 million teachers and school personnel were impacted by the sudden closures of learning institutions. The structured settings for learning had been turned upside down. Bringing traditional teaching and learning to a screeching halt. We can only imagine the personal turmoil (for all educators) ensuing since the beginnings of the pandemic.
Call for Change
Disruption, on this level, over the last two years, was on a cataclysmic level. If there was ever a time to rethink schools, the time is now. So with that in mind, let’s take a moment and reflect on the future of education. Could this be the Tipping Point to instigate radical changes in public education? A new era? One that leads to innovative products and services. Quite possibly. For quite some time educators and world leaders have been discussing the need to rethink how we educate and prepare future generations. Two recent publications offer some compelling research and “food for thought.”
The late Sir Ken Robinson solidified the need for creativity in education with his creativity crisis 2006 TedTalk Do Schools Kill Creativity? Now viewed by over seventy two million. This month, March 2022, his daughter, Kate, posthumously released a compendium of his vision for education. Imagine If . . . Creating a Future for us All. In this text, Sir Ken identified 8 Core Competencies that should be “interwoven from the beginning of a student’s education journey and nurtured throughout.” Here are some of his Creativity Core Competency beliefs.
As the challenges facing young people proliferate, it is essential to help them develop their unique creative capacities.
Creativity is possible in all areas of human life. It can be cultivated and refined, which involves and increasing mastery of skills, knowledge, and ideas.
Zhao and McDiarmid’s 2022 release,Learning for Uncertainty, provides an intense compilation of present day driving forces behind needed changes in education.
We can imagine a personalized curriculum built on each student’s strengths and designed to support and guide the development of the student’s interests and talents. This could be in addition to the mandatory curriculum, or some of the required curriculum could be part of the personalized learning experience . . . the big message is that schooling can no longer continue as it has been.
McDiarmid and Zhao
Transformations
This pandemic crisis, for the most part, transformed the role of the teacher into the role of the student. Teachers had expertise in their craft, but now found themselves spending a great deal of time intensely wondering about how to persevere in a virtual learning environment. Facing challenges on every level to learn “how to” do it differently. Teachers were forced into adopting new instructional technology and accompanying pedagogies. Students, even though they mostly knew the technology, had to adapt to unfamiliar ways of interacting and learning in a virtual environment. In other words – a challenging mess. A conundrum.
Conundrum – a confusing or difficult problem. The problem is often difficult to analyze or resolve.
This is exactly where it began for all teachers and students. Together – facing the conundrum of the pandemic. Teachers did what they do best. They started problem solving. As life-long learners, they turned to resources and colleagues to collaboratively figure out a different way of navigating daily life as an educator. Approaching each day with the “heart of a teacher” – uppermost in their minds the well-being of their students.
Promising Possibilities
There are some very positive take-aways from this upending experience. It “naturally” forced all educators into further exploring some of the more promising practices. One’s that support a more student-centered learning experience.
Flipped, hybrid, blended classrooms. Naturally creating a self-paced learning environment for students.
Differentiation and individual pacing. Time for remediation, acceleration, and enrichment.
Numerous recorded teaching sessions. Students can REWIND and REPEAT and PAUSE! A great space for remediation and acceleration.
The pandemic left educators with a bevy of new resources created out of the chaos of instant virtual classrooms. At the top of this list is all the teacher-created recorded lessons. The next step is figuring out the “how to” of moving back into the classroom and finding purposeful ways to use “all the lessons learned” without further frustration and exhaustion. Fortunately, there are educational leaders already taking up this charge. Innovating education. Here are two impacting resources created in response to the growing need for virtual learning environments:
Kareem Farah’s Modern Classroom Project – cohorts of educators world-wide implementing blended, self-paced, mastery-based instruction. This includes workshops to help educators build lessons for their classrooms.
Keep Indiana Learning – supports educators everywhere with instructional resources, professional development opportunities, and other best practices. This includes on-demand workshops for educators, as well as live coaching.
New Beginnings
The conundrums of life are ever present. For our students to thrive in this new world, they will need the skills of creativity: critical thinking, creative thinking, communication, and collaboration. The very ones that served all educators well over the past two years of the pandemic. The very ones that enhance student involvement in future-ready programs and prepare them for the unknown challenging futures they will face. Perhaps this pandemic experience will result in a renewed belief and confidence in adopting innovative policies and practices.
“Usually, the main problem with life conundrums is that we don’t bring to them enough imagination.”
Thomas Moore
Imagine if . . . one day, we can look back on these past two years as the Tipping Point. One that rocketed education into a new era. A place where both teachers and students find personal and professional happiness and success. Here’s your chance. Now’s the time. Take a stand.
The structured settings for learning had been turned upside down. Bringing traditional teaching and learning to a screeching halt.
Teachers did what they do best. They started problem solving. As life-long learners, they turned to resources and colleagues to collaboratively figure out a different way of navigating daily life as an educator.
For quite some time educators and world leaders have been discussing the need to rethink how we educate and prepare future generations.
What if educators join together to look at the disruption caused by the pandemic as the opportunity to do school very differently – the way many of us have been dreaming of for some time?
Bodacious. Now there’s a word fun to say! And to think about. To be bold or gutsy. Showing a readiness to take risks. Strikingly different or unconventional. Arresting or provocative. Courageous, adventurous, fearless, or daring. Seems pretty close to describing a student “caught” in the act of being creative.
So here’s the dilemma. How can we get students to take more intellectual and emotional risks? Bodacious in their creative thoughts. For most students, keeping their creative thoughts hidden deep inside is a comfortable default mode. They have complete “freedom of thought.” No one can criticize, no one can argue, no one can reject, and it costs nothing emotionally. But it’s only “real” in their imagination! We must see or hear students’ thinking to be able to understand and support their creativity. So how do we get what’s on the inside . . . outside?
Judgement
Watching a child tearing off wrapping paper, ripping open the box, and diving into a mound of Legos instantly reminds us of what it means to play creatively. The pile of unsorted blocks quickly become spaceships, superheroes, giant spiders, and on and on. Kids just play without interference of forethoughts or afterthoughts. “Did I get this right?” They do so quite naturally. No expectation or pressure of some kind of preconceived product, outcome, or ranking. Playing with things, ideas, or creative thoughts in the classroom have the same basic environmental needs. No external or internal forms of judgement required.
External Judgement
When students share a creative idea or thought, they run the risk of rejection, being laughed at, ridiculed, or even worse. Their idea may be misunderstood and quickly dismissed. If this happens in classrooms, students soon learn to keep their creative ideas and wonderings to themselves. It is easier and less painful.
Internal Judgement
One difficult part of the creative process for many students is being in a state of ambiguity or uncertainty. They may experience a great deal of anxiety, tension, nervousness, and even physical discomfort. Wondering “Is this right?” “Will this work?” “Is this the correct way?” They are now officially out of their comfort zones! This engagement level is where all creative ideas originate. And a place where many are stymied.
F.O.L.F.
The Fear Of Looking Foolish. You and your students can have fun playing with this acronym. Rick coined this term when he was conducting Humor in Education professional learning sessions with teachers. Students will have to come to terms with F.O.L.F. in their own minds and on their own time. Some will blossom early on, and for others it will take more time and practice to break through this psychological barrier. Practicing thinking creatively in an intellectually and emotionally safe classroom environment builds security and trust. Freeing minds from the fear of possible embarrassment or judgement.
So how can we create classrooms where students feel free to explore and expose their creativity?
Intellectual and Emotional Safety Zones
You may be wondering how you can teach without judgement. There’s a whole lot of necessary grading and directions going on in any learning environment. But less can be more. To make our classrooms intellectually and emotionally safe places for students to grow the mindsets and skillsets of creativity requires that we:
provide feedback more formatively
include more open-ended learning opportunities
establish norms to protect and promote creative expression
Formative feedback and open-ended learning are part of “what we do” as educators. We’re guessing establishing norms to protect creative expression may feel a bit daunting. Something that definitely wasn’t in the “playbook” of your teacher education program. Fortunately, Alex Osborn coined the term brainstorming, creating four rules that are just what’s needed to get started on designing a safe, supportive creative learning environment.
Rules of Brainstorming
Many Ideas – lots and lots – the “more the merrier”
Free-Wheel – go “wild and crazy” – get “out of the box”
Piggyback – feel free to connect to someone else’s idea
No Judgement – in any form – what they say and what they do
Many Ideas and No Judgement seem pretty familiar and straight forward. Be forewarned and on the “lookout” for the many forms of judgement. They can sneak into the classroom wearing many disguises: looks, sounds, actions, and expressions. And the most subtle, but equally harmful . . . body language. Have fun asking your students to show all these forms of judgement to make them realize their impact.
When we are asked, “How will I know when I’ve got it right?” we share two strong indicators we observed in our classrooms.
When you overhear one student saying to another student,
“Whoa, you are breaking one of our rules of brainstorming.”
The best “sign” is when you hear a student express a very unusual idea and you hear and/or “see” their classmates saying “WOW!” instead of “WHAT?”
Risk Taking
Sir James Dyson is a great example of someone who has taken numerous creative emotional and intellectual risks and asked many “What if” questions. For example, he thought, “What if we made a wheelbarrow without a wheel?” “I know, let’s make a fan without any blades.” And perhaps his most famous bodacious creative thought: “How about we design and create a vacuum cleaner without a bag!”
James Dyson has asserted the importance of failure in one’s life. “I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum cleaner before I got it right. That meant 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure. I’ve always thought that schoolchildren should be marked by the number of failures they’ve had. The child who tries strange things and experiences lots of failures to get there is probably more creative.”
Help students to understand that once they have a creative idea, the next step is to transform it into another state. Draw it. Write it. Sing it. Play with it. Build it. And when it’s time – share it. One of the greatest gifts you can give to your students is the belief and the ability to pursue a creative idea without fear of feeling different. Total creative “freedom of thought.”
“Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.”
James Conan Bryant
Creativity fuels the meaning of life. It artistically fuels the soul. It emotionally fuels the heart. It’s the fresh and the new! It’s the unique and the different! It’s connecting the dots not previously connected! But creativity always involves change. Every original creative act someone undertakes opens a doorway for change. Help your students embrace change by becoming emotional and intellectual creative risk-takers. Encourage more guessing, taking chances, trying it out, and more playing.
The more students practice these creative behaviors, the more they will begin to stretch out of their comfort zones. Eventually becoming their new default thinking and learning style. Their self-confidence will grow along with their self-esteem when it comes to approaching creative challenges.
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Anais Nin
FOR YOUR CLASSROOM
If you want to help your students enhance and embolden their creative thinking, you can begin by “remodeling” your classroom.
Make your students more aware that your classroom is a safe place to take risks, ask questions, guess, fail, and make mistakes.
Provide more time for student thinking, reflecting, revising, tinkering, reviewing, redoing, pondering, and practicing.
Model the behaviors you want to see in your students.
Push yourself beyond the feeling of responsibility for all phases of teaching and learning. Allow students to go in different directions. Let stuff happen.
Use supportive phrases and questions that encourage creative thinking. Ask questions with thinking stems: What if? How might we? How could?
Establish the Rules of Brainstorming as classroom norms.
Frequently ask students to “Tell me your thinking.”
LET’S REFLECT & REMEMBER . . .
Bodacious Creativity (bold, gutsy, unconventional, provocative, courageous) involves both emotional and intellectual risk taking. Seems pretty close to describing a student “caught” in the act of being creative. Strive to make your classroom an intellectually and emotionally safe place for students to grow the mindsets and skillsets of creativity.
Creativity fuels the meaning of life. It artistically fuels the soul. It emotionally fuels the heart. Creativity opens the doorway for change. Help your students embrace it. Expand their intellectual and emotional comfort zones. We must see or hear students’ thinking to be able to understand and support their creativity.
Help students to understand that once they have a creative idea, the next step is to transform it into another state. Draw it. Write it. Play with it. And when it’s time – share it. One of the greatest gifts you can give to your students is the belief and the ability to pursue a creative idea without fear of feeling different.
Initial emotional reactions to any unexpected display of creativity may bring feelings of surprise, amazement, delight, or perhaps even our favorite British expression – gobsmacked! Imagine turning a corner in the grocery story and being presented with a “smiling” wall of peppers. Stopping you in your tracks. Making you smile. Causing you to exclaim “Cool!” “Awesome!” All these reactions, quickly followed by a laugh, create a happy moment squeezed into a mission of grocery shopping.
Being Open
Creativity is all around us! Perhaps you feel challenged or unsure of its place and purpose in your classroom. Wouldn’t it be interesting to bring those accompanying feelings of surprise to learning environments? The first step is to help students be more open to new encounters and perspectives. Making them aware of things that may have previously gone unnoticed. For instance, you could have walked up to the “smiling” vegetable display and thought, “Oh, I see the one I want – the yellow one. It’s on the middle ‘shelf’.” Having a conversation about this photo of “smiling” vegetables might be a fun place to start.
“Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.”
~ Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
Wonder Walks
Learning and honing the skill of being more observant is the second step. Encourage students to go on Wonder Walks on their way to school, at the mall, around their neighborhood, in the science museum, or in the heart of a big city. A fun one to do is a Wonder Walk of their favorite color. Here’s one we did of everything yellow on our way to and through Denver Botanic Gardens.
Challenge your students to continue to seek and find example after example of creativity everywhere – using their open, unboxed imaginations. Start building a Wonder Wall (sketches, photos, and ideas) to capture their observations and insights. A great place for students to visit for future inspirations as they design and create their own products
After the initial burst of emotions (following creative encounters), students’ curiosity and wonderment immediately take over. Spurring questions. “Why did they do that?” “How did they come up with that idea?” And as in the case of the “smiling” peppers, “I wonder who actually stacked the peppers that way?” “Are there any other creative displays in the store?” I wonder conversations are great places to jump start students’ imaginations and to create a buzz of engagement.
Dendrites in High Gear
Creativity throws our dendrites into high gear! You see, the brain craves novelty! Just the stimulus to inspire students to want to know (and do) more. They might begin to think of other ways they could display merchandise. Cans could be stacked to create a flag around the 4th of July. Cereal boxes could be arranged to form a Christmas tree. All these experiences prepare their minds for the type of thinking needed to creatively solve problems and design projects. Making them future-ready thinkers!
Mind Jumping
It continues to get more exciting as students mind-jump from one idea to another in response to a simple photo or display. They quite naturally make connections to past creative encounters, such as a halftime college football show of bands making elaborate kaleidoscopic human formations (like the pepper display). And the best part . . . at this juncture . . . students begin to ponder, “Hmmmmmm, I could do something like this in my work.”
Now that students have had a bit of practice recognizing creativity, ask them to share the most fascinating creative encounter they’ve had so far. Celebrate! Congratulations are in order! They observed it. Discovered it. Spun off new thoughts and ideas! Grab on to their emotions and celebrate the moments together. Have them focus on the creative wealth brought into their lives! Reminding them creativity once discovered will be there again tomorrow, And forever. They just have to seek it out! And don’t we all feel a bit of excitement and appreciation caught up in the sharing of creative endeavors? Hope it was an AWESOME feeling!
“Creativity is contagious – pass it on.”
~ Albert Einstein
FOR YOUR CLASSROOM
It may be useful to examine photos of classic works (art, music, architecture) to encourage and inspire students to 1) observe more closely, 2) think more critically, and 3) make new connections. During the activity, students freely share different observations, perspectives, and viewpoints.
A second activity is to take students on a group Wonder Walk around your school building or outdoor areas. Give students a blank sheet of paper. Ask students to jot down or sketch their creative observations. What is something they never noticed before? What is something they now think of as creative? When finished, return as a group to reflect and discuss. Build an on-going Wonder Wall of sketches and ideas to use as springboards for future creative projects.
LET’S REFLECT & REMEMBER . . .
Future-ready educators look for creativity in all content areas and find ways for students to explore and express their creativity – maximizing student engagement.
First recognizing and appreciating creativity helps students practice being open to new experiences. Honing the skill of observation is the next step.
Creativity throws our dendrites into high gear! You see, the brain craves novelty!
In Curiosita Creativity-Based Learning we talk about making creativity tangible and teachable. It begins with new mindset interactions. Listening and looking at things differently. When you ask your students to talk about creativity, do they get stuck in conversations involving drawing, dancing, or performing? Do they see the creative cool things around them everywhere? Do they recognize the creativity behind all the big innovations? Do they believe they are creative? Do they think of creativity as something fun to do after all the learning?
Do you believe you can make a difference in how your students understand creativity?
What we are talking about here is shifting students’ mindsets. Shaping students’ mental and emotional internal environments, as well as their physical external environments, to foster creativity. Sounds a bit daunting when we put it that way. Right?
For Your Classroom
Here’s a simple and fun place to start working on creativity mindsets. Designate a bulletin board for the display titled Creative Inspirations and Explorations. Begin by asking students to find interesting photos. Ones that “speak to them” about creativity. Tell them to think of this as building a creativity wall collage together. One that can go on and on and on! Emphasize they are searching for images that excite them, or as we like to say, “Knock My Socks Off (K.M.S.O.).”
You will notice the lines begin to blur between environments as you design your classroom (external environment) in fun, funky, and flexible ways to get brains (internal environment) churning with ideas and possibilities.
Five Mindset Conversation Starters:
What is Creativity: Have students share their thoughts about their favorite photo. Why is it creative?
Ideas, Designs & Stories: Encourage everyone to go to the Creative Inspirations and Explorations bulletin board when looking for fodder for an idea, design, or story they are pondering.
Arts & Sciences: Designate themes: science, space, general creativity, music, etc. Challenge students to recognize creativity in both Arts & Sciences.
Creativity in Everyday Life: Select a photo and have students write for one minute using a creative comment stem like: How might we? What if? I wonder . . . as journal prompts?
K.M.S.O. Creativity: Have students randomly select a letter of the alphabet and search for something creative that begins with that letter. Encourage them to find ones that K.M.S.O. to share!
Plan for frequent meetings at the Creative Inspirations & Explorations wall collage to chat about creativity! Be sure to share some of your favorites!
Let’s Reflect and Remember . . .
Creativity is tangible and teachable!
Creative, cool things are all around you.
You can help shape your students external and internal environments.
Nature gives us glorious creative visions with the coming of each season. Spring is an especially enchanting display of objects that catch our eye and capture our imaginations. We took this inspiring photo as we walked through Denver Botanic Gardens. When we approached the tree from a distance it looked like a tree full of roosting birds. As we moved nearer, we could see it was an azalea tree in full bloom – white flowing petals that looked like cats, helicopter blades, and jellyfish. What do you see?
Perception
What is perception, and what does it have to do with creativity? Perhaps a helpful way to think of perception is to look at some synonyms: insight, awareness, acuity, discernment, observation, and viewpoint. All may have a different emphasis, but they are similar in meaning.
Creativity involves changes in perception; in other words, a newfound way of looking at or viewing something. Perception allows us to look at something and see something different than that seen by others. This is a prerequisite skill to being able to produce at any level of creativity. In our classrooms we noticed students who were more flexible in changing their perceptions demonstrated higher levels of creativity . . . it’s a sign!
Mental Filters
To be more efficient and effective thinkers, we all have mental filters that help us disregard or ignore minor stimuli in our environment. If this did not happen, we would have to pay attention to every minor detail, we would perhaps be prone to sensory overload, and we would never get anything done. However, this very system that facilitates successful thinking often interferes with creative thinking.
Adams (2001) in his classic book Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas, refers to these natural filters as perceptual blocks. They can be cognitive, emotional, or environmental in nature and include:
Fear of taking an intellectual risk.
Fear of making a mistake or failing.
No appetite for chaos or ambiguity.
Fear of the unknown or a need for security.
Judging, stereotypes, and preconceived ideas.
Fear of criticism, ridicule, rejection, or just being different.
Acquiescing to: “The way it’s supposed to be” and “The way it has always been” or “If it ain’t broke . . .”
Clinging to reason and logic versus imagination and innovation.
Past Predictions of the Future
Take a moment to consider another category of perceptual roadblocks to creativity in these Past Predictions of the Future. It is amazing to look back at the predictions made by some experts in their fields and see how unrealistic and even laughable they are today. Epicetus stated it somewhat differently, “What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are.”
What if everyone believed the following and acted accordingly:
“This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” – Western Union internal memo (1876)
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” – Charles Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office (1899)
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas Watson, Chairman, IBM (1943)
“There is no reason for an individual to have a computer in his home.” – Ken Olsen, President, DEC (1977)
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” – Bill Gates, Microsoft (1981)
Logic vs. Perception
Edward de Bono states, “Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.” This makes sense, as the emphasis is traditionally placed in the secure truth of logic rather than the ambiguity and capriciousness of perception. In other words, we often continue to see the world as we initially perceive it, not the way it can be.
For Your Classroom
1. Here is the dilemma. Our practical and useful mental filters can get in the way and become perceptual blocks when we need to think creatively. If we want our students to learn to think more creatively, the major challenge is to teach them ways to temporarily suspend or ignore these perceptual blocks.
2. One simple activity is looking at photos like the one above, the clouds or stars in the sky, and creating your own interpretations. You can find our favorites in our book The Curiosita Handbook of Instructional Strategies and by Googling divergent thinking activities.
3. Flexibility exercises must be practiced daily to produce changes in the malleability (stretching) of the brain. This is an essential trait of the creative mind. It opens the doors to changes in perceptions.
4. The ability to form diverse perceptions is one of the essential steps in becoming a more creative thinker. Being aware of the role perception plays in our creative thinking, and knowing we have the ability to actively or intentionally change our perception, is part of the growth mindset of creativity. We can teach students through frequent practice to throw off their mental chains and open their minds to improved creative thinking.
Let’s Reflect and Remember . . .
Creativity involves changes in perception.
The ability to form new perceptions is an essential step in becoming a more creative thinker.
Perceptual blocks interfere with creative thinking.
We have tools to help us temporarily ignore or suspend perceptual blocks.
. . . and finally we will leave you with a new perception of the beautiful blooming azalea flower.
“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
