Creativity in Education

[Hal Portner]

"Members of the Teacher Leaders Network discuss the critical need for creativity in their profession and in students' learning."

I just read the above article and it evoked an "its about time!" from me since I've been advocating this for years. Any thoughts? Read the entire article at:

http://www.teachermagazine.org/tm/index.html

[Tim Hurson]

For years, one of my mantras (can you have more than one?) has been, It's not what you know, but how you think. My sense is that, with a few wonderful exceptions, education in North America focuses on the teaching of facts (or sometimes opinions clothed as facts) rather than how to think. Facts are okay, I suppose, but they're becoming increasingly easy to look up. What's really important is how we use those facts, how we use our heads. Precious little effort seems to be devoted to teaching people how to do that.

I had an interesting experience a few weeks ago. I went to a reunion of my alma mater, Oberlin College. Oberlin has always prided itself on matriculating very intellectual students. And, indeed, the grey matter seemed to be dripping out of people's heads in the various forums I attended (it was also kind of fun to see such a broad age range in the forums — audiences with a full mix of current students, recent grads, and class of '40s, '50s, 60, etc.).

Anyway, I had been asked to present some productive thinking material at one of the forums. I was apprehensive, given what I know about Oberlin students and grads, thinking they would take my material as just so much fluff. In my session, I gave people a chance to experience some of the creative and critical thinking tools many of us on the Hub play around with. I ran them through an abbreviated Galeforce exercise, which is one of the core frameworks we use at thinkx. Afterwards, dozens and dozens of people came up to me with versions of: That was fantastic! If only I'd known about this 10 years ago. Why don't we teach this stuff in school? and so on.

Beat me! I guess it's easier to measure whether students have retained facts than it is to measure how well they can use them.

[Krista Knuffman]

And how many of those facts do we remember now, years later? For me, it's very few... they have no application to my current life. "How" things seem to stick in the memory longer, and are much more usable than many of those "what" things we learned in school. I occasionally see what my nephews are studying, and I think to myself, "Who cares? You'll never need that later in life!" They're very smart kids, but "thinking things through" is not part of their repertoire. (Perhaps that's just because they're teenage boys!?)

But really, why don't we teach this stuff in school?

[Hal Portner]

Well, Tim, here's my vision of what education can be if we allow the "inner knowing" of which we humans are capable to replace the business model of "profitable knowledge" assumed to power achievement measured quarterly.
Yes, we need to learn facts and processes, because we need them as tools and guides to thinking; for example, we learn to read so that we can read to learn. And yes, facts are becoming easy to look up -- so, as you point out, we need to learn how to think with those facts -- and beyond. So, an educated person must also know (or suspect) what they need to know and why; know how to access that knowledge; know how, when and where to use it once they have it; how to know whether they used it well and that it served their needs; how to add to that knowledge; and what to do next as result.

Hey, isn't it amazing when we discover how un-uptight folks -- even Oberlin alumni -- are when they have the opportunity to let go of "shoulds" and open themselves to themselves.

[Bill Brooks]

You cannot separate what you know and how you think. Although I agree with Tim that in problem solving and finding opportunities how you think is critically important, in the creative process in general which feed the problem solving process (Wallas, Perkins and that crowd) background, connections, overlaps with other areas of interest, rote facts, attitudes, feelings are all important—and these are the things you know. What the school systems has done in the past has placed too much weight on the facts for facts sake, and very little on what to do with them. In our own class on Entrepreneurship and we do test facts as well as application, evaluation and synthesis of those facts.

In response to Krista’s comment – I remember a considerable amount about what I have been taught. I come up with connections that I really have to scratch my head to figure out where they have come from. These have come from the old style fact learning that was impressed on me (as well as my attitude towards that learning). The school system in my area is starting to move away from the heavy dose of facts to other aspects of learning – but I am worried that the pendulum will swing too far and fact knowledge will be regarded as secondary.

If you don’t have fact knowledge of say the Greek Myths, Physics, Health or Social Studies, the forced connections tools we use in Creative and Productive Thinking loose some of their punch! (If you have no knowledge about a pendulum, and how it moves then the well used and powerful analogy in the last paragraph will have no meaning). The facts are a great base without which thinking about solving problems or finding opportunities would not get started. That is why there are the fact finding steps in both CPS and PT – what you know and what you need/ want to know.

In reality it is not about the knowledge or the thinking but how we relate the two. I agree with both Krista and Tim – thinking skills have been short changed in the past and that needs to be fixed. However over dependence on either facts or thinking reduces the potency of both together.

[Tim Hurson]

I think you are right, Bill. My it's not what you know, but how you think is extreme and is meant as a provocation. Perhaps it falls into the category of All models are wrong but some are useful (attributed to George Box, among others).

Clearly, if we had no knowledge, we would be unable to perform a wide range of mental activities required for creativity, such as analyze problems, make unexpected connections, compare and contrast ideas and so on.

I think the real point is one of emphasis. My sense is that in our schools we have paid a great deal of attention to factual learning, somewhat less to critical thinking, and hardly any to creative thinking. All three are required, we just need to get the recipe right.

I'm enjoying this discussion!

[Garth]

Ruth Noller's formula of C=a(k,i,e) seems to fit a bit here [Creativity is the function of an Attitude that values the beneficial use of Knowledge, Imagination and Evaluation]. While each of the 4 can stand alone their combination is incredibly powerful. The simplicity of her expression obscures its difficult practice. In education I believe very few would attempt to argue creative thinking should be avoided or that facts and critical thinking should be avoided. Rather, the inherent value of both is widely known. The work of developing and sustaining high performing schools is complicated, technical, personal and political. The Change Leadership Group at Harvard suggests there is a "necessary progression to the work of system improvement: 1) Preparing for change by answering the "why change" question, 2) Including others and building the systems capacity for improvement and 3) Improving instruction. Teachers traditionally are drawn to the "autonomy of the classroom" where they can create their own micro learning systems for "their" class. There's a tradition of relationship pitting the administration vs. the teachers as though they are parts of a different system rather than valued partners within the same system with shared goals. The discussions around how facts, critical thinking, problem solving et. differ or are complimentary is, I believe, an innefective use of time and energy. They are all valuable and the real challenge is to develop educational systems and instructional programs that teach both the creative and the facts. It is certainly not for a lack of resources or knowledge of how to do this. CPS itself was proven as one of the most effective methods of improving creative thinking skills through a 2 year longitudinal study which led directly to the world's only Master of SCIENCE degree in Creativity and Change Leadership. In the most recent CPS model the links between thinking skills and process skills is made explicit. For example one creative thinking skill is Curiosity (a skill it is learnable) in CPS we have Fact Finding (a diagnostic thinking skill). So we can teach teachers to create individual lesson plans that have two goals: Creative Thinking Goal and Content Goal at the same time during the same lesson. And again...the responsibility of teaching is traditionally placed soley on individual teachers and not onthe entire system. Creating a shared vision through a constructive conversation among faculty, administration and community (parents, students, businesses, et.) of developing quality learning focused on excellence and involvement at all levels is needed and has been shown to be successful. It's not about whether creativity or facts are more important. It's about honestly and openly acknowledging the importance of C=a(k,i,e) and focusing shared accountability on educational excellence. And don't forget the learners themselves...their voice is invaluable and they need to be exposed to their responsibility in their own learning.
The conversation needs to get deeper and focused on shared responsibility and move away from the shallow blaming on government, administrations, teachers, poor parenting, and unrespecting/unmotivated students. I have yet to meet a student (child or adult) who truly doesn't want to learn. I have met many who do not know how to learn or how to teach and many who do. As Peter Senge (author of The Fifth Discipline) said: "Caught between the imperative of preparing students for the next half-century and the political mandate for short-term performance on standardized tests, many educators are dropping by the wayside but a few are stepping forward with new leadership skills and vision". Wouldn't it be great to leave school with our boxes of crayola's and not just one blue pen? Honestly, it's not about whether facts or thinking are more important...it's about acting on the truth of their "potency together" and creating effective communities of learning and knowing everyone is a part of

[Hal Portner]

Garth, I really like the way Ruth Noller's formula conceptulizes the relationship of factors involved in creativity. C=a(k,i,e) also speaks to the power of systems where each aspect is not only a system in and of itself, but also is essential to the viability of the whole (think fractals). Thanks for adding it and your insights to the discussion.

There may be some hope out there, however.
Governor Ted Strickland (D) of Ohio hosted a three-day summit in Columbus this week to promote a new classroom environment, one that is more adaptable and less focused on high-stakes testing, reports Catherine Candisky of The Columbus Dispatch. The system is one the governor believes will help Ohio graduates succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy. The Governor's Institute for Creativity & Innovation in Education will bring teachers and education advocates together to share ideas and come up with new ones. "It is an attempt… to talk about how we can have a system of education that does in fact encourage and foster creativity and innovation," Strickland said. "Because we have become scared and frightened that we have fallen behind, there has been a tendency to emphasize sameness in curriculum. We are trying to force some students into a mold, and we perhaps neglect to appreciate or understand the full array of abilities and potentials that exist within a student."
you can read the entire article at:
http://dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/06/18/EdTe...

[Tim Hurson]

Garth! I love what you say, but I find it oh-so-hard to read! I don't know about others, but I for one would find it so much easier if you paragraphed (with line spaces in between)!

I look at your posts and they are a wall of words to me, I'd benefit so much more if they were pathways.

Thanks.

[Hal Portner]

Tim and Garth,
"Is Google making us stupid?" asks Nicholas Carr of The Atlantic Monthly. "The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I've got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after." But, he writes, "That boon comes at a price… What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." He says he's not alone. His friends agree that the more they use the Internet, the harder it is to concentrate on long passages of writing. Carr also cites a recently published study of online research habits from the University College London that examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and other sources of written information. The researchers found that people using the sites exhibited what they called "'a form of skimming activity,' hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they'd already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would 'bounce' out to another site."
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

[Garth]

Tim,
Thank you. It's true...from my head to the keyboard is such a stream of consciousness. I'll work to simplify, clarify and provide a pathway for individuals to verify! Great feedback!

Guess I've got the "scuba diver" preference needing balance by the "Jet Ski"!

[Gay Stephenson]

Garth, the last paragraph of your post jumps out at me. Everyone has a desire to learn - but sometimes it gets turned off, or down so low that interest wanes. Creating that spark, and teaching in a way that others can learn is where the challenge lies. This is an amazing conversation. I live in Ontario, Canada where we are grappling with the pressures of political mandates based on the outcomes of standardized tests. Our government committed to supporting education, but even so, the politics can get in the way. We are championing a campaign to re-imagine education in the 21st century. It's just beginning - that's how I found this discussion. We're at http://schools-at-the-centre.ning.com/

[Garth]

Hi Gay,
Thanks for your comment and what a trip to be re-imagining education! I'm not certain which post you are referring to, could you let me know?

I followed the site link you posted and there is certainly a lot of energy keen on community collaboration and education. I'll poke around there a little more!

cheers,

Garth