Brain, Education, and Inquiry - Fall, 2010: Session 11A

Sorry that this is just getting up here.  Somehow my original post was lost...

This Thanksgiving break, I was given the opportunity to reflect on what my experience was in encouraging creativity in the class room (and out) while I was growing up.  I thought that I engaged in a good amount of art-related activities, cooking, sewing, etc that would indicate the my creativity was fostered yet, I never felt that I was particularly good at any of them, with the exception of cooking.  I looked at my sisters' education for similarities and differences and found that we were all the same type of mediocre at exhibiting our artistic abilities. with the exception of cooking.  Over the break, I looked at many of my young cousins (most of whom are under the age of 10) to see how their creative abilities exhibited themselves while we were interacting in the kitchen, playing card games, and even just sitting around and talking.  What was striking to me was that, although each of them were more or less brought up in the same familial environment and went to the same schools, some of their artistic talents were markedly different.  For example, three of the particularly young cousins wanted ice cream on Thanksgiving evening (because they obviously had not had enough sugar already!) and I decided to indulge them with chocolate syrup and an assortment of colored sprinkles.  One of them just dumped both onto his ice cream while the other two methodically layered specific colors on top of each other to make a certain design or picture.  Although their creative displays were quickly devoured, it struck me that genetics ought to play some sort of role in predisposition or inherent creative ability of children.  How, I am not exactly sure, but it does make sense to me that if your parents are innately creative and have spent time honing these skills over time, that their child would inherit their interest in the arts and creativity (at the very least) as well as a predisposition to being skilled at them.  This child would benefit in an educational environment which fostered this creativity and, more so, would benefit from growing up in a household where creative activities are continuously available.  Just like me and cooking or an athlete playing their sport, practice makes perfect.  Although there is perhaps a genetic predisposition for being more a creative thinker, without practicing and honing this skill, it would deteriorate and go unexercised in practice.

 I think part of the reason why schools might not include/emphasize the creative subjects is that the benefits of these subjects are not immediately obvious and are a lot harder to assess. While it is possible to create tests in math and science and create labs which allow students to show off their knowledge in those subjects, it is a lot harder to do the same for classes that focus more on creativity. It isnt that these classes arent important, in fact im pretty sure I benefitted a lot more from the classes that emphasized creativity than a lot of my classes that focused on traditional subjects. Because the school system follows a rigid timeline and there is an ultimate knowledge goal (measured in terms of state assessments etc.) that has to be reached at the end of this time period, there isnt as much room as there should be for creative classes that might not adhere to this structure. Sure, PE classes might be required up to a point and during those PE classes we had assessment of our physical abilities, but most people I know saw PE as a time to goof off and I think that is a good thing. If schools tried to turn PE into structured school environments, I think they would be eliminating the only really consistent creative outlet that exists in most schools. That being said, I do think there is a lot of room for creativity in "traditional" subjects. Critical thinking is a creative process as it forces students to look at a problem and texts from multiple points of view and see when and where these points of view are important/related to the problem at hand. Perhaps before we begin creating additional creativity requirements in schools, we need to figure out how to bring creativity into the classes that are already being taught. art in math class? dance/physical education in history? 

Thank you for your comments, both in class and on the forum so far! Discussion has been rich and interesting.

Professor, the RSA Animate was such a neat addition to the videos we have experienced in discussion, many thanks. I want to mention a few important things that I drew from it concerning ADHD for further thought. First, it is crucial to understand that out of our culture has sprung this modern epidemic of ADHD. The idea that Robinson presents in the video is that children are being over-medicated in the most intellectually stimulating time ever on planet earth, especially as one moves toward the east in the US (known for vigorous schooling) and as standardized testing increases. In a sense, kids are penalized for being "distracted" or perhaps another way of looking at it is for disrupting conformity/structure (recall our discussions on what is structure and do we need it?). Learning should be aesthetic, in that, all of the senses are awakened and operating at their full peak (when we are fully alive!); medicating kids turns this off, creating an unaesthetic experience, putting the senses to sleep. Does this really make sense? This is obviously a HUGE problem and one that cannot be ameliorated by the school system - I guess this is what you were saying when you projected that we cannot really change education without changing culture. Our culture is stuck in this mindset that all too often disallows aesthetic experience as well as divergent thinking, another point in the video. Divergent thinking is described as being able to see lots of possible answers to a question, a crucial aspect to creativity. Spending all of this time in school being told that "there is one answer, it's in the back, but don't look - and if you do, don't copy for that is cheating" deteriorates our minds. Finally, Ken Robinson points out that our batch-system of education is focused on the age factor. But what makes age so important? I've never even thought of that before! The only excuse I can come up with is maturity level. For example, my nephew is in first grade, and sometimes he deliberately does not do his work, even though he has the ability to do so; he finds his work boring because it's too easy... being assigned addition when he can multiply and divide and what not- he has tested into higher levels, yet many (his school and some in my family) do not want him to skip grade/s because they are worried about his maturity level (yes, he's talking ALL THE TIME and constantly jumps from one thing to the next in conversation)- thinking about this, I am wondering if maturity level is being mistaken for creativity or even awakened senses (aesthetic learning)? In Frost-terms, he takes the road less traveled in every sense... and often he is asked to calm down and obey.

As much as I am fascinated by Robinson - you're right - he doesn't provide solutions on how to get from A to B. But maybe by eliminating batch education based on age is an interesting place to start. Another curious possibility to explore would be to merge classes together (why do we have so many separate subjects?). One great example of this is a class I am taking, merging English and Ecology, called Native Land, American Literature.  There is a beauty in cross-listed classes, especially when they are in fields one would normally assume to be not related.

kgould, I definitely think our material plays into your kaleidoscope presentation, in that we can learn different ways individually - activating the senses - one thing we should explore is that senses are activated differently for everyone. It would be interesting to look at how we suppress/express certain ones and if it is based on personal prerogatives or education?

   Please allow me to indulge the idea that I would like to be manual laborer (or pro athlete) without taking the assertion too seriously.  I would like to be one of the above physical workers because I get really tired and bored of sitting in class/the library all day long and reading and writing.  What I really mean is that I want balance between thinking and acting (physically).  In fact, I think that our education system does a relatively good job of encouraging moving the body, as well exercising the mind, although as we progress in education this balance seems to diminish.  As an elementary, high school, and college student I spent hours every single day playing sports where I learned to move my body.  Now I am lucky to spend hours a week doing so, what a pity. 

  As Ken Robinson said, some (many) people in our society end up being disembodied, as if our bodies are vehicles for moving the mind mind from meeting to meeting (or classroom to library).  It seems that our culture has also become disembodied.  When we speak of modern survival it seems that buildings and structures take precedence over the structure (temple?) that we are, our body.  The single most important element of survival is our body, it is who we are and if we do not take care of it then it becomes dysfunctional.  So here's to embodying the body and encouraging a balance between exercising the mind and the body both in school and everywhere...