Response to Sawyer

Response to Creativity Reading

I find that when I am free to be creative with no obligations to anyone, or my job, I tend to invent constraints that interfere with working. These might be self-doubt, or an errand. I think of something that needs to be done, and use it as a mechanism to get to to the knotty problem of what it is I really want to do. When enough frustration builds, a mental sand-papering occurs, and I get to work. I do not work well in a squeeze-free environment. Contact with other humans, or going for a walk, all lead me away from too much introspection and eventually enough momentum builds, and I work. 

Looking at the world outside creates contrasts, dichotomies, dilemmas, and images in my mind that need to be explored. I am a visual thinking person. I see my ideas as pictures rather than  words, or sounds, I see them as patterns of color, textures, or movements. I don’t think them through in words, but more like a silent movie. In my case, ideas often come into my mind overnight, especially at 3:30am. My subconscious seems to kick in, I wake up and write, or draw. Though I love my job, it interferes with being as functionally creative as I would like to be. Thinking of all my thought experiments and day dreams is very sad. Yet, somehow I hope that when I do get working, I am more efficient, honed, and on target than if I was free to choose the moment. 

For a long time, I felt that art-making was too self-indulgent. My mother in law actually saved lives as an emergency operating room nurse, all the while while raising five kids and organizing a home, and being of far more use to society. Why me? What it is it that makes me want to make things? I can’t get rid of the tension I feel when I don’t act in a creative capacity. 

Myth: Children are more creative than adults.

How do we define creativity? If we had a definition, then we could decide if children are more creative than adults. We know a creative idea when we see one, but have a very hard time defining what the attribute of creativity is. Adults, according to Howard Gardner, are capable of Big C creativity and individuals who are Big C creators are individuals such as Jackson Pollock, Einstein, or Bach who took the field of knowledge of their day, and extended it. These are individuals who did not always get the appreciation they might have wanted, or happiness due in their time. Howard Gardner has also said that children are not creative, meaning that they cannot know the extent of a field of knowledge, and build on it, simply because they are too naive, and young. I believe he is wrong to separate major achievers from “non-achiever” and label one as creative and the other, not. Children can be creative in a children’s world, and in childish ways. They are not inhibited from being silly and exploring all ideas they meet. They do not have the same learned baggage that some adults do. I think of creativity being on a continuum, from small c, to Big C. It is all good, and all valid!

The text says that schools do not squash creativity, they make it possible by providing the means to acquiring knowledge and skills. I disagree. I am a teacher and see creativity-squashing every day.

An ideal school might support divergent thinking and the many temperaments of children it contains, but most do not. We teach predominantly two subjects: logical-sequential reasoning in math, and verbal thinking in literacy skills. In many cases, school curriculum not ask children to use skills they have learned in a creative way; skill attainment leads to the building of more skill, but not exploration of more sophisticated, intriguing ideas. In one school where I teach, children are organized even during recess, which is when creative playfulness might occur. 

The text often discusses ideas of genius, creativity and gifted education, but seems to stick to the idea that IQ tests actually do measure intelligence. I believe they measure a symptom of it, occurring in some individuals, but not the whole substance of a person. The kids in our GT program have certainly done well on these kinds of tests, but they are not always creative, or self-disciplined. I rarely see flow emerging in students as they work. I feel that if a truly extraordinary, genius child showed up in Kindergarten, he or she would be in great difficulty.

Emphasis on high test scores in order to receive school finding has led to a one size fits all education into which students are shoe-horned, regardless of need. Young students very quickly realize that a teacher is looking for particular answers, and that a response should be brief and only tell her what she asks. As young as Kindergarten, if a teacher focuses on the learning the alphabet, for example, well-behaved children will sometimes deny they can read already because that is not the response the teacher seems to want. They can be made to go along with completing work that is pointless for them because they do not know how to advocate for themselves, and teacher-pleasing is very important to them.  Children learn to  feel that a difference in thought i.e. more than one correct answer, to ponder a question, or to have a different, but correct, answer to the teacher is not welcome. Even in an art class, unless the teacher is a creative thinker, artwork can be almost identical from child to child. I have observed a child being scolded for putting grass in a picture without being told to do it. Perhaps all this pressure to do what is expected compels some children to equip themselves with skills and become rebellious creators, but for most, the habit of compliance, of producing what is expected, perhaps never experiencing the creation of anything at all of one’s own, results in a squashing of creativity. It is heart breaking for me to work with a child who sincerely asks “When am I going to learn something?”

The brief history of research into IQ mentioned in the text gives a partial explanation of why today’s schooling is in its current state. A means was needed to identify promising officers for the army, and it was felt that education i.e. knowing things, and being “sharp” was what was needed. The easiest things to measure where ability to calculate, spot patterns in number sequences, shape changes, and verbal analogies. Individuals who could do these things well were perceived as having a high IQ. i.e. good officer material. Individuals who had other abilities, poor and perhaps non-white (there was an element of gender, class and race bias) who were unfamiliar with these types of tasks did not do as well. 

Once a conception of success being connected to high IQ had become established, the desired success in education became much more concerned with math, reading and writing, the subjects on IQ tests. Practical skills began to be eclipsed. Art, vocational training, creativity, music all began to take second place. The only occupation in education that rivals math and literacy is sports.

Another psychologist who is not mentioned in the text is Kasimierz Dabrowski. He observed that some of his patients were unconventional, and depressed; stereotypically  “artists”. Positive Disintegration Theory, (Dabrowski and Piechowski ) suggests that creative individuals see possibilities in information, or life situations that others do not. They may have heightened awareness of sensory input, empathy with others, imagination, physical energy, and curiosity. As we are socialized in childhood, a creative individual may sense a difference, perhaps from family or friends, as they mature. As adulthood approaches and a child becomes more capable and independent, the question of how to function in an adult world must be tackled. A sense of otherness, of not belonging can cause great emotional pain, and separation from the familiar that is extra intense may occur. Identity can be questioned and numerous personas tried out, perhaps in more extreme, volatile ways than is common. Positive Disintegration is the arrival of an adult (usually) at greater self-knowledge and acceptance following a struggle, a de-construction of self that may be spectacular. The path may be long and difficult, but eventually, if left alone to try every solution, Dabrowski felt that Positive Disintegration was a good and necessary thing and that individuals could resolve their existential dilemma if they received acceptance and support on their journey, rather than  pressure to act in a predictable, finite way. 

I painted a watercolor of intertwining thoughts about creativity

Another psychologist who is not mentioned in the text is Kasimierz Dabrowski. He observed that some of his patients were unconventional, and depressed; stereotypically  “artists”. Positive Disintegration Theory, (Dabrowski and Piechowski ) suggests that creative individuals see possibilities in information, or life situations that others do not. They may have heightened awareness of sensory input, empathy with others, imagination, physical energy, and curiosity. As we are socialized in childhood, a creative individual may sense a difference, perhaps from family or friends, as they mature. As adulthoot be tackled. A sense of otherness, of not belonging can cause great emotional pain, and separation from the familiar that is extra intense may occur. Identity can be questioned and numerous personas tried out, perhaps in more extreme, volatile ways than is common. Positive Disintegration is the arrival of an adult (usually) at greater self-knowledge and acceptance following a struggle, a de-construction of self that may be spectacular. The path may be long and difficult, but eventually, if left alone to try every solution, Dabrowski felt that Positive Disintegration was a good and necessary thing and that individuals could resolve their existential dilemma if they received acceptance and support on their journey, rather than  pressure to act in a predictable, finite way. 

Finite and Infinite

I read the Carse book about infinite and finite games and created a project for my 6th grade group about heroes and heroines in folk tales. We compared three different kinds of Cinderella tales:

Walt Disney, Baba Yaga (Russian) and Rash’n Coatie (Scottish). 

I introduced the concepts of infinite and finite i.e. being opposites, operating within a given set of parameters (a folk tale in this case) as well as convergent and divergent behaviors and thinking. 

Each of these stories has the heroine act differently, but sticks to the script of the abused girl having a supposedly happy ending when she marries the prince. This group of students is all girls, so the idea of sticking to social roles, or not, is an important one for them to consider: how much passivity is acceptable to them? What behaviors might decrease their self-advocacy? Is their behavior already scripted and finite?

I made them a Venn diagram of three circles and we decided which Cinderellas had unique actions, and which actions were common to all three. 

The group noticed:

That a similar set of circumstances befell young girls in separate places in the world, and broadly, the response of the Cinderella character was the same.

Walt Disney Cinderella makes no decisions for herself, is good natured and unquestioning, though sad that she is hungry and shabbily dressed. Her beauty is external as well as internal. She is finite in her actions, and passive, puppet-like in the context of the story.

All Cinderellas have small, dainty feet as befits undisclosed noble people.

All have evil older women in their families, and magical kind ones. The older evil women think nothing of eating small children, mutilating feet to fit them in slippers, or being cruel in general. They are making decisions of an evil kind, whereas the good magical guides such as fairy god mothers, or the red calf, make decisions that perpetuate the finite game as we expect it to turn out.

All Cinderellas are beautiful

Rash’n Coatie kills a calf to survive, she is cunning and tough, but still marries the prince. The girls thought she was a bit more practical.

The cinderella in Baba Yaga commits murder by killing Baba Yaga, but is helped to do this by a kindly aunt who gives her magical tools to do the job. It is not certain that this Cinderella will be safe, but since it is a folk tale, the girls assumed she would be. They noticed that there are not folk tales about girls who are socially unsuccessful, or ugly, or individuals who are done in by magic. Defeated people, or victims of magic are in stories as warnings to listeners to behave, or as props in the drama of the story.

In contrast, we compared Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games to Cinderella. She is, the group decided, also a Cinderella figure with limited options. However, her choices in the story included decisive actions, rather than passive, uncontroversial ones. It is a shock when we realize she must kill or be killed. Katniss, they knew, would suffer, but would triumph eventually. She too, is a finite game player.

Looking for a male counterpart to Cinderella, a 6th grade boy chose Batman: an orphan, lonely, sad, always becoming a bat, always fighting villains (from the same range of villains) and always winning, and compared him to Loki.  The rules Batman follows are decency in fair fighting, protecting the weak, and destroying or routing the villain. There is no deviation from this core plot. We considered the role of Anansi and Coyote who are Loki-like trickster figures who throw a wrench in to the stability of story lines. Both boys and girls preferred the mischief and unpredictability of trickster tales to the stolidity and finiteness of traditional roles.

In consideration of a Judeo-Christian equivalent to the trickster, could the idea of original sin apply? As I see it, this is the human necessity to do cunning things in order to survive. In a mythological world, the bad-actor or Trickster always receives poetic justice: dictators get their bad endings eventually, Baba Yaga gets killed, Loki and Prometheus are eventually unbound etc. Trickster tales have a humorous aspect that soften the horrific actions that humans are capable of, or gods and fate deliver. 

Biblical tales are full of atrocities, yet the perpetrators are enmeshed in a history that moves towards a savior being born (although on a Pagan festival day) so perhaps acknowledging the horribleness of actions in the Bible, unless it is something like the Massacre of the Innocents which nearly prevents Christ’s birth, could not occur because it would interfere with the perceived ultimate good of Jesus’ birthday, life and Crucifixion. Finding any humor in this seems off limits!

• These mica sheets are each about 1inch across, and were part of one mica pebble on a path near my house. The edges of the pebble had been worn away by weather and have deviations in the outline of the basic shape, which looks a bit like the African continent. The grain of individual sheets is not in the same direction. Breaking up something that had been locked together since the Earth was made (well, maybe!) felt very Trickster like.