We are creative…with effort
One of the Agile Axioms: We are creators.
It takes a certain effort to contemplate mystery and bring an idea into the realm of thought. When this happens it may be considered a form of inspiration. It takes further effort to bring an idea from the world of thought into the realm of words. Texts and discourses may take years to produce and refine. More effort is needed to move from words into manifesting an action or an object that is derived from those words. Experience with materials joined to ideas in such a way as to inspire and assist others by the results is the domain of artists and scientists.
The linked sequence outlined above, of an idea coming to the realm of thought, then to words, then to action is essentially the creative process. It is not obvious, it is not easy, and you cannot force it. Then how on earth do you get it?
Creativity in individuals is ultimately reflected into the community in a variety of forms, and as cultures composed of many communities evolve over time there is an effect on individual creativity that is progressive and transforming. The collective result is that civilization advances or in other words without creativity it does not.
Today at lunch, eating curried noodles, we talked at length about factors that influence the capacities of our students. Learning habits and skill sets acquired in public school over twelve years are only one part of what each student has to work with when they come into our art program. Other factors are related to peer group pressures, media portraits of life, family experiences, teacher training, government funding for schools, and training designed specifically to meet and pass tests. Because our art program is taught at the university level students are not always prepared for the demands of the course work. Our hope is that we can become focused on using our observations to become more astute in refining our methods to teach creativity.
The Agile strategies of using iterations (cycles, sprints), reflection meetings, a queue of work (backlog), one true metric, and group work to move a project forward are valuable notions for dealing with the following questions:
- How do we break down learning habits that are formed mainly in terms of following specific steps, as in following a recipe, to get a predetermined result?
- Imitation is one way of learning but what happens when there is no longer anyone to imitate?
- How do we help students design their own problem sets and carry forward a variety of plans to tackle those problems?
- How do we prepare them to take risks and have no fear of failure?
- When they have successes how do they continue learning in an environment that is changing everything around us all so rapidly?
- In the moment of success or failure how do they maintain their dignity?
Our discussion ended with a reference to Marie Montessori who was able to develop a learning environment based on her observations of how children with learning disabilities were learning in terms of herself (they loved her), each other, the classroom setting, and with their senses. When her methods were applied to normal children they took off like rockets.
Like her, we also need to document what we are learning about teaching creativity but not with young children, rather at the level of these young adults. Their potential for change is close at hand…their dignity gives rise to the destiny of our community.
