Towards the Possible: The Creative Mindset CHARLES C. JAMES
There is something uniquely and essentially human in the endeavor to make things novel, new, and better. So why does creativity tend to diminish the older a student gets, and what is my role in teaching the language, practice, and potential of the creative mindset?
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reativity is the science and art of the possible. St. Andrew’s preschool through 12th grade design thinking program embraces the practices that allow students to think past experience and learn to discover beyond the known. For years, researchers believed that the genius of creativity was reserved for a few special individuals like Marie Curie, Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Drew, or Vera Rubin. In fact, the opposite is true. Creativity is natural, and everyone can increase their creative ability.1 It is non-creative behaviors that are often learned and reinforced in so many educational settings. In the 1970s, Dr. George Land of the New York Academy of Sciences conducted a research study to test the creativity level of more than 1600 students across grade levels.2 He administered a test given by NASA to help select innovative thinkers and tested the students across their elementary, middle, and high school years. The results were revealing. Youngsters developed from creative creatures (98% tested in the creative range at the lower elementary levels) to cautious learners (12% tested in the creative range at the high school level). “What we have concluded,” wrote Land, “is that non-creative behavior is learned.” But this does not have to be the case — every student retains the potential to be a creative individual, and making this so is part of my mission as a teacher and Director of the D!Lab program at St. Andrew’s. Teaching creativity is not as much about
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the instruction of a single process as it is introducing a variety of approaches to learning that prevents the lithification of concepts, ideas, and facts into monolithic obstacles to fresh insights. Historically, some of the darkest days of humanity were those narrowed by years of rigid thought and little invention. At St Andrew’s, our goal is to teach expansive views of problem-solving practice that introduce a consciously creative reflex, a keen ability to question, and an openness to new ideas. Where does creativity reside? From research, we are beginning to map the brain systems involved in creativity, and know that areas such as the prefrontal cortex and systems such as the default-mode network and executive control network are important.3,4 But beyond just the brain, we know that creativity is a culmination of our DNA, of our environment, our experiences, our culture, and our personality. The ability to develop novel approaches and ideas, the essence of creativity, is complicated, and rewiring our brain to be more creative is not simple. The constellation of skills and abilities that is creativity is easy to sense, but hard to describe and challenging to teach. What we do know about creativity is enlightening. As with other cognitive abilities, our DNA and our environment both contribute to our creativity. Yes, some people do have a genetic predisposition to creativity, but there is enough brain plasticity that we can all be creative individuals. Environment means a lot more than just the physical
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