Notes from Creativity Class
Drawing for learning matters
I do not know my community of students. They are new to me. I am new to them. We come from opposite sides of the world. In what ways might I provide content that is visually interesting and stimulating for students?
Put another way, what is the value of me sharing my visual world for their meaning making?
toward a collaborative approach
“Draw whatever you want,” was the instruction. One thing I do know about the student community, maybe even the communities in this part of the African world, is that people really love arts. That was enough to go on and take a risk.
With chalkboard, good quality chalk (my choice) and imagination, the students got right to work. I had no idea what would come.
As if the students knew exactly what to do, out came an explosion of imagery into another world.
The results: a stunningly bold, colorful, playful, collection of folk art. What little did I know...
-What might be the student’s world?
-In what ways could I learn from students?
-How could art making deepen learning?
and develop creativity
Also,
Not one person asked, “Is this good?”
Not one person said, “I’m not a very good artist.”
Not one person said, “I’m not very creative.”
Wow.
Wow because comments like these come up all the time among stateside students. Ten year old kids made exactly these comments to me, that’s how I know.
Drawings made by 18-25 year olds, an age group that might feel more intimated in the West did not flinch when given an open cavas. They were ready, hungry even.
Great art, great lesson on all sides -
First, a window though which to gain insight from my audience? That’s useful.
Second, a rich slide pack to use as content for learning? Novel indeed.
Third, student artwork used for classroom learning? How inclusive.
We all do our best work when the environment is open and encourages the community, whether student, employees or family members are encouraged to do what they can and want to do well.
These picture are bold, beautiful, visually interesting and absolutely something to stimulate English language learning.
Let’s face it, there’s enough white washed content used for learning. What if we invite local color, literally, from the community we want to engage and go for a rich, dynamic lesson and yes, collaborative education.
Learning is a multidirectional street.
Im chalking this one up to teaching creatively.
Fun while learning. Yep. Thanks students.
This blog documents an educational pilot in Madagascar at Wings of Change on teaching for Creativity.
Wings of Change is a vocational hospitality school and hotel social enterprise with the twin mission of lifting youth out of poverty through education and impacting the wider community.
More at Wings of Change
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Cocoa by Nousca
Vanilla by Niola
A chameleon by Romeo
Coconut tree by Helena
Big bananas by Ismael
Class Notes of Creative Thinking Skills
Formulating Challenges
How to get from here to there?
A map is an obvious answer.
What if there is no map? No Google Maps? No Wifi?
What if there is no obvious answer? Ugh.
How to achieve a goal, wish or challenge is a challenge in and of itself. This is why spending time on discovering what is in-between the current state and the desired future state is important.
There is a gap between now and the future desired state. What might be all the things in the way, as obstacles or as unforeseen challenges?
What must be overcome to achieve the goal?
A strategic gap analysis identifies critical issues that must be addressed in order to achieve the goal. This is what formulating challenges is all about and the real problems start to emerge.
One way to become fluent in English is to listen to music. Seems like a great idea. It’s fun. And free. Music is readily available online. And yet, as full time students, there is not much time to listen to music, let alone study it in detail as a process for building fluency.
In fact, time is a barrier to learning English through music. Spending time on learning English through music is a roadblock to learning hospitality skills.
The creative process is fluid. Stopping, restarting and iteration is all a part of the creative process.
Back to the proverbial drawing board…
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How to get from here to there? What’s standing in the way?
What’s in the way of the vision?
Hospitality Skills at Wings of Change
Class Notes on Creative Thinking Skills
Exploring the Vision
Identifying Goals, Wishes and Challenges
If we are to start at the beginning of the creative process, this is the time to vision, to imagine and to dream about hopes and desires for a future ideal state.
Imagining what is desirable activates a mindset focused on possibility. Many, if not all of the things we have now began as an imagined thought. Imagine that!!
Through Visionary Thinking
Imagine a magazine or newspaper front cover a year from now with your vision. What would it say?
Let’s say becoming fluent in English is the headline. Seems pretty reasonable, if not a stretch for an ESL cohort. For now anyway.
And this is why visions matter.
Act Toward the Direction of Intention
With a vision in mind, a destination is set. It may be far out in the distance. It may seem lofty or even far-fetched. That’s fine. That is what visions are: big hairy audacious goals or BHAGs.
Unconstrained free thinking in order to expand horizons beyond what might be normally considered…yep, that’s where visions have the headspace to emerge.
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Exploring the Vision
Visionary BHAG
Statement starters for visionary thinking:
“It would be great if…”
“Wouldn’t it be great if…”
To explore negative images of the future:
“It would be awful if…”
Notes on Creativity Through English
Defer Judgment
How we think matters.
The piece is silly, weird, ambiguous
and yet somehow recognizable.
The piece is also correct.
This drawing is an experience in what it is like to defer judgment.
Thinking matters
A new season brings a new cohort to Wings of Change. New faces, new opportunities and new perspectives to see things differently, are always available to us.
Knowing how to see things differently is exactly the right approach in sharing with students how they might approach their own learning. In becoming more creative, students develop a capacity for original thought and can become better problem solvers.
for Problem Solving.
A lot of problem solving is sequential. That is to say, a lot of problems follow a pattern, a structure, a sequence of tasks in order to achieve the final goal. Cooking, addition and running a hotel are examples of challenges that require a capacity for sequential thinking and doing.
Sequencial problem solving is important!
A lot of problem solving is also resolving something complex and unclear. Unclear, because a lot of solutions are possible and ucovering what solution is best is the real problem. A sudden (think COVID) or particularly complex (think COVID again) situation can throw us for a loop and then thinking clearly for any solution can be a challenge. Pausing and having a toolkit for processing information is key in crafting a desired outcome. This is where creative capacity matters.
Complex problems are everywhere!
The Creative Process
More optimistically, exploring what possiblities are out there before possibly considering what decision could or should be made is central to what the creative process is all about.
How to cook is different from deciding what to put on the menu. How to cook is creative certainly, and is also highly sequential. What might all the dishes to put on the menu… well, now that just opens the door to infinite possiblity right there. Of course contraints and requirements such as budget and resources play a significant part in that decision making, but I digress…
Defers Judgment
We kick off each new cohort at Wings of Change in deferring judgment. That’s what the drawing is about. Deferring judgment means to delay any decision making, to put off deciding just about anything, until a decision would need to be made.
Take towels for example. Room towels can be folded in any number of ways.
There’s the standard square towel fold. And then there’s crazy fun towel folds such as flowers, lizards, elephants and the like. Like napkin folding, there seems to be endless possiblites of towel folding.
Exploring what might be possible is a great way, perhaps the best way to then determine what idea stands out and could be developed into a solution.
Allowing Something Novel and Useful to Emerge.
When shown some options, the lizard towel fold always gets the most laughs among students. I wonder how towel folding might serve as a good example in creative thinking and problem solving. I can imagine there will be some practice needed, failures for sure and eventually, something novel and useful will emerge as a cool towel fold…who knows, we may end up something even more interesting than a towel lizard.
Of course, to get to the right towel fold decor, deferring jugdment will have to happen. Some folds may be too complicated, too time consuming, too crazy etc… Let’s explore and see what happens!