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Cultivating Creativity and Connection in the Classroom w/ Tom Rendon & Zachary Stier
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How do you define creativity?
Would you be able to spot creativity in the wild?
What about creativity in the classroom?
This endless human quest to define the seemingly undefinable, and somehow make it useful for educators, is what today’s guests Tom Rendon and Zachary Stier set out to do, bringing together philosophy, neuroscience, and site visits, in a years-long collaboration that became Creativity in Young Children: What Science Tells Us and Our Hearts Know.
In this conversation, Tom and Zach help me understand the counterintuitive ways creativity shows up in the world, in the human condition, and how we can cultivate creativity and connection in the classroom.
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Transcript
Harnessing Chaos into Creativity
00:00:00
Speaker
If you can reframe those moments of chaos when you go, oh, we're really getting off topic here as where's the creative energy taking me and how can I ride that like a surfer rides a wave, still getting down, getting back to the beach, right? I just don't to get to the shoreline.
00:00:19
Speaker
But can I reframe that as an opportunity rather than as an obstacle? And maybe the newness and purpose can be a useful way of doing
00:00:33
Speaker
it.
Introduction and Support Acknowledgment
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Human Restoration Project podcast. My name is Nick Covington. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this episode is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are Leah Kelly, Brandon Peters, and Simeon Frang.
00:00:48
Speaker
Thank you so much for your ongoing support. We're proud to have hosted hundreds of hours of incredible ad-free conversations over the years. So if you haven't yet, consider liking and leaving a review in your podcast app to help us reach more listeners.
00:01:01
Speaker
And of course, you can learn more about Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org, and connect with us everywhere on social media.
Defining Creativity in Education
00:01:13
Speaker
How do you define creativity? Would you be able to spot creativity in the wild? What about creativity in the classroom? This endless human quest to define the seemingly undefinable and somehow make it useful for educators is what today's guests Tom Rendon and Zachary Steer set out to do.
00:01:35
Speaker
Bringing together philosophy, neuroscience, and site visits in a years-long collaboration that became Creativity in Young Children, What Science Tells Us and Our Hearts Know.
00:01:47
Speaker
And in this conversation, Tom and Zach help me understand the counterintuitive ways creativity often shows up in the world, in the human condition, and how we can cultivate creativity and connection in the classroom.
Guests' Backgrounds in Education
00:02:00
Speaker
Thanks so much, Nick, for having us on on the show. Love your podcast. Love what you're doing with the human restoration stuff. And so thanks for for having us on. So I am basically an author and consultant focusing on early childhood education.
00:02:16
Speaker
I have this book. And then there was an earlier book i wrote I wrote with Gay Groundlin called Saving Play, about addressing standards through play-based learning in preschool and kindergarten.
00:02:28
Speaker
Written several other articles and resources and chapters and books relating to an emphasis really on early childhood systems, governance, collaboration efforts, social emotional development and equity.
00:02:39
Speaker
So I also consult with two national Head Start technical centers. and also had consulted with the Pyramid Model Consortium. And before that, i was really the I was the Head Start State Collaboration Office Coordinator at the Iowa Department of Education for about 18 years.
00:03:00
Speaker
Hi, my name is Zach Steer, and as Tom said, we're really excited to be on on
Role of Libraries in Early Literacy
00:03:05
Speaker
this podcast. um For almost 14 years, I've been the children's librarian here at Erickson Public Library in Boone, which is really exciting because one third of our entire building, we have three stories, is dedicated to children and families. So I get to come to a little...
00:03:22
Speaker
little kingdom every day as I like to say that I get ah to be responsible for and um i also teach part-time at the University of Illinois. It's called the iSchool which is really dedicated for future librarians. um So I teach two courses there throughout the year in early literacy and I developed a course on public library partnerships um I also have authored, you know, several articles, area of research, obviously creativity is a big one, public library partnerships, family engagement, early literacy, and most recently, um authored my first picture book, which I'm pretty excited about.
00:04:04
Speaker
um So, yeah, just try to dip my toe into as much stuff as I can. You've got a lot of irons in the fire there being busy. Maybe a random side note, but, you know, I know my kids just went back to school. a lot of the metro areas did. Maybe and they did up there in Boone, too. But I imagine you're kind of transitioning out of like the summer programming, the busy season for libraries. Is is that am I getting that more or less or? Yeah, you would know, we do. you're You're absolutely right. We do. I always tell folks, we do 11 months worth of programming and we take one month to transition. That is August. So I know in the month of June, we did 84 programs for children through adults in and July, we haven't even counted, but we're always active. August, again, is my time to connect and reconnect with our partners at the schools.
00:04:55
Speaker
We do outreach programming throughout the year and then, yeah, we'll hit the ground running. Um, so I would say on average every week, even in the fall, we're averaging between five to eight programs, which is great. So we're, we're busy, which we love.
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah. And as one of those parents over over the summer in particular, but all the time who, you know, uses the library as, I mean, ah a resource, a reprieve, ah you know, from either um ah spending a lot of money and ah in in a consumer space um and just a reprieve from the heat to to get in there and and do something ah ah a little bit more connective and a little bit more intellectual. I'm always appreciative of that.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah. and And the last thing I'll say is from an equitable sense, no, none of our programs cost money. So we're able to provide, you know, all households, wherever you come from, some really cool stuff. Our, our kickoff carnival, we do that in June or the first Monday in June, we bring about 50 or so community partners and we line up like two blocks worth of activities. and think this year we were, we were around 1400 people that attended that. So,
00:06:05
Speaker
It was good. And then we're like, oh we have eight more weeks of programming. So onward and upward, I guess. yeah Yeah, we love it. It's good. It's good energy. It's it's a good reason
Collaboration on Creativity Book
00:06:17
Speaker
to be tired. so well that honestly kind of brings into like where i wanted to set the stage with this conversation is like here you are you know two very different backgrounds converging on this issue ah the book is creativity in young children what science tells us in our hearts know of which of course y'all are both co-authors of this so what even led you to to come from the realm of you know library sciences and then ah Tom, with your background and head start to say, let's partner on a book and make that book about creativity and young kids.
00:06:52
Speaker
Well, I'll, I'll, um, I'll jump in here. Um, Tom and I were actually reminiscing a little bit about this because think it's been four years, maybe even five, five and we you know, connected Tom and I did a presentation early on on the subject of creativity. Um, it was very well received. Um, But, you know, i i reached out to him, you know, as with his background and knowing also that he had authored a book specifically on play and had this, this, this request and said, do we let's, do we want to write a book on creativity?
00:07:31
Speaker
Um, and I'll talk more about this later, but for me, I was coming from a space of not only that previous, um, presentation, but also how much creativity has been, such an important part of me as an individual and as a professional and wanting to really to devote strong, you know, attention to an area that while we so know that it's celebrated and know that folks are, you know, participating in creativity, um
00:08:02
Speaker
we we want to make sure that it it has more attention.
Exploring Definitions of Creativity
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah, I just so I'll just add like a couple points of one one really, i think, and important point is that we didn't come at this as sort of creativity experts.
00:08:16
Speaker
You know, we we we really started to dig into this topic and in the topic had been broached by Zach when he when he came up to me. And and so we when we did the presentation, i thought, oh, this is really interesting.
00:08:31
Speaker
And so that really, and then we had a great conversation about it So I thought, yeah, there's not only is this an interesting topic, but people are interested in talking about it. And so, um so then we spent a lot of time sort of beginning a journey on what is creativity and what is it about and wanting to, to, to try to take out of our minds any preconceptions we had about creativity and just dig into what, in fact, people were saying about it, what experts said. So we read a ton of research. We we interviewed a bunch of creativity experts and talked to them
00:09:09
Speaker
We did some field trips out to um child care centers and Head Start programs and libraries and tried to sort of see where we saw creativity playing itself out.
00:09:22
Speaker
and And so the book really is ah is a is a recording of that journey, that of of what we we we discovered and what we found out about it. ah and And I really think that we just scratched the surface of of the implications i um because they were all new to us. And so we're like going, well, there's this you know here's some things we think it could mean. And there's certainly plenty of ideas and things that we think people could do and things that the implications of what we found.
00:09:53
Speaker
reveal, but I also think it really opens a door that I hope other people will come through and and say, well, if that's true about creativity, then maybe this is what I should be doing in my classroom, or this is what my library should be doing, or you know wherever else we connect with the task of educating society.
Understanding Creativity Collaboratively
00:10:13
Speaker
And I think that approach really came across in the book that the idea that this was a journey or an exploration, like you both bringing your backgrounds and perspectives to bear on this question. And right like I think of creativity as an amorphous thing. How do you pin down or define creativity? It seems...
00:10:32
Speaker
it seems almost to be like everything and nothing at the same time. Everybody wants it. We're not all sure how to achieve it. And that's one thing that you touch on really ah early on in the book are those various definitions. I wonder if you could um describe some of the different definitions of creativity that you found as you looked at the literature and talked to experts and maybe discuss the one that you eventually nailed down as being, this is going to be the working definition that we'll at least use for the duration of this book.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there's ah there's a lot of them. Some of them, I think, you know, there's some very there's some very poetic ones. i I just want to read a couple of them because I think they're they're so, they're provocative. At least we thought they they were.
00:11:14
Speaker
Well, we all know about Vygotsky, right? He's well-known theorist. Any human act that gives rise to something new is referred to as a creative act. So this idea of newness comes in Creativity is using our imagination to come up with ideas or to make something new.
00:11:33
Speaker
There was a great a sign outside the Iowa Science Center. And it was this creativity is intelligence having fun. which I found very provocative, or we listened to this. There's a creativity researcher from University of Iowa. I don't think she's teaching any anymore, but Nancy Andreassen, and she's quoting William Blake here, a poem from, to see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.
00:12:09
Speaker
So all these sort of paradoxes and weird combinations. And to get to the second part of your question, I think what we nailed down to have something that was, you know, not just um evocative or poetic, but something that we could actually analyze a little more carefully was a formula that shows up in a number of different researchers that we we looked at.
00:12:34
Speaker
and And that's this idea of newness plus purpose or originality plus utility. I mean you can put it together any any different way. and And the idea is that for something to be creative, it has to somehow have a newness quality to it. I think you certainly heard that in all of that Something that sort of strikes as like, well, I never heard that before, or that's a new way to look at it.
00:13:00
Speaker
But also somehow that has to be tethered to some functionality, even if the functionality is just to sit back and enjoy it and go, oh, that's groovy. I love that. That's cool.
00:13:13
Speaker
That's not without value. but But if it's just complete nonsense and and just doesn't make any sense or fulfill any purpose, can it really be creativity? And so I think we've, I remember asking this of ah of a workshop we did at one of NACI's, the National Association with the Education Young Children's Conferences. and And somebody actually pushed back and said, well, why can't it be purposeless?
00:13:40
Speaker
And I said, well, I, you know, you know I didn't really want to have a knock down, drag out fight there, but but but people really want to push that edge of the definition. And I'm saying like, okay, that's fine, because there was a definition of play we used in our playbook, where which was is apparently purposeless.
00:14:02
Speaker
Not really purposeless, but play has this sort of, you know, I'm not going to make money off of this thing, or I'm not going to serve ah solve ah world hunger with this creative exercise, but I'm just going to play with it.
00:14:16
Speaker
So we think that having both of those is a kind of polarity, by which I mean that we're asking them to fit together, but what happens is is they kind of orbit one another.
00:14:30
Speaker
So one can't go drift too far apart without the it getting having to get pulled back by the force of the other. And so holding those two things in tension proved to us to be a really useful way to apply creativity to a lot of different situations.
00:14:49
Speaker
Tom and I have known each other for over a
Creativity, Liberation, and Trauma
00:14:51
Speaker
decade. Specific to the book, I don't know if he remembers two things. I remember going to a baseball game with him. He took me to an I-Cubs game.
00:15:00
Speaker
And afterwards, you know, we were just talking about a whole bunch of stuff. And Mr. Rogers, Fred Rogers came up. It was one of those moments where i was like, oh, yeah, there's somebody that, you know, not only enjoys the neighborhood, but really has invested time to get to understand the philosophy of Fred um and what, you know, he offered to to the world, especially with children or to children. And so things started to percolate like, you know, maybe there's an opportunity here for for us. And then we did put together a presentation on creativity for a conference. And then, you know, with my background, my background is a public librarian. I'm a children's librarian. I also am an individual with the learning disability. And so I've invested a lot of time in understanding and applying creativity into into my work and into my life. And so um I remember going to a restaurant with him and started to just have that conversation. You know, what would it be like to write a book on creativity?
00:16:05
Speaker
You know, creativity is not something that's unknown in in the literature. that There's plenty of researchers that focus and zero in on that 100%. But what's unique about our approach is Tom's long career focuses on ah early childhood within a formal learning spaces. And I am an informal educator.
00:16:29
Speaker
And what's unique about that is there's no silo in in those two things. there is actually a bridge between both and that they exist in what we call an ecosystem. And so it was a unique partnership in writing this book because of those unique lived experiences and approaches and how we wrote our chapters and how we approached questions, you know answering those questions, and of course, connecting with librarians and early childhood professionals to um provide those case studies that are in the book too.
00:17:07
Speaker
So that's sort of a short trajectory and short history of our partnership. The trauma approach, or I guess the trauma informed perspective on creativity was so refreshing, I think, because it It really spoke, I think, you know, to to my experience struggling with these things as sort of like a way of not being able to see the future or not to think of the world in in any kind of different way, right? Sort of being trapped by either perceived or real, you know, barriers, emotions, ah brain chemistries. um And part of
00:17:44
Speaker
I guess breaking those cycles is being able to see the world in different ways and being able to think in new and different ways and break out of, um you know, cycles and habits that led to, you know, places that you didn't want to be. And so I think just recognizing the relationship between those two things was really important in the book as well.
00:18:04
Speaker
You know, you if I can just piggyback worse yeah a little bit, one one of the the things that you ah pointed out is is, I think it's also the connection between creativity and liberation.
00:18:15
Speaker
And I think, you know, a lot of liberationists have always felt like the connection between liberation and education and the importance of introducing people to new ideas that really light their imagination and make them um think about a world that could be, whether it's their own world, perhaps, you know, in some kind of dungeon of previous trauma and thinking about how they can see their themselves out of that.
00:18:46
Speaker
to even thinking about what aspirations we might have as a society and where we might want to move. So I think there's a really key, um um I just wanted to make that point because what you said suggested that to me and I hadn't quite thought about it that way, but I think it's really important.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah, I'm wondering, Zach, if even you know ahead of the big idea around creativity and trauma is another wonderful section related to creativity and neurodiversity and really embracing it a neurodiversity paradigm of thinking about not just about disability, but of the range of of perspectives on any kind of related issue. And you speak very candidly about you know, your experience with special education and, um you know, being diagnosed with a learning disability. And I'm thinking of that notion of liberation here too. Would you be willing to speak to that, bring that your own experiences into that conversation?
00:19:42
Speaker
That's a great great question. So life is about growth. So I will say this before I answer that in more detail. Early on after high school, I held a lot of animosity towards educators that were in my life.
00:19:58
Speaker
um But now as I've grown and really done research and have more lived experiences, I'm going take it out on the system because at the time that I went to school, almost 12, I graduated like 20 years ago, even then, system in many ways, people like me, people, students kind of fell through the the cracks a little bit.
Learning Disabilities and Creativity
00:20:22
Speaker
you know I started my educational journey with a learning disability, got diagnosed when I was in you know kindergarten. um you know I had to go to occupational therapy and speech therapy.
00:20:35
Speaker
And never once did that obviously bother me. But it you know early on, I was sort of confused as to why this was the placement.
00:20:47
Speaker
where my my learning started. And the reason was, is I always knew that I saw the world different and that I took in you know my studies differently.
00:21:00
Speaker
and what I mean by that is, is to accomplish a task or an assignment. Many times I would choose an alternative route that was um clear, more creative, especially let's say mathematics is is a, stra it's a challenging one for me because one of my disabilities is a, I have a visual spatial impairment. And then really what that means is if somebody were to, well, this is prime example.
00:21:29
Speaker
We got a new desk at the library for the children's department. And people gave me blueprints of that. And I'm like, i don't get it. i don't i don't see what this is going to look like.
00:21:42
Speaker
But once somebody, my director, walked downstairs and put sticky notes down on the ground and told me to walk with her, got it. And so in school, though, it was always strong advocacy. And I started going to my IEP meetings, um sixth grade.
00:22:03
Speaker
And so early on, yeah, I remember sixth grade was a pivotal moment because i really wanted to question, why am I in special education? This is the way i see things. This is the way I want to solve.
00:22:17
Speaker
And it's the system that really says, because of X, Y, and Z, we have to. yeah This is your place. And so I struggled. One thing people should know about me is I will determine for myself what I can and can't do.
00:22:32
Speaker
um i don't like to be, don't like to be told that. So, but through that journey, I learned that, yeah, it's it's great to use those skills of creativity. Storytelling is one of the most important pieces for me in terms of creativity. And I implement those in my daily life, both you know, my personal and my professional.
00:22:56
Speaker
But I want to say one last thing. What it takes, though, is there's a component of creativity, especially for those with disability, that involves advocacy. And I don't think we do enough for self-advocacy.
00:23:09
Speaker
think there's this intimidation because you're advocating to authority, which would be, let's say, a teacher or even the principal or whoever. And even in your adult life, you're advocating maybe to your administration.
00:23:24
Speaker
um But there's no there shouldn't be any fear of that because all you're doing is standing up for yourself. And there's a way to do it eloquently, you know, because some people just don't know. People don't understand. So it's about educating them. And so that's why I'll bring back my director. um When she came down and put the sticky notes down, I was like, wow.
00:23:44
Speaker
Like this individual is understanding that I want to know this. I want to see this. I want to understand. But there is another approach. And that's where the sticky notes came from. And um that was very helpful and and reassuring that this is a safe space to be, you know, the learner that I am and the person that I am that really does a good job in my job with the kids as well. So thank you for letting me share that.
00:24:13
Speaker
Thank you so much for sharing that. What I found so powerful and the reason why the Tom's connection to liberation prompted this for me was right you reflecting on how the focus of the system was on what you couldn't do and the things that you were failing at when it was seemed to me that within sort of a way of thinking of creativity um would say, okay like let's flip the script a little bit here and think right outside of that small box of school that we tend to put students
Inclusive Creativity in Education
00:24:45
Speaker
in. And really that flips it from like that deficit to that asset thinking too. So part of thinking create create creatively, geez, um not just about problems or of content, right? But thinking creatively about people and their potential, right? And I appreciate that this conversation has gone immediately from the the classroom level to the, you know, the, the, the, I don't know, the epistemological level about how we know things, you know, about the world um really just showing the impact of that. And maybe maybe it's worth pointing out too, that one of the the premises of the book is really that everyone is creative.
00:25:23
Speaker
There's no such thing as a person who's not creative. And so, um, So starting with that premise, um I think sort of opens up the possibility of of a super inclusive kind of educational process because we can tap into everybody's this ability that every everyone has.
00:25:46
Speaker
you know, one thing that struck me when I was reading through the book, and it's something that I knew, and as it pops up, i I continue to be struck by it every time I encounter it, because to me, it just seems really counterintuitive of the way that we think about um the structures of schooling versus the structure of the way that brains work. And that was when you guys wrote about the default mode of the brain, right? What it's not doing when it's actively engaged in a problem and it's what, filing and sorting things. It's working some things out. It's the reason why we need to take breaks, go on walks. you know You're not going to solve a problem just by beating your head against the desk over and over again and trying to make it work. And that, to me, seemed really counterintuitive, again, to the structures and systems of school. And I wonder if you both encountered some things in the course of your research that either you thought were also counterintuitive to your understanding or things that surprised you along the way.
00:26:42
Speaker
Well, I i want to piggyback a little bit on that, and then I can get to the two other things that we did. But but one ah one of this the ideas about the this um kind of seeing things that we... It's like, oh, yeah.
00:26:57
Speaker
Yeah, I... this This is new to me, but it also seems familiar. that Well, that was a little what we were trying to capture in the subtitle. And so I just wanted to, and you know, that, you know, what what science tells us, what what our hearts know. There's this echo of confirmation that happens, as well as another thing we think creativity does. And that's a sort of head-heart uniting.
00:27:22
Speaker
that that we're not just talking about intellectual space, but we're talking about emotional space and affective engagement. So that's just a really important idea about the book. so I wanted to connect it back with that. But I think um i think some other perhaps counterintuitive ideas was maybe be the first one about creativity being a life force.
Creativity as a Life Force
00:27:44
Speaker
And this was a it was a complete accident. Let me just tell you really quickly the story about how this came about, because I think it says a lot about our process, but it also says a lot about creativity itself. And and that is, I was making the initial connection pretty early on and in in the research of the book between creativity and constructivist ideas around education, and which um simply put is is that children don't children construct the knowledge that they retain. They don't
00:28:17
Speaker
They have to make it their own at some level, in some way. Even rote learning, it has to be drilled into you because you're having to force your brain to make it very similar to what the outside is like. So so that whole idea of constructivism I thought was really important. I said, well, then clearly Piaget must have a lot to say about creativity.
00:28:40
Speaker
That was my thinking. So then I got this. There's an enormous book that you can get out there, which is all like a huge collection of Piaget's writing. And so I got this book and started to look through it around. Well, what does he say about creativity? And there was very little.
00:28:56
Speaker
They actually use that word. But the one place that I did see it in there was his reflections on this well-known philosopher at the time, not so well-known now, of Henri Bergson,
00:29:11
Speaker
the turn of the century in France. And he had written a book called that Creative Evolution. I think we talk about it in the book. I think it's called Creative Evolution. And so so I thought, well, let let me let me go and look at that book and see what Henri Bergson's writing about.
00:29:28
Speaker
And so when we dug into that, basically what Bergson was saying in this book was he was pushing back against what sort of the post-Darwinists were saying, which was that if you know if evolution is correct the way Darwin talked about it, then it's very mechanistic and it's leading to one place, right?
00:29:51
Speaker
that you know There's sort of a teleological part of it, but then there's also a really sort of pragmatic approach or a mechanistic part of it. And he said, you know, i don't think that captures what's really going on.
00:30:05
Speaker
That seems too deterministic. It doesn't seem to me what's really happening because Berkson was a biologist, as was Piaget originally. Piaget did most of his studying and in in in biology.
00:30:19
Speaker
So what Berkson says is that he What creates evolution to happen is this sort of creative process by which something new emerges from the pressures and forces that happen.
00:30:36
Speaker
And there's a there's ah ah ah revitalizing force that's going on, that's driving each single step of evolution. That's what he's saying. Well, I love the French word he uses is élan vital.
00:30:51
Speaker
And which, of course, we directly um ah translate as life force. And so when we started looking at that, then it just sort of like, oh, my God, this really has huge implications, I think, um for for how to think about creativity. You know, first of all, that life itself is a creative process.
00:31:15
Speaker
Thinking about that. And i I could spend a whole thing around how religion that incorporates ah a god, typically that god is a creator or one of the gods is a creator. So right there we have this sort of divine vocation that's specifically mixed in. So life is a creative process.
00:31:39
Speaker
Creativity is central to life because the evolutionary process is something that's happening all the time. I think the the the final big aha for for me in that was that creativity is a life force that pushes development forward.
00:31:54
Speaker
And when they talk about development, that immediately made me as an early childhood a person go back into child development and go to what extent is creativity actually driving development?
00:32:05
Speaker
what we call child development. And in fact, we have a whole section in the book that makes this whole connection between child development and creativity. And then we go back and look at some of the early childhood pioneers like Maria Montessori and Piaget and Vygotsky and others.
00:32:21
Speaker
And then where do they talk about creativity? and How do they talk about creativity? And finding that it's really there at a very fundamental level in terms of the way they talk. So that was one one idea that I thought Seemed really new.
00:32:36
Speaker
i'd never read about it anywhere else before. Never heard anybody make this connection in anything that we had read. But it seemed like maybe we were on to something. So I wanted to put it out there kind of early in the book so that people so that it could be in the back of people's minds as they think about some of the other big ideas that we explore.
00:32:55
Speaker
There's honestly such a natural connection there too, between perhaps what Bergson was writing about over a hundred years ago. And then what we know about the neuroscience today. I mean, it's the reason why like sapiens is in the homo sapiens, you know, we can't help but think and create and construct like,
00:33:13
Speaker
You can't ever turn the brain off. It's always thinking and building and learning. And like, so to call it, I think on the one hand, like the life force in a more philosophical context, then to understand it as like, it's just what brains do, right? At least it's what human brains do um at the biological level. What life does.
00:33:32
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Oh, it's such a great point. Such a great way to bring those two things together. Zach, how about for you? What did you find in this that seemed counterintuitive surprising unlocked sort of the key for you?
00:33:44
Speaker
You know, we have in this book and early on, you know, there is a chapter that talks about what is creativity and and we have a lot of quotes and one that always sticks out at me. I'm going to read it here. It's Ardor Kostler and it's quote, creative activity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Engagement in Lifelong Learning
00:34:03
Speaker
I found that was sort of the thesis of and sort of the catalyst for me, that quote. I mean, we have many amazing scholars in this book we reference. um But why I like that is to remind ourselves that they that we there's no silo, like that while this person has a role of a teacher and this person has the role of a pupil, we all share those roles.
00:34:33
Speaker
regardless of age, time, you know all of that. And it reminds me that we need to ensure that we take very seriously that we're never going to stop learning, never going to stop experiencing, never stop connecting.
00:34:52
Speaker
um And that, to me, just really elevated and reassured me that, yes, this is important work. But the question that I was raised is, or thinking throughout is when is when do individuals stop?
00:35:09
Speaker
Maybe not stop, but just begin this trail in another direction where now we want to focus on making sure we get the the top grades, or we want to make sure that we get the right test scores. And and we're really looking at proficiency in that way. Now, of course, I'm not saying that that's not needed. We have to ensure children are, you know, accomplishing certain milestones and in their in their learning and in their development. I mean, that's that's critical. But along the way, especially with creativity and implementing that creativity is proficiency isn't about
00:35:50
Speaker
necessarily only how many words you can memorize, how many fast how fast you can do factors of math. But it where in that space does the teacher then become the pupil and reverse that role and say, what are ways that we're teaching this is it is Is there a differentiated pathway in the event that there are children that may not um align specifically with this curriculum, get to the same results, but maybe there is a different pathway? And that's what, to me, was very critical in writing this, is that there are many different pathways.
00:36:29
Speaker
I'm actually experiencing this with my niece, who's 11, who's asking me as some help on sixth grade math. Now, even as a dot a person with a doctorate, and I love statistics, that's my area, more qualitative statistics because i'm a storyteller.
00:36:46
Speaker
It was interesting because we're totally different generations and how things are being taught obviously can be different. So when I took my approach, there was a lot of confusion on her end and some frustration because it's like, this is how I'm taught to do this.
00:37:06
Speaker
So I took that and implemented what we're talking in this book of what about other ways of doing things. We get to the same result, but here's another pathway.
00:37:19
Speaker
And it's interesting how some are now programmed to say, this is the path. This is the one path. And i struggle with that. We need to be okay with different pathways, different approaches, and that it's important as an educator, and whether it be a librarian or early childhood to take the initiative to pause and say, what does it, what a child, how would a child experiences?
00:37:50
Speaker
And it's hard sometimes to kind of get into that mindset. And what can I do to offer those aha moments um of excitement? Because again, if we're just setting things up and saying, you know, complete this, and this is the the formula or the process or whatever, this is it.
00:38:09
Speaker
then there can be some challenges there. And I want to be very clear, like, obviously, there are some things that, yeah, we need to make sure that children are accomplishing milestone moments developmentally and I get that. But to me in writing this book, it's experiencing those aha moments and understanding the different pathways of learning was really critical. And then finally, I'll say one thing that I was really excited, and what Tom and I talked a lot about,
00:38:43
Speaker
was one, making sure that we study creativity within the lens of neurodiversity, autism, looking at that research, because again, it lends itself to this understanding of how individuals see the world, experience the world, different pathways, brain, neurological development.
00:39:03
Speaker
But then we had a great conversation of we need to have a chapter on creativity and trauma. Because again, I keep reiterating lived experiences. and Obviously, we want to ensure that they're positive. But how does trauma affect creativity?
00:39:17
Speaker
And how does it can it affect perspective? And that trauma isn't is it's just it's not linear. And that there's not it's really challenging to have one defined definition of trauma.
00:39:32
Speaker
because you know circumstances, experiences can vary. And so what you may see as traumatic, ah maybe as somebody else doesn't see that as traumatic, but it still is has an impact on the child.
00:39:46
Speaker
So those are some of my surprising moments in in writing this book and and really looking through that discovery. And I will say we also, and I think I said this, we also spent some time at SITES um really seeing creativity come to life, which was really exciting.
Observing Creativity in Educational Sites
00:40:06
Speaker
One of the reasons I was really excited to talk to both of you um is because you performed a number of site visits alongside your own commentary and sort of how these places of learning, some of them were schools, date preschools, as you had mentioned, Zach, sort of pre-K through through older grades as well. And um applying what you had learned in your research about creativity to these models. And so I'm so curious for you to share with listeners what you saw in there, what the present model of teaching and learning in those contexts gets right as it relates to what you found. And what is it missing at the same time?
00:40:48
Speaker
I left those sites. I'm going to first start talking about the educator sites, the early childhood sites. And I was like, I wish I went to school there.
00:40:59
Speaker
Because it was, i was in, I will say this early on in my education, my folks put me in mont um Montessori school, but you know, things happen financially and they just had to put us into public and public education rock stars that they are. we have to celebrate our public educators.
00:41:20
Speaker
So that's neither here nor anywhere. um And they they, you know, early on, I will say this, did provide a really good space for creativity in my learning.
00:41:33
Speaker
But when I left these, I was like, it's the system that has changed that this is so foundational and the excitement of kids, um, in different centers that they were doing.
00:41:47
Speaker
what One site blew me away because she's introducing them to artists like Andy Warhol. Um, you know, what maybe even Picasso, like all sorts of, and not that that's like affluent or anything like that. Why that was astonishing to me that wow, these these children are being so exposed as early as possible to creative thinkers and individuals that have saw the world differently and probably experienced some really strong challenges because of their um creative ah viewpoint.
00:42:28
Speaker
um And the other thing I loved is the connection to family engagement with creativity and involving parents and caregivers um within that process. So looking at it within the lens of the system approach that, you know, and and this other realization that while we like to say that the focus should be on our kids, which is good,
00:42:53
Speaker
I like to flip that and say that kids have a space at the table too. And that we need to listen to them and through this creative endeavor that they're going through and listen to their questions. Inquiry is a huge part.
00:43:09
Speaker
Now, as a public librarian, as a children's librarian, we went to a few sites there too. And, you know, it's sort of probably what Tom faced in that, you know, it's like, I know a lot of, you know, what's in the classroom. But for me, you know,
00:43:24
Speaker
What I loved in seeing with these children's librarians is their excitement and the connection between parent, child, and allowing that free space and free play.
00:43:38
Speaker
This metamorphosis of libraries was huge, and it was great to see it in others. And what I mean by that is is that Books are still to be celebrated and that space for learning is to be celebrated, but it's a space of learning that is a metamorphosis that's evolved to be an emphasis strongly on play and that this approach of a library being quiet, not necessarily all the time because kids are there and allowing this freedom for kids to be kids. That's one of the biggest things that I will say as a librarian that I reiterate that
00:44:15
Speaker
we We want ah the noise of children, the excitement of play, whether it be with puppets or um train tables or Legos or whatever it might be, this imaginative time. hip Fred Rogers had had said, you know play is the work of childhood.
00:44:35
Speaker
And he's absolutely correct. It is their job. And it's our job to ensure that that's nurtured. So those are some of the key highlights in venturing out. And Tom and I were, I was very clear, we were very clear with each other um that while we want to ensure there's foundational work, research, connection to theorists, all of that, because we have to,
00:45:01
Speaker
um we made it very clear that we have to showcase this work. it's It's great to reference work, but it's extremely important that we elevate it by showcasing how this work is being applied, which is great.
00:45:22
Speaker
I mean, all of that is true. I'm going to sort of flip it to the other part of your question around sort of existing models. And part of what you could ask us is, what did we not see? you know and And we we specifically were were looking for, in some case, there were special events that were happening. But in other cases, it was more closer to a typical day.
00:45:46
Speaker
There was like a parent-child event that was taking place at one of the elementary. and it It was an open house for parents um that was taking place. So that obviously had a lot of different things for kids to engage with and to do things with. And so that was a little bit different. but um But we didn't see a lot of emphasis on rote learning or preparation preparation for standardized tests.
00:46:16
Speaker
um And I want to say i'm I am not ah an opponent of standards. i If you read if you read my the first book we did it on saving play, it was really all about taking standards very seriously, but just not making the standards the enemy of play, but rather making them a partner with play and and and how that's that's actually possible.
00:46:39
Speaker
So I think they can really play a role. But to me, as the experiences or the examples that Zach was saying show, if we can leverage creativity as a key part of the education experience.
00:46:53
Speaker
And if you think about like ah maybe a typical scenario where a teacher is trying to communicate something to the to students and the students are not always paying attention or they're thinking about something else and they're engaged in some other activity and the teacher wants to bring them all back to focus so they can communicate that, that's sort of working against the natural creative flow and life force, if that's what it is.
00:47:21
Speaker
um and And I'm not saying teachers should never do that because I don't think you can avoid doing that. But you've got to understand how that's not leveraging creativity. That's working against it. And is there any part of the day in which you can actually leverage those internal cognitive processes that are going on that would be more akin to to creativity or giving those opportunities for default mode, as you were alluding to earlier?
00:47:50
Speaker
So I think we saw a lot of of that, but always, I think if there's a message in the book, it's how do we make creativity more front and center, more central to that, more part of every engagement that that happens?
00:48:08
Speaker
and and even in the places where we saw it happening, you can think, well, if it's happening there, how can we make that happen more during the day or in in in deeper ways during the course of the day?
Children's Questions as Curriculum
00:48:23
Speaker
One thing that I thought really captured What you're speaking to, Tom, about standards not getting in the way, standards supporting them, not squashing creativity or play or anything else is the exercise that you guys document from ah more elementary, the kindergarten where kids are listing those questions. And I just got this big ear to ear grin as I was reading the questions that these kindergartners um generated under creativity or for I wonder rather. I wonder how long have alligators been around? How long has the earth been around? How long have humans been noticing like kind of
00:48:57
Speaker
connections upon, you know, these things of like age and time. And then, oh how long has more elementary been here? Someone, someone chimes in, what do ants eat? How long does it take to go from Des Moines to Las Vegas?
00:49:08
Speaker
What's the oldest dino? How long have Komodo dragons been around? Why do turtles move slow? So now we're connecting reptiles, you know, how does the moon float in space? Do all living things have blood? Yeah.
00:49:21
Speaker
Why does ice fall from clouds? Why are oranges so juicy? How long does it take to learn to read? ah How long is a giraffe's neck? And when I saw that list, your comment about the standards prompted because every single question in there is ah is a curriculum in its own right. right like the whole Pull one of those stickies down off the board and say, we're going to spend some time this morning thinking about why are oranges so juicy?
00:49:47
Speaker
right? Every kid gets a clementine or whatever. Let's pull that sucker open and talk about, i know, fruits and vegetables and agriculture and everything else. The next day, all right, let's pull another one off here. Oh, do all living things have blood? You can talk about, you know, what what does it mean for things to be alive? Is grass alive? as you know You can talk about um abiotic and all the other science things. um You can talk about time and gravity, right? Like, there is a curriculum built into creativity and these kids questions i i get so flustered and frustrated when people think of these as being at odds when maybe they're just not thinking creatively enough about the kinds of questions kids are asking now it's a soapbox but i'll give you guys a chance to respond here yeah i don't think there's any such thing as creativity without non-sequiturs you know which is that's what the thing is a whole string of string of non-sequiturs but uh
00:50:42
Speaker
No, I think you're absolutely right. And in some ways, what I what i was thinking about when when I was listening to you was actually a point that was made by Nawal Quiruni, who did a presentation at your a Restore Humanity conference that I attended last month.
00:51:01
Speaker
um you know And she had this, she was talking about family engagement and and and and the the wide spectrum of family engagement, which I really think is important part. That's really what the whole chapter on formal and informal education is. Not only that education is taking place in both those places, but why can't they kind of cooperate a little bit?
00:51:22
Speaker
Why can't those educational experiences somehow flow from one to the other more naturally or not be in silos, as as as Zach was was was pointing out? And and I think his his library is a great example of trying to really break down those those those barriers. But I'm getting a little bit off on what Nawal was saying. But one of the things, one of her points was this this idea of meaning making and how knowledge is created in both of those spaces.
00:51:55
Speaker
And a lot of it just comes from that outside stimulation. So in some ways, teachers should look at that list and go, look how that teacher stimulated all this thinking.
00:52:06
Speaker
Because they weren't just thinking about, i mean, they were building on each other's ideas, as you were pointing out. But somehow somebody told them about dinosaurs at some point, or or they remember somebody gave them an orange or a mandarin, and you know that got them going. So that outside stimulation is critically important. So even though we talk about creativity as being a very individual task, it deeply relies on external creativity.
00:52:36
Speaker
inputs, which is where I think teachers are centrally important. And that kind of leads me to the to the the final point I wanted to make in in in connection with that. And that was actually part a comment that Angela Stockman made also your conference. I love this quote that I had pulled out from from my notes there. And that is, when we write about what happens, we give it dignity.
00:52:59
Speaker
What I loved about that presentation is that she was really asking us to be observant and to think about all the ways in which we could capture what we observe because our observations are so...
00:53:18
Speaker
rich and so necessary prior to anything else that happens. And that really is something we're saying is if you really want to nurture creativity in the classroom, you've got to pay attention to how children are already being creative and then say, how can I be midwife to those processes that are that are coming true? And And I thought she had a thousand, I mean, her her presentation just blew my mind of all the different ways.
00:53:47
Speaker
And that your phone can not only can take notes, but it can record things, it can take pictures, it can take video, you know, there's just all of those different ways in which um in which you can actually slow life down a little bit to study it enough to see where those creative processes are present.
00:54:10
Speaker
I had mentioned at the top of the episode, it was back to school for my kids this week and for ah a lot of maybe all of Iowa schools, for any educators, parents, school leaders who are listening to this and they you know want to take steps ah to kick off their classrooms in a creative way or things that they can do to encourage or cultivate creativity in their kids and in their learning spaces.
00:54:33
Speaker
What in your mind is like the one thing that they that they could do, the the takeaway that they could leave this conversation with?
Recognizing Everyday Creativity
00:54:40
Speaker
I want individuals, you know educators, families, whoever they you know these are, to recognize that creativity is is everywhere. That there's not a magic formula or that to obtain a creative space, you have to spend x amount of money, that creativity exists all around us. So be inspired. I tell this all the time, be inspired to look around and to um encourage conversation.
00:55:15
Speaker
But through the observation, let's take nature, for example, you know by looking at snow that might be coming or leaves or whatever it might be. generating conversation that then can generate an activity that's creative, you know, um either outdoors or indoors, looking around your house for supplies that you might have cardboard boxes or whatever recycled material, and know that those can become a drum or a guitar or something like that.
00:55:47
Speaker
and And that to me and is inspiring, you know, We do need to celebrate technology, and especially the changingness of things like AI. i mean, I'm not going to say that that those are not important, but the very basic, very level creativity exists without having you know the the need necessarily for a device or to spend a lot of money, but the tools are right there. It's just really being more intentional and aware of what they are and taking the time to do so. This busyness, I understand, especially with activities going on in school.
00:56:26
Speaker
And I'll say, ah go to your public library. um to really help, you know, connect and and support that learning. So, and if, you know, I'm assuming educators obviously listen to this podcast and I'll say this to them. um If you don't have um a partnership with your public library, i encourage you to do that. I visit the schools multiple times a month and I couldn't do it without the amazing partnerships that we have with the Boone Public and parochial schools here in town.
00:56:59
Speaker
Well, I think my suggestion, i mean, just to be really practical, is to go to pages 102 and 103, and we have a list of 10 educator behaviors that encourage creativity. And start, pick one and go go do it.
00:57:13
Speaker
ah You know, we got this list from Keith Sawyer, who's a pretty well-known creativity researcher and writer. He wrote a really great book, by the way, I'll just plug, called The Creative Classroom.
00:57:25
Speaker
It's really more more for K-12. twelve And so we actually, his actual list is 19 behaviors. We kind of boil them down to 10 because some of that stuff wasn't age developmentally made sense for our audience, but um but you certainly can can look at that and just think about how you can implement that.
00:57:47
Speaker
I would just maybe kind of end a little bit with what I was saying before about our originality plus usefulness formula and thinking about that as a polarity that's present at every moment and ask ourselves, so how can we make this newer Or how can we make it different or more original than it used to be?
00:58:09
Speaker
And that's counterintuitive for somebody who's planned really careful lessons. But I will tell you that I have never planned a lesson that ever came out the way i planned it.
00:58:22
Speaker
Never. So what is that telling me is that this, even if I just wanted to do a skeleton, that's all I'm going to have to use anyway, because it's all I'm going to be allowed to use given the sheer variety of reality that comes in and takes you off in a kind of different direction.
00:58:40
Speaker
So thinking if if you can reframe those moments of chaos when you go, uh-oh, we're really getting off topic here, as where's the creative energy taking me and how can I ride that like a surfer rides a wave, still getting down getting back to the beach, right? I just don't want to get to the shoreline.
00:59:01
Speaker
But can I reframe that as an opportunity rather than as an obstacle? And maybe the newness and purpose can be a useful way of doing The book is Creativity in Young Children, What Science Tells Us in Our Hearts. No.
00:59:20
Speaker
Thank you so much for capturing your years long journey in this book. And then, of course, taking the time to talk with me and the audience about it today. Tom and Zach. Thank you so much.
00:59:30
Speaker
Thank you so much. It was great.
00:59:36
Speaker
Thank you again and for listening to our podcast at Human Restoration Project. I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to start making change. If you enjoyed listening, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast player.
00:59:47
Speaker
Plus, find a whole host of free resources, writings, and other podcasts all for free on our website, humanrestorationproject.org. Thank you.