New ideas

I think that this class was administered wonderfully.  It was demanding, but Stacy was right.  All of the readings were necessary to understanding ‘creativity’.  In most classes, when you miss, you miss.  The makeup assignments were helpful to me because without them, I would have glazed over some ideas and this would have slighted me in my understanding and knowledge of creativity.  My only misgiving is that I have a limited group of people (only class participants) with who I can discuss what I learned with.  Most people have the same ideas about creativity that I had at the beginning of the course.  My conversation on the phone is not going to convey to them what I learned over 13 classes plus outside reading.  I really think that this class should be mandatory to at least educators, so that they can spread the knowledge and concepts.  Even if they are bit teaching  creativity like this class, by teaching from a standpoint of knowledge and understanding of creativity, or how we process and enhance it, the understanding of creativity and creative instances will grow.

Learning something that really enhances my life…

This class was a wonderful experience for me.  I learned so much.  Almost all of my previous thoughts about creativity were absolutely wrong…and I consider myself a creative person.  Often, I have been called flighty, and that was attributed to my ‘creative’ nature.  This to me relates to the idea that creativity is a burst from the inner spirit as well as that I am a left brained person, two ideas that have no foundation in fact. As I got older, I realized myself that my flightiness came from have many interests and making the choice to not be tied down to any one of them.  I have committed to being a good mother and I am not flighty about that at all.  It is all a matter of intrinsic motivation.  What am I really motivated to commit to.  When I have that motivation, I am dedicated to that.  And now that I am 7 years into motherhood, with some 8 years previous experience dealing with various youth, I am really getting creative with this job.  After taking this class, I can apply the concepts to all areas of my life, as you can see.  It really helps me to understand some things about myself and what I see that goes on around me. 

On the Creativity Fair

I think that the Creativity Fair went well.  As the night progressed, I could envision this same type of activity on a large scale, like health fairs.  You have a different section for each of the ‘experts’ with take home information.  You have creativity tests or  activities (improv) on the main stage and explain how that relates to creativity studies.  You can have a group activity area, where participates brainstorm and also do other group activity tests with an explanation of how those relate to creativity.  Huge signs with myths, and the real deal should hang from the ceiling.  I really think that the concepts that we learned in this class should be taught to everyone, and an annual creativity fair would help.

Creativity – I see it all around now

As we near the conclusion of this class, I am amazed at how creativity is everywhere.  We are constantly talking about creativity, without any formal knowledge of the history of creativity.  In my History of African American Theatre class, we created our own theatre.  We created a component that would reach out to youth.  As one of my classmates explained the reasoning behind this, she said that many students do not have access to any type of theatre arena in school, therefore they are not familiar with it and as adults, still do not have an awareness or appreciation of theatre.  As she spoke, I heard her echo many of my points of my inquiry…Because students are not introduced to the field and domain of different arenas, i.e. theatre, they are not allowed the opportunity to be creative in those areas. 

Wrong or right info?

While I was doing some research on creativity enhancing activities, I came upon this webpage:  http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content4/creativity.eq.html

It is very interesting and presents some ideas in conflict with what we have been learning.  Based on the description of creativity given, they are referring to small c creativity.  The page equates creativity with ‘breaking rules’.  Although creativity does require that one thinks ‘outside of the box’, there are rules and structures.  It also says that creativity is not anything new, but a recombining of the old.  Although you do use your existing knowledge, the essence of creativity is that you create something novel (new).  The page says that creativity lives in a certain part of the brain (Have they done any research?)  Also, most of the instructions on this page don’t deal with any one discipline, but more a practicing divurgent thinking and opening up of the mind.  I think the site had some good fun activities, but after doing some research on creativity, I have a problem with sending the wrong information to people, especially children. 

Where is the flow?

Last summer, after watching Oprah’s Legends Ball TV Special, I decided to make a photo quilt as a permanent memory of this event.  This was the plan….I would make this beautiful quilt celebrating the lives of these 25 African American Women, then I would mail it to Oprah, she would call me up and invite me on her show, give me some money, and I would become rich and famous because people from all over the world would contract my company to make them a photo quilt.  OK, so that was the dream and the quilt is not made.  The main reason that the quilt is not complete is that right now, I only have extrinsic motivation….fame and fortune.  Also, after starting this class, I have decided that to really do justice to this project, I need to know more about quilt making and I would like to know more about the role that quilts have played in African Americans’ lives.  So, when the flow hits me (intrinsic motivation), I will create a beautiful piece of art in the tradition of my ancestors that will tell a little piece of our story here in the 21st century…..My fame and fortune will simply be a welcome byproduct of the main goal.

In the Flow

I am so frustrated with this.  This is the third time that I am typing this post.  Last weekend, I experienced some flow.  I got the idea to make myself an outfit.  Because I know how I am when I get an outfit ‘idea’ as opposed to being commissioned to make an outfit, I did some advance preparation.  I fixed lunch for my children, set out juice and snacks, and put dinner in the crock pot.  I do not sew from a store bought pattern, but instead use articles of clothing that I have that I like the way they fit.  For 4 hours, I measured, cut, sewed, seam ripped, resewed, tried on, remeasured, recut and resewed my way to a new outfit.  When I finished, my house was a mess, but the kids were satisfied, dinner was ready, and I had a gorgeous outfit: A tapered long sleeved top and bootcut pants with flat front made from African fabric.

Creativity Training

As I read the chapter on how to be creative, I was struck by the section where they use toys like Lego blocks in “serious play” workshops.  I work in a school and the rigors of trying to meet state standands often stamp out a lot of creativity in the classroom.  Administrators still push to help teachers be more creative in how they relate to, reach, and teach children.  During our professional development workshops preceeding the start of school this year, we did many creative activities to help meet this goal.  One of the projects was to create a paper ‘doll’ that was representative of ourselves, a particular student, or the qualities of students.  We were given cardboard dolls, tissue paper, pipe streamers, markers, tape, glue, clothes cutouts, crayons, and a multitude of other craft supplies.  After we ‘created’ our  students, we shared them with the collective.  This activity also gave us a little insight into the people who we would be working with all year long.

Where is the Jury of my peers?

I really got to thinking about the ‘field’ being the determining factor for what is creative in its respective area.  It really reminded me of our justice system.  Everyone has a right to a trial by jury with a jury of his peers.  For anyone who is non caucasian, this is a joke.  I will tell you why.  People are human, which means that they are far from perfect.  They are only the sum of their knowledge and experiences.  Many people do not have healthy views of African-Americans, Indians, Arabs, Hispanics, and all the other minorities.  The media is a major factor in this.  This is something that we are discussing in my History of African American Theatre class.  If a person only had to judge an entire race by images in the media, i.e. TV shows, movies, news, etc., what image would they have of each nationality.  There is a wide range of Caucasion characters and type of people depicted in the media: Smart, dumb, wise, ignorant, funny, dry, thugs, political, drug-dealers, police officers, lawyers.  You can turn on the TV on any given day and see a different type of person.  Now, think about the images of different minorities that you see on tv.  If that was all that you saw, what would you think.

 African-American – loud, aggressive, stupid, immoral, loose, sexual, not to be trusted, funny, great athletes

 Arab/Muslim – radical, terrorists, mean

Hispanics – stupid, theives, drug dealers

 The list goes on and on.  Many people only have these views as a preconcieved notion on what a person is like.  How can they be a jury of their peers when they are not a peer?  I don’t have the answer to this question.  I don’t know how to make this trial process any better than it is.  I have vowed to stayed out of the court system (not do anything that would put me there) as a personal solution. 

This thought of preconcieved notions is similar to me to what happens in the ‘field’ 

A new experience…

Well, this blog thing is new to me and I’m not even really sure what to do with it.  I do think that it is interesting (coincidence) that my first experience with ‘blogging’ is in a creativity and entrepeneurship class.  My first week after class has been filled with learning new things and even finding some contradictions.  The actual science of creativity states that children are not more creative than adults.  Why is that?  I don’t know.  I am a creative person and I don’t think that my capacity for creativity has changed in my 33 years.  I do think that my knowledge has vastly increased, so therefore by base for creating has expanded.  Does my creativity come from inside – through my spirit?  I think so, despite what I have read.