Creative Discipline

       For the past year, here at St. John's Episcopal School we've been immersed in the early stages of some large-scale marketing work. After the initial research, we moved into all the areas of branding, design, copy, et cetera. The process has proven fascinating, and I've learned a great deal. As part of that, I've spent extensive time talking with various "creatives." Fortunately, we've engaged incredibly talented people for this work, and I'm in awe of their work. I've also enjoyed learning about them and their work because I've been calling for more creativity in schools for quite a while. (See this or this.) It's in line with the work of people such as Tony Wagner and Sir Ken Robinson.
       One thing which has surprised me--but probably shouldn't have--is how tied to process these people are. They are, contrary to the assumption and stereotypes many people have, quite committed to certain rituals and disciplines. In fact, in the only case where we weren't pleased with some of the work we received, I realized we had basically forced the creative to operate in a way that was not his normal methodology and thus out of his comfort zone.
       I've read enough about creativity that I should have realized this basic truth. Creativity, Inc, for example, spells out in great detail the systematic process that Pixar uses. Most writers and artists have very specific work routines, whether the times they work or how they lay out materials or follow certain steps.Some of this is the sort of exacting discipline required for success in any area. Too often people forget, or perhaps never understood, that creative pursuits share a great deal with other areas. We seem to think that creative work is somehow different, that it strikes at random moments of inspiration; and that when it strikes, somehow stunning art suddenly appears.
     But in many ways creative work is not that different than any other. Just as an athlete must practice a skill over and over, a painter works on brush strokes. Just as a scientist studies all the theory in their field, a musician studies past songs from many genres. More than that, it's simply a matter of getting the work done. And a great deal of it, because the misses far outnumber the hits. Picasso produced 79 different drawings in coming up with Guernica. In fact, while we know of several famous Picasso works, his total output numbered more than 1800 paintings, 1200 sculptures, 2800 ceramics, and 12000 drawings. In music, beyond their noted compositions, Mozart composed over 600 pieces;, Beethoven, 650; Bach, over a 1000. Compare that to the number of papers of Einstein's 248 publications or patents of Edison's 1093 had real impact. So even beyond creativity, it's about persistence.
     It also affirms my belief that we can teach creativity. Or, to be more accurate, design educational experiences that nourish our innate creativity. Well, at least not tamp it down, let alone beat it out of us. There exist plenty of practical and philosophical arguments for this, and I don't need to reiterate them here.They all seem to have one underlying commonality: life as a work of art. How does that happen? Creative discipline. So perhaps as we rethink these intellectual conveniences that we call academic disciplines, we need to make creativity one of the new disciplines of future education.

Head and Heart: Surgical Precision and Genuine Empathy

       Last Wednesday I had my second cardiac ablation. (If you want to know about the first and details of the process, along with some reflection, here is a post written right after that: "My Cardiac Surgery and Education.") This was not totally unexpected, as the first one has between a 40-50% success rate.Two years ago, I was told the second one raises the success rate to over 80%. Now I'm told it should be over 90%. Six days after the procedure, I feel great and very optimistic.
       Just in the past year, the technology used to ablate the heart has grown immensely. The primary development has been equipping the catheter--remember, this is a miniscule tool guided to the heart through a vein, controlled via computer--with a pressure gauge. The upshot is that as the surgeon works on the heart by following a 3-D map on the screen, they now know not only where to cauterize damaged tissue, but also how much pressure to apply. Quite amazing! The technology allows the surgeon to exercise his skills as effectively as possible to cure the patient.
       You may recall the story about Ideo and their experience in examining hospital service from a patient's perspective. It wasn't pleasant, and it certainly is how I've always felt. This time I was in a different hospital, one committed to the latest technology, the best people, and patient focus. The previous paragraph captures the commitment to technology, and I know other hospitals have not purchased this catheter because of insurance restrictions. As for the people, every staff person was fantastic. They were cheerful and upbeat without being gushy, and they truly listened. They took their time explaining things; one nurse blew me away with his knowledge of electricity in the heart. Their entire demeanor oozed concern for the patient. Waiting time was minimal. The hospital was small, so travel time--whether on foot or on a gurney--was reduced. The patient rooms had giant windows for natural light, and the rooms were quiet. I suspect there was some sound-proofing, because I didn't hear all the usual noise from nurses' station. Also, there were no beeping monitors in the room. Everything was sent wirelessly to a monitoring station. The food was very good. Research had shown they could eliminate part of the procedure that was especially painful in recovery. Clearly someone had practiced some effective design thinking in creating this hospital.
       The entire experience has reminded me, once again, why the best schools educate the whole person. It's about scholarship, character, and connections. Subtract any aspect of one of those, and something essential is lost. In fact, we have to keep deepening our reserves of each. I mean not just those of our students, but our own. Then our students can learn to operate in all realms with surgical precision and genuine empathy.

Make a Makerspace?

       Not surprisingly, a recent #isedchat on Twitter focused on makespaces. (I couldn't participate that night, and I haven't read the archive.) They are a hot topic right now, and many schools either have opened or are planning to open makerspaces, often with some very clever names. Here at St. John's we have a couple of rooms that we are thinking of doing something interesting with. Of course, some people have suggested a makerspace. Right now, it's "the thing" to do. Meanwhile, I take pause.
       That hesitation does not signal some anti-makerspace stance. Actually, I love the philosophy behind them--that hands-on, make-a-mess, take-chances sort of experiential learning. I love the active engagement of makerspaces. I love that they are places where kids do rather than get done. So I don't deliberate because of any pedagogical reasons. I just want us to take five or ten and think about a big question.
       Shouldn't the entire school be a makerspace? Either literally or metaphorically?
       Instead, we create isolated areas that can serve as an analogy for how we treat what amounts to making in many areas of the curriculum. Let's consider a typical English program. Students learn how to parse sentences and to analyze literature; much of their writing becomes formulaic literary analysis, particularly as they grow older. Writing a short story is an "alternative" activity; creative writing is often available primarily through electives, if at all. All kids should be doing creative writing. Similarly, in history students can use their research--primary and secondary--to write the traditional research paper but also to produce documentaries. In math and science students could build scale models and simple machines, both of which would reveal understanding. Indeed, I argue that such activities lead to deeper, longer-lasting learning. I believe it gives students a stronger grasp on key concepts and skills, along with keeping alive positive attitudes about learning. It's why I'm proud that at St. John's we already take such an approach in many areas and always seek to add more.
       In a larger sense, the current fascination with makerspaces captures some of the truly sticky challenges with education reform. Some will dismiss them as just the latest fad, convinced that one only need wait until it passes and the next new thing (which may have been the next new thing once before) comes along.At the other end of the spectrum are those who glom onto the newest shiny object, seeing it as the silver bullet. The majority stand somewhere in the middle, not voicing too much dissent or excitement, not becoming too upset as long as they don't have to change too much of what they do. To extend the analogy another way, these folks are okay as long as the newcomer knows its place and stays there.
       At the risk of seeming cynical, I have to ask: How are makerspaces any different than the computer labs of 20-25 years ago? What's next--maker carts? Of course, it's now more common for technology to be more ubiquitous throughout schools. The hope is the same for the idea of making. Yet questions remain about how much of a transformative effect digital technology has had on education, especially versus the possibilities it creates. Part of the problem is inertia; part of it is fear; part of it is how we think we can measure success.
       Some irony exists in that I suspect part of the reason the makerspace movement has gained momentum is in response to the rise and spread of technology. Perhaps we've realized that we may have turned too much over to virtual experience. Did we really believe a virtual dissection would be just as good as actually wielding the scalpel and slicing into a frog, formaldehyde blasting our nostrils? Once again we are reminded of the need for balance.
       So perhaps in a way it is all cyclical. But makerspaces are different than computer labs in a key way. Early on, part of the reason technology remained in labs was cost. Another was portability. The truths of economics and Moore's law let us overcome those obstacles. When it comes to makerspaces, particularly if we focus on the philosophy, we face no such hurdles. The biggest stumbling block--perhaps the only one--may be people's mindsets.
       So here at St. John's do I want to make a makerspace? Certainly. For now, if I can't think of anything better, I'll take a great room. But ultimately I want it to be our school.
     

Simplicity!

"Complexity arises whenever a system--technical, social, or natural--has multiple, interdependent parts." 

"Meeting complexity with complexity can create more confusion that it resolves."

          --from Simple Rules by Donald Sull and Kathleen Eisenhardt

          I don't think many people would argue that in most ways our world has become more complex, mainly through the intersection of a greater number of moving parts. As the authors point out, examples can range from the increasingly global economy to home entertainment systems (versus an old-fashioned tv) with tangles of wires and multiple remotes. They also point out how complex US tax codes have become--a situation which has led to more and more people being in violation simply through ignorance rather than defiance. Even tax experts ended up finishing with vastly different returns for the same family because of the complexity. The lesson is simple, perhaps even obvious. The greater the complexity, the greater the chances for problems of any sort.
          Schools are naturally complex systems. Anytime you bring together a large number of people and attempt to unite them towards a common purpose, even in the best of situations--complexity arises. After all, each person is a complex organism. But I wonder if we've made school/education more complex than it needs to be. I've hinted at this notion before, particularly in a post titled "Biggest Change in the Last 30 Years of Independent Education?" My answer: "how much more schools are expected to do." You can add to the mix how much more we know about brain development and cries for innovation new models for curricula and numerous other points. It's all great stuff, but it certainly adds to the complexity. Sometimes it seems as if respond by drafting more and more arcane tax codes of our own. So I've been thinking about this idea for quite a while, and this book brought it back to the surface from deeper in the juices of my mind. How might we, I've been wondering, simplify the complexities of school? And is this how we zero in on the true priorities? How we help students have deeper, richer learning experiences?
          The authors explain how we can manage complexity by creating simple rules: "shortcut strategies that...focus our attention and simplify the way we process information." They say these must be very particular, tailored to a given situation, while also providing clear guidance without being overly prescriptive. Simple rules are not a once-size-fits-all solution for cutting through complexity. Yet they work when well articulated. One great example the authors give is triage on battlefields and how that has cut the mortality rate.
         I'm sure this could help in schools. In some ways, I'm reminded of a key element of design thinking, in that the simple rules could provide a degree of restraint. It's an approach I plan to use on some projects this year. Grant Lichtman, from whom I learned about the book, has posted about some very concrete ways that schools could benefit from using simple rules.
          Since I seem to be doing nothing but stealing from others in this post, I'll close with what I hope are a couple of other compelling bits of my own. Recently I was listening to a pro football player being interviewed. At higher levels, sports become incredibly complex. Pro athletes always talk about just doing their job, focusing on their role, doing the simple things right...add your own cliche. Usually we don't think twice about it. For some reason, during this recent interview, I found myself thinking there is real wisdom in that. And it's a perspective that helped these people reach the top level.
          Then there is this passage from a letter by Henry David Thoreau:

"I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run."

Data, Boxes, Curricula, Fork in the Road

"If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there." –paraphrase of an exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland

"If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else." and "When you come to the fork in the road, take it!" --Yogi Berra

            At the recent gathering of school heads from Independent Schools Association of the Southwest members, we heard a presentation which was about the relationship between big data and fundraising. More specifically, some of what big data has revealed about fundraising and some common practices we need to reconsider. I picked up some good tips and some pointed questions to ask. More than thought, I found myself thinking about some of the more general implications of big data.

            The speaker used the analogy of a reservoir that keeps filling up more and more. No surprise there, as we all know how much is out there…and how much more keeps appearing. He also compared it to advertising at Times Square; in the past, I’ve used the analogy of advertising at a hockey game. It’s really quite overwhelming, and it creates a certain pressure/guilt: I know all this information is out there, and I’m not really using it, but I sure should be, and I better spend all of this time mining through it, and I’ve got to see what patterns emerge, and what about what I’m not finding, and then there is that data that tells me how much better I could be using data, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We’re lured by the siren song of data at the same time we’re told we have to think outside the box.

            Now, I like to think that I’m a reasonably intelligent person. But sometimes it’s all enough to make me—and, perhaps to make myself feel better, just about anyone—feel like a doddering simpleton.

            Some of that is because we’re human and how we learn. We develop conceptual schema. As we encounter anything new, we figure out how we can latch it onto some hook within those schema. Eventually we form a rather tightly woven intellectual framework. Our box.

            So when faced with torrents of data, most of us have the natural instinct to figure out how it fits into those boxes. Because of that tendency, telling someone to think outside the box can almost become not just a cliché but a platitude. Besides, it implies that in some ways the box is okay and we should leave it alone. We can venture outside it for a while, pretend to be all revolutionary in our thinking, but know the whole time we can return to the safety of those tried-and-true packing crates.

            As humans, we need boxes. They help us make sense of things. So I’m not saying we need to destroy the boxes. I’m arguing that we need to re-design them. How does great design begin? By asking much better, more beautiful questions.

            The larger point, of course, is about more than dealing with a deluge of data. It’s about new ways of thinking. This is hard to do with adults. But we can help young people become adults educated in ways that make this easier. In doing so, we need to take what I just said about boxes and consider the notion of curricula.

            As many of you surely know, the word curriculum has its roots in Latin and refers to a race or a course of action, a path. It implies a clear destination that one can reach by retracing proven steps. People often derive comfort from knowing that a school has a well-articulated, tightly-sequential curriculum. They may scoff or sneer at any deviations; at the least, they raise an eyebrow, maybe both. Enough people trod a path, and the ruts deepen. The ground hardens, inhibiting any chance of new growth. Those traveling the path, like the students in a classic scene from Dead Poets’ Society, fall into lockstep. They can end up marching right into boxes. Those boxes which perhaps used to work.

            Just as that presentation prompted me to think about re-designing boxes for development purposes (and for all other purposes), we need to be reconsidering every aspect of curriculum, explicit and implicit. After all, we’re living in a time when we don’t know exactly where we are going. Myriad possible paths will lead us there. None of us can know what they all are. But I’m positive that taking the same old path won’t have kids ready for what they encounter once they go get there. We reached that fork in the road a while ago.

Affirmation Through Absence: Thoughts on #NAISAC 2015

     I'm writing this post somewhat out of guilt. I had been honored to be selected as one of the official bloggers for the NAIS Annual Convention this year. But I ended up not making it to the convention this year--the second year in a row. Of course, I'm sorry to have missed it. Last year it was for health reasons (all better now). This year weather messed with my schedule and I needed to stay in Dallas. Based on the last couple of days, that's probably just as well, given my need to be back and how many haven't been able to fly in because of snow and ice. It's also leading to an interesting "experiment," which I'll try to capture in this post.
     We know technology has changed how we do so many things, some of which we couldn't do before. Once I knew I couldn't attend the conference, I wondered how well I could gain a sense of events through social media and a few phone calls afterwards. I'm very grateful to all the people who posted on the community site and the many people tweeting. I've also seen some great photos; I especially liked the close-ups of the work done by the graphic artists.What follows are the points I gleaned as perhaps dominating the conversations. I know they are heavily influenced by whom I follow, and for someone else these might be very different. I also add a bit of my own reaction.

• As one would expect when the conference theme is "Design the Revolution," there seemed to be loads of sessions and energy around design thinking. That's awesome, and more and more people seem willing to embrace this approach. At the same time, I sensed some worry that eventually it will fade away as other buzzwords do. There seemed a mix of whether or not the point of empathy with the user was lost at times. If that's the case, and we end up, for example, just redesigning curricula, I think we've missed the point. After all, even before we knew the term design thinking, aren't the basic principles of it what we are supposed to have been doing all along?
• People had a mixed reaction to the panel of college presidents, with some thrilled they were acknowledging issues, but many others feel they were not accepting their part in the issue or offering any solutions. I don't think we can count too much on them to do so, as they feel the same pressures many independent schools do. I wonder how we balance our idealism and our realism.
• Tied to that notion, loads of verbiage about having the courage to make big changes, debate about whether significant change is hard or uncomfortable, whether teachers or administrators are the more willing or loath to make such things happen. One thought I have is that until we bridge that last gulf--along with breaking other real and imagined constructs--it likely won't happen. It comes down to getting the culture right before anything can happen. That, and as I've written many times, truly embracing our independence.
• Quite a few complaints about "boring" sessions which failed to include any real engaged and active learning. That's worrisome, for it makes me wonder how people still doing things that way are going to design any sort of revolution. For that reasons, among others, I also wonder about this idea of revolution. Our schools do many things right, and I think we also need to look at progress in relation to where a school starts. Plus, constantly changing too much, too fast always makes me wonder if a school truly knows itself. The change must be thoughtful and measured to be meaningful. Having said that, I'll contradict myself and admit I often want it to happen much faster. As a head, it's tough to know how to strike the right pace and balance (a topic I'm planning for another post soon).

Finally, I realize an eternal truth once again. It's a great one for us to be reminded of quite regularly. It's a notion that Lori Carroll captured in an earlier post about the #isedchat Tweetup in Boston. For all the talk about more education being on-line and the end of giant conferences, I don't believe it will happen to the extreme that some people imagine. There is simply something essential about the communal experience of coming together for a common and admirable goal. Kids need that from their schools, and we need that as independent school educators.

     For that reason, I fully intend to be at annual next year, and I hope to be asked to blog so I can make up for dereliction of duty this year. In the meantime, I'd love to know if I captured the flavor of this year's event and what I missed.

Cross-Posted on 2015 NAIS Annual Conference Online Community

Not Either/Or; but Yes, And...

Many people have offered many valid reasons innovation can occur slowly in schools. Risk aversion, ossified structures, lack of vision, fear, silos, intellectual arrogance, myopia, standardization, the textbook industry, poltiics, parental concerns, silver bullet belief in the latest fad--I'm sure you could add some other items. As I reflect on that list, I notice that many of them share a common problem, one which smacks of oversimplification. Too often in education we engage in either/or thinking.

To illustrate, let's consider a recent, perhaps ongoing, battle about early childhood language instruction. In this corner, we have the defending champion, Phonics Instruction. In the oppositie corner, the challenger, Whole Language. In schools all over the country, people picked one side or the other and bet the house. Phonics people continued with the "tried and true," and Whole Language folks threw out the traditional. Was one side right about the better approach? Perhaps. Then one would have to be wrong, and both had very valid points. Yet in many cases one side viewed the other only with disdain, rather than with an open mind that would enable integrating the two in a way that woudl work. They thus missed an opportunity to reach more children through effective differentiation.

Let's take a curernt example but switch focus a bit to consider two issues: cultural literacy and a more modern approach. I'll stick with language arts. Most people--even those who are not the most vocal defendants of a cultural literacy approach--likely would argue that students should have some familiarity with Shakespeare. Let's use Romeo and Juliet since that seems a popular choice for inclusion in many curricula. We know the traditional way of studying Shakespeare: read it while struggling with the language, analyze the themes, take some quizzes, memorize and recite passages, take a test, write an essay. Now imagine this approach. The students, upon hearing of the trend in modernizing the Bard's works, suggest doing that also. So as a class they decide to rewrite the play. They figure out a plan and go at it. They keep all the key elements; for example, the balcony scene remains an interlocking sonnet. But now it's set on a porch outside the school library. Once done writing, they rehearse and then perform and record their version of the play, making it availaible for a much larger audience. After, they have to write reflections that show their understanding of the play and how this project aided in that. They've gained the cultural literacy. After all, which approach do you think will better lead to kids learning and even appreciating Shakespeare? They also had to work on the basic literacies of reading and writing. Plus they had to be creative and to collaborate, and their final product was a contribution to their community--some of the essentials of a modern education.

That Shakespeare project--one of the real highlights of my teaching career--epitomizes how we can take a "yes, and..." approach to education. The best part? The students initiated it. All I had to do was go along. This happened in the late 1980s, and I argue that our doing more and more work like this is more imperative now than ever. But too often the response is "yes, but..."--that killer phrase which is the hallmark of either/or thinking and even closed-mindedness. Even beyond the curricular and pedagogical implications, I worry about this in terms of role-modeling for students. F.S. Fitzgerald wrote, "The sign of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time and still maintain the ability to function." Kid suffer when we can't--or won't--do this to improve education.

Posted with Blogsy

Opening Remarks to Employees 2014

Introductory Note: The following are my opening remarks to all-employees on August 14, 2014. Our theme for the year is creativity, and this was right before a design thinking workshop. I apologize to regular readers, who will see a previous post contained herein. But two-thirds of it is new.

Since we’re focusing on creativity this year, for my remarks this morning I’m going to talk about what I believe to be a topic never before addressed in schools: what I did on my summer vacation. Or, more accurately, what I did on my summer vacation and how it provided some great metaphorical reminders.

                We’ll begin with a short video: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y88_e7BMQ3w). Obviously that wasn’t me, but last week I scaled the Beehive in Acadia National Park (Maine) with my two children, Kate, 17, and Stephen, 14. Or, more accurately, they basically scampered up as I slowly eased my way along, clinging to every little bit of granite I could, even crawling in a few places. See, it was only a short way up when I realized I had a newfound but quite profound fear of heights. As I squeezed as flat as I could against the wall, Kate and Stephen kept peering over the edge and looking down, Kate talking about adrenaline rushes and Stephen yelling, “Yee-ha!” Meanwhile, I was thinking about how the previous year Kate had gone down the Beehive, which strikes me as much harder.

                Once I reached the top, I was glad I had. As you could see on the video, the view was amazing, and I was proud of having forced myself to persevere. Still, I will admit that I had some bad dreams that night. We did some more climbing, though nothing quite as challenging. Despite their begging, we avoided the trail called “The Precipice.” Still, The Bubbles and the cliffs along the ocean shore had some very steep drops. I found myself struggling to allow for their sense of adventure and to manage my parental fears. There was a lot of “That’s far enough!” and “Not so close to the edge!” Probably too much, in retrospect.

                See, it’s about balancing that level of healthy fear versus confidence versus realities. And that is affected by life experience. For me the idea of falling was very real, very possible; the odds were probably increased by my conception and fear of it. Kate and Stephen have that adolescent sense that it can’t happen to them. Yet they, like most kids, can be overly dramatic about what we perceive as mere learning experiences, such as bombing an assessment in school. To them that feels like falling off a cliff. We have to consider every aspect of the school experience from the student perspective and do so with great empathy. The parent one also. So there are three challenges in there for us to think about. How do we create the right environment for kids to take risks which to them seem reasonable? How do we get parents to understand this and how it relates to the big picture of learning and growth and perseverance? What risks are we going to take as the role models for that?

                Some of my angst about the dangers of these climbs was heightened by an incident a week or so earlier.

The phone rang around 7:30 PM one Saturday. The number was unfamiliar, so my wife almost didn't answer. But she did because both kids were on adventures: Kate biking from Reno to San Francisco and then down the coast to Santa Barbara; Stephen hiking around the Colorado Rockies. Both go with an amazing company called Overland, who sponsor different types of programs all over the world. We were enjoying being “kid-free” for a while.

The call was about Stephen. While climbing to an alpine lake, he had slipped and smacked his head on a rock. He didn't show any signs of injury other than a three-quarter-inch long “jagged gash” above his eye that would require stitches. Plus they wanted him checked since it was a head injury. Adding to the challenge was that the group (2 leaders and 12 kids) was in real back country. One leader and Stephen would have to hike 2 hours just to reach their van, then drive about 1-1/2 hours to a hospital. Meanwhile we’d have to wait until they reached a spot where they could get cell service for any more word. (They had called the office on a satellite phone, which needed to stay with the group.) So my wife and I simply had to sit tight, unsure when we would hear more, and of course that took longer than we believed it would, knowing it was getting dark on the trail, worried about all the things that could go wrong on the trail, such as one of them getting badly hurt. Honestly, I was especially worried about the leader getting hurt.

                As we waited, my wife commented at one point, “Kids really are sacred, aren't they?” We sort of let that comment sink in. We comforted ourselves by talking about how incredible the leaders at Overland are, the great training they receive, their experience, their optimism. They, as an organization and individuals, take on an incredible responsibility. And they've suffered tragedy, such as when some teens were killed on the Ride across America last year. It’s a trip Kate plans to do in a couple of years. I was struck anew by just how much trust we had placed in Overland by sending our kids on these trips. It was Kate’s third and Stephen’s second. While I was worried, I also had faith in Overland. They honor the sacred trust.

                It should be no different in schools. As I saw in a tweet recently, “Each child in our class is someone’s whole world.” Our relationship with children and their families should be a sacred trust, ideally one that goes both ways. Parents place incredible faith in us to do what is best for their kids, to appreciate their absolute uniqueness, to forgive their inherent and developmental foibles, to nurture them lovingly, and to challenge them appropriately. That trust is the deepest root of a partnership. During that sleepless night and since, I've found myself thinking about this quite a bit as perhaps the key of a truly great school.

               We heard from Stephen and the leader as soon as they could call, then again from the hospital, then again after he’d been treated. The communication was great, and we heard again the next morning. Stephen checked out just fine, just needing a bunch of stitches. No other problems. He will have a pretty good scar; but as we like to say, scars are just tattoos with better stories. Furthermore, he also found the positive in the situation. On the phone from the hospital he gushed that on the trail they had seen an “amazing sunset and a bunch of deer and five moose.”

                That attitude ties to my third point. Cadillac Mountain is one of the first places in the United States to experience the sunrise each day. So on our final day in Maine, we woke really early to be at the peak by 5:00 AM. (We drove, not hiked.) We’d had some storms the evening before, it was cold and windy, and the cloud cover was fairly heavy. There was one long horizontal strip which slowly filled with glorious pink and purple streaks. Gorgeous, but it wasn’t the full sunrise, and people started to leave. We were at our car when we looked back, and the sun had suddenly burned through all the clouds and shone like I’d never seen it before. Just absolutely stunning! I was reminded again how each new day, like each new school year, is bursting with possibilities. It’s up to us to use our creativity to realize them.

Case for Creativity

Throughout this past school year I've led some sessions called "Inside the Head's Head." In them I've been laying out my philosophy, ideas, vision, and tying it all to what's happening at St. John's. After I set the table with some remarks, the discussions would take off, sometimes in unexpected fashion. In many ways it really was like being inside my head, where things fly around all the time and I try to connect the pieces coherently as I consider multiple facets of each. The sessions were quite enjoyable, and some "groupies" appeared regularly. Along with giving me a chance to share my thoughts, I gained some insight into parents' thinking. Reflecting on the most recent forum, I realized that I need to spend much more time clarifying my explanation about one of the most pressing issues in education: creativity.

As we were talking about the notion of creativity, very quickly I could see that people were holding onto two limiting points regarding the topic. I don't say this as a criticism; the parents were willing, but they also have certain understanings that run through society as a whole. The first is that creativity refers to artistic endeavors. The second is that creativity is an innate, fixed attribute one either has or doesn't.

If we're going to consider creativity as a quality beyond the traditionally artistic, we need to consider possible definitions. Famed educational critic Sir Ken Robinson--perhaps the first voice to raise the issue via his TED presentation (the most viewed ever)--calls creativity "the process of having original ideas that have value." While I like the basic idea here, I quibble with certain elements. For example, value is quite a relative term. Also, students may have great ideas that are not truly original, except perhaps to them. Perhaps that is what Robinson means. Still I prefer a couple of other similar notions. In Creative Confidence Tom and David Kelley talk about creativity "using your imagination to create something new in the world." They move beyond this circular thought to see it as "looking beyond the status quo," with creative confidence an "inherently optimistic way of looking at what's possible." This echoes cartoonist and blogger Hugh MacLeod's definition: "Bringing new light to what life might be." I've been developing my own draft definition: Using one's talents to affect positive change which allows individuals and societies to flourish.

Each has its good and bad aspects. Most important, however, is what they have in common. First, they all ask us to consider the notion of creativity as something broader than the long-standing and limiting framework of artistic expression. It's about perspectives and orientation and action. It's about innovation and options and exploration. It's about determining what's better. Second, they imply--and further digging would let you see they believe--that everyone is innatiely creative in some form or fashion. The real issue is that we've been led to beleive, for various reasons, that we are not; and it also has not been emphasized as a necessary trait. To a certain degree, then, it's also a matter of mindset, and traditionally we've appraoched this with the typical fixed mindset.

Similarly, we must move beyond the notion that creativity is fixed. In that regard, it's no different than the notion many have held about intelligence. And we know through Carole Dweck's work that intelligence is mutable if approached the right way. Also, consider how,the concept of multiple intelligences and that we've come to understand that intelligence is individually distinct, diverse, and dynamic. Certainly the same truths apply to creativity. We can reveal and nurture all forms of creavity. Primarily by introducing the basics of design thinking, workshops based on the Kelley brothers' methods have helped hundreds feel more creative in their particular endeavors. Per the Kelleys, "Design thinking relies on the natural--and coachable--human ability to be intuitive, to,recognize patterns, and to construct ideas that are emotionally meaningful as well as functional." Creative Confidence has numerous examples. The brothers write, "People who use the creative techniques we outline are better able to apply their imagination to painting a picture of the future. They believe they have the ability to improve on existing ideas and to positively impact the world around them, whether at work or in their personal lives."

Therein lies the real point. As far as work goes, we've all seen the multiple surveys of CEOs and other sorts who point out the increased importance of creativity in the increasingly complex world marketplace. They see it as the number one criteria they seek in new hires, but they also say they can't find it in enough people. Certainly that's important. But I argue the real value is more essentially human than that--that it lies deep inside those qualities which help make us human. It ties to Pink's work on motivation being tied to autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Our sense of those blossoms when we are being creative in any endeavor. It helps foster that sense of flow. It helps us to flourish and to thrive in all aspects of our lives. For that reason it should be an integral part of our educational mission.

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