Student Creativity
Medium Post 3
Do you remember when you were young, and the desire to be lazy and silly ruled your life? Not in a “I’m sitting on the couch all day” kind of way, but in the “I’m playing over here and I need water, but my cup is all the way over there” kind of way. The way that caused straws to be pushed together to create one huge straw so it could be drunk from the play area while it sat on the porch. Maybe the inventions worked, maybe they didn’t, but they were creative!
Progress coming from creativity is the focus of Zac Scy’s article “Making Connections: Is That All Creativity Is?” Scy focuses more on making connections between the world around someone and implementing that into inventions. For example, he jokes about a caveman seeing a dung beetle rolling its feces and that giving the caveman the idea to invent the wheel. He then goes on to talk about part of creativity being about opening oneself up to the outside world to make connections with what is seen, but some people do not view creativity in that way. Some people think they are not creative, so they do not try to invent. Other people view it as a spiritual experience that does not take any help from the outside world.
However someone defines their approach to creative ventures, Scy asks two questions that are important for anyone reading the article, but would also be interesting for students reading the article to dissect. He asks, what’s your approach to creativity and how do you define it? I think it is also important to include why is that your approach because part of progress (and new creative ventures!) comes from constantly asking why something or someone is the way it is.
Because Scy argues that connections lead to creativity, these questions can partially be answered by analyzing ERC’s Grand Challenge, “understanding and sustaining a biodiverse planet.” This challenge promotes learning how ecosystems interact with one another and how people and cultures interact and are shaped by the environment. One sub-challenge specifically talks about understanding the environment so ideas can be created that help the environment. The challenge promotes making connections with the environment to be creative and invent new ideas. The new idea might not be as revolutionary as the wheel, but it’s still creative!
If students were reading this article, it would be fun to scaffold it with a guest speaker. Students can also watch videos of talks as stand in if no one is present, but hearing some one talk about how nature fueled their creative endeavor (whether it be literally an art or a scientific invention) could help them think of ideas for applying this idea to their own lives or ideas if creating something became a project associated with this article. For example, Helena, Montana has a historic fire tower, and about ten years ago someone made an art installation of the fire tower made out of bikes. It caused discussion, and I think it was thought of because of how western Montana is beginning to interact with the environment. Most places are too far away to bike to, but in town travel in larger cities forced more and larger bike lanes to be created because there was a demand. I don’t know if my idea behind the art is accurate, but hearing someone who’s inspiration is similar can help students make their own connections.
Having a lesson about connections would be remiss if it did not also connect with content standards, though. For a lesson based around Scy’s article, the main Montana content standard for freshmen/sophomores I would have students focus on is:
SL.9–10.3 Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, including culturally diverse contexts, identifying any fallacious reasoning or exaggerated or distorted evidence.
Even though students are not writing anything that shoes this comprehension, the motivation they receive about their products will be a direct reflection of the talk. If a speaker says the ocean inspired them to create something that helps crippled eagles fly, their reasoning is flawed, and it will end up being discussed once the speaker is gone or the video has stopped playing.
