String Theory and Creativity

String Theory and Creativity

I’ve been pondering the infinite trying to expand my brain with divergent ruminations and I found that my thoughts not only collided, but sometimes merged into something entirely new. No, I wasn’t using any type of chemical enhancements, but I did catch a glimpse at something that might be of use: a string theory of creativity.
In a recent interview with a creative person, the idea of boundaries needed for creativity kept creeping up. Structure, by nature, may be considered by some as anti-creative, but I would argue that without some structure, creativity has no canvas on which to spread its colors. So, in combining this with the idea of string theory, we have the possibility that creativity happens in a set of vibrating “strings” based on the nature of the structure of the string and the divergent creative vibrations induced by one or other factors. These factors could be willful, in terms of a person, as well as environmentally influenced and passive, in terms of the available patterns of the physical universe.

So, here is how this could work: A string of any sort is defined by its structure, including length, composition, overall shape, and perhaps “color”. These attributes are all inherent in the string, but could be influenced by the string “player” as needed. For example, a string player could have shorter strings, with fewer possible vibrations (less experience) or could have longer ones that may have been frayed or cut (too many divergent “activities”). The strings could have different thicknesses (the amount dependent on the person’s fluency or ability to collect them.), as well as be arranged in different shapes or patterns (dependent on the space in the environment as well as the skill of the string player to arrange them in different ways.) The strings could be “played” in many different ways (creative products), and produce “waves” (influencing factors that could induce additional vibrations) depending on how “loud” ( the big “C” creative vs. little “c” creative) each string’s vibration composition may be. The string “player” could choose to play one single vibration (one work of creative impulse) or could create many successive vibration waves (many prolific creative ideas/works). Some strings may resemble others or be completely different. Nuances of the strings themselves may include color or even “flavor” which could influence both the nature of the vibration creative waves that they produce as well as the possible amount of creative product that could be produced with them alone. Some strings may combine in ways that produce more “resonance” , go a greater distance, and have more “influence” on other strings than other strings. In this way, a group of artists or creative people with repertoire’s of creative impulses tend to produce a “resonant” choir of creative vibrations. However, this is not always necessary, as one string or set of strings could be assembled by a string “master” that could out-vibrate the combined efforts of many others. (like Mozart, Monet, etc.)

I would invite others to explore this idea of strings as a metaphor for creativity theory and how it works. I feel as if I am just learning to pluck my own strings, and in expansion for my next thought, how could these vibrations of strings be combined (converge) to MANIPULATE something in the environment itself! (i.e. like a Marionette puppet!) Think Shakespeare here…”cutting my strings”, etc. Tune in next time and I’ll expand on this some more.

Destination Imagniation

A quick tour through the ideas of Destination Imagination.
Destination Imagination is a student team competition that involves creative pursuit of a challenge or set of challenges that the students have to problem-solve in order to complete. It is a successful student extra-curricular “competition”, but could its principles and programs be utilized in other ways? As a former sponsor of student teams such as Odyssey of the Mind, Science Olympiad, Science Fair, Technology fair, Drama conferences/puppetry competitions, robotics fairs, and several others, I think that I have a good perspective from which to review Destination Imagination. Much of the program is very well done, but a closer analysis may help to see where it stands in relation to current educational goals and where it may be able to go in the future. Here are some of my observations and ideas about the DI program.

Commendations:
1. Team approach, seven members is the right number for good group dynamics. Also, cognitive abilities are not the most important factor for team member participation. (Unlike some mathematics competitions, etc.)
2. Open-ended challenges offer greater room for creative or original solutions than some other similar competitions with a “kit” available to use to “do” the challenge.
3. Encouragement of fluency in certain content areas.
4. Offers an output for certain creative impulses for kids that may not be served anywhere else.
5. Competition is present but not stressed at a high level.

Questions:
1. Authenticity? Always a question with regard to many of these extra-curricular or enrichment activities. To what degree are these challenges addressing the types of problems or challenges that students may face today or in the future? This is not exactly clear. Further thought to why each challenge is presented may be needed. How is it related to possible future skills/content/learning? How are these challenges tied to the community, country, or the world of today or tomorrow?
2. Alignment with Learning Standards. Many are “listed” in a document on the DI website, but it is not clear how or if any particular standard will necessarily be addressed by any particular challenge. Due to open-ended nature of some of these, it may be difficult to align these in any specific way with learning standards. This needs careful consideration before it can be said that any one challenge definitely does address a specific standard of learning. In a sense, the educational “objectives” of what students should Know, Understand, and be able to Do are not clearly articulated, but this is inherent in the open-ended nature of most of these challenges, so it may be rather difficult to make these connections within the design.
3. Twenty-first century skills. Some of these do address the new skills needed in this century as identified by several educational groups. However, are these skills TRANSFERRED or connected from the DI activities to other areas of the curriculum or needed learning? What type of research should be done to determine whether any of the skills, knowledge, or ideas generated through DI are being utilized in other content areas, or if the students involved are able to transfer these skills to other disciplines?

How DI could be implemented within the school day: (pros/cons)
1. As a Separate class. One teacher only needs training. Easier to schedule, but may not be feasible for one teacher to coordinate all activities. However, this also may not be possible for all students to have equal access if they can not fit this class into their schedule.
2. Within one class. Again, easier to schedule, but it will take away time and resources from the current teacher/class. What should be done to insure that DI does not adversely affect any other parts of the curriculum?
3. Integrated approach across disciplines. This may be the best approach of all. Teachers share responsibility for team groups and their challenges. Schedule may be an issue depending on how it fits within the existing curriculum. Requires all teachers to be on board and work together in the challenges (this may or may not be an issue in some schools). Requires training of all teachers in DI, which may be cost and time prohibitive.
4. Only some elements are stressed or utilized. Some may be easier to use than others depending on the nature of a school’s curriculum. However, the entire program may have a greater impact than piece-meal approaches. In addition, could a team compete with other groups without doing all parts of the challenges?

How DI as curricular component could change school:
1. Nature of learning—student centered, constructivist, instead of didactic. Students and learning take the center stage (literally).
2. Standards of content—some pure “content” may be stressed less over thinking and making the “next best solution” the goal rather than the grade or passing a specific test on content.
3. Assessment—the nature of the assessment process may have to be adjusted. Tests that require students to think in unusual ways to solve a problem may be needed to assess how well this program is working.
4. Cooperation instead of competition between classmates. Working together is always preferable, although some competition can also be a good motivator.
5. Celebration of success in thinking and original ideas rather than skill or perceived ability. Levels the playing field in some ways in that higher cognitive ability may not necessarily translate into higher achievement in DI.
6. Social nature of group problem solving may change the way students view school itself. In my view, anything that can “de-institutionalize” the school system and make it more student-friendly is a virtue.

What about the Creative Problem Solving model and DI?
CPS in a nut-shell:
1. Objective Finding. Situation, Brainstorm goals, Consensus choice of one.
2. Fact Finding. Brainstorm related facts, rank relevance, all perspectives given.
3. Problem-Finding. Brainstorm-re-statements of problem. Get best consensus definition.
4. Idea-Finding. Diverge—brainstorm all possible solutions to problem, then Converge—Sort/rank these.
5. Solution-Finding. Brainstorm criteria of best possible solutions. Rank these and then choose a best solution based on matrix.
6. Acceptance-Finding. Implementation issues are brainstormed and implemented into solution for best acceptance.

Now, this type of problem solving is useful in some areas specifically. In science, for example, parts of this would work well for a group trying to design something in engineering or trying to get a good idea for a science project. Destination Imagination could offer some of this type of problem-solving through its challenges and CPS and DI would work well together as models for approaching group problem-solving. This skill set might be transferrable in this type of setting. However, with students choosing the goals and objectives in DI, there would need to be some careful supervision and guidelines to insure that the process would work properly and the group would not get distracted by alternative possibilities. The pre-set parameters of DI challenges including limited time, space, and materials help to constrain certain tangents, while encouraging others. This same approach could be used in more general terms for the entire program, but must be carefully adjusted to the developmental level of the group. Balancing the right amount of constraint with the right amount of freedom of creative expression would be critical. From the aspect of “Flow”, the right amount of challenge and potential success from previous skills must be balanced such that the group will have the maximum possibility for growth and learning. If DI could be designed for level-specific feedback and control loops for groups, such that it could be adjusted appropriately as groups gained skills and needed greater challenges, then it could possibly show through research how it not only could encourage creative thinking, but actually teach it! This would be important for addressing some of the questions such as alignment to SOL objectives and transfer of the new 21st century skills.

Two General Ideas:
1. The overall system of public education must become more balanced towards constructivist approaches and creative expression in terms of its goals, philosophy, and objectives. This is asking the system to move towards DI some.
2. Programs like DI must adjust some of their parameters and implementation options such that they can be utilized by schools as part of their curriculum. In this way, they may need to move a bit towards the “system”. However, they can maintain their mission, but just plan to offer more streamlined “options” for those systems that will want more potential structure or specific content addressed through any program used within their schools.

Destination Imagination is a good program worth pursuing right now as either enrichment and/or extra-curricular as well as potentially meeting many of the 21st century educational goals. We need more programs like this to explore alternatives and encourage our future creative thinkers.

Creative Scavenging

Creative Scavengers
So, what makes a product creative? Hmmm…perhaps if it makes your eyebrows raise by even an imperceptible amount or maybe it elicits an emotional response beyond that of the usual environment. To what degree does initial shock value or novelty factor into classifying a product as creative? On my journey to find creative products, I stumbled across a variety of ideas. I submit, to consider the following:

1. “The Foreigner”, a play I attended recently the UVA drama department’s Culbreth Theater, written by Larry Shue and directed by Richard Warner. The set design was by Rachel Witt. The late Larry Shue was from Shenandoah, VA and wrote several plays including this one for a Broadway production back in the 1980’s. This production was interpreted through the lens of local director Richard Warner and illustrated the method of creative interpretation of a product through a more modern viewpoint. The play follows the mis-adventures of an introverted English man who is distraught over the illness of his wife and is taken to a lodge in the Georgia hills to get away for a few days. In an attempt to make sure his friend is left alone, the members of the lodge are told that he cannot speak English and that nobody should talk to him. However, in the best of southern traditions, they soon begin to talk to him, educate him, and even get him involved in their lives. As a “fish out of water”, this character learns how to grow in many ways through being someone other than himself. I tended to think about how ironic it was that a play was tackling the theme of how we all tend to need to get out of ourselves sometimes to find ourselves, which is exactly what actors IN a play do. In this way, I thought that this was a very creative idea for a play and very well interpreted by the actors, director, and set designer. It illustrates that often a good creative product not only provides a surface level of interest, but has a bit of depth to it that can elicit a creative response FROM the audience or people viewing or experiencing the product. The more people who develop responses, the more varied the interpretations. In addition, a creative performance is interpreted through the lens of the director, actor, and scene designer in that any singular performance gives each audience member an opportunity to connect to the themes and ideals of the play in a unique way. A creative product should present such depth of expression, skill, or innovative thought such that it can be viewed from multiple perspectives and at multiple “angles” by many diverse individuals. The thought of each person “projecting” his or her own set of experiences onto the canvas of the performance is what allows each to really assemble their own set of themes from both the nature of the performance as well as the prior experiences now connected to it. In essence, this type of creative product CHANGES THE MIND…in some way and MAKES one assimilate and accommodate something new into the current schema.

2. The Monticello Visitor Center. The recent addition to our local historical presidential home was designed to look ancient, but function as a modern visitor center. Now, normally one might think these to be crossed purposes, but this structure illustrates many of the creative ideals of not only Thomas Jefferson, but also such architectural styles as those of Frank Lloyd Wright. The structure appears to grow out of the landscape and then to have elements from an old mountain cabin. However, when one enters, there is an amazing amount of natural light through a specially designed skylight system. The unique COMBINATION of many elements to make this structure function aesthetically as well as practically, make it a creative product.

3. U2 Stage! I had to include the recent stage and set of the U2 concert in this list mostly because it was an amazing feat of creative construction! The shape and dimensions of the stage as a giant claw as well as the incredible amount of innovative engineering to get all aspects of this production to work in so short of a time make it a quite creative product. It provided the backbone of inspiration and setting for an amazing show. In this case, the product is creative because its function goes BEYOND what one would normally equate for such an item. In a sense it does MORE than an ordinary stage of this type. Watching people respond to just the stage was quite interesting…much pointing and questioning as well as the “awesome” factor of the size and complexity of this structure made it quite a conversation piece. A unique combination of previous ideas and items, along with the sense that it provides aesthetic as well as functional fuel to the musical performance, make this a creative product.

4. Three bear puppetry at the Old Michie Theater. Although, I have worked with OMT before, I had not seen this particular show. It goes through the classic tale of Goldilocks, but with a bit of a happy ending. The puppets show remarkable artistry as well as providing a unique view of the appearance of a “bear”. In addition, the sets and scenery, scaled for these characters, was often the source of fascination by many of the young audience members. They connected with the story (like in the Success method), as well as the simplicity, unexpectedness, concrete puppets, credibility of the story, and the emotional responses elicited by the music and the puppetry. In many ways, this type of show illustrates much of the SUCCESS method from Heath’s book, “Made to Stick”.

5. A glass violin! On a recent trip to Williamsburg, Va, I had the privilege to view a performance by an artist who uses glass instruments including a glass violin! It is quite a rare item and very difficult to design and craft such that it will not break and so that it will produce the proper sound as a violin. In this case the rarity and difficulty in terms of artistry, skill, and craftsmanship required to produce this type of item make it remarkably creative. The material and nature of it are definitely outside of what one would expect for this type of instrument which also makes it quite a creative product.

Now, I can’t go forward without showing at least one example of something that I consider to be “not creative”. Downtown there is an unfinished hotel building that has been standing for almost a year. It was proposed as a way to draw tourists to the downtown area, but due to many factors has remained an unfinished eyesore and stalwart of traffic and progress. It illustrates that even the best ideals of a creative impulse can go awry when not conceived properly. This project was not properly supported or funded and stands not only incomplete, but it’s very future existence may be questionable. Much expenditure of time and effort went into it, but very little of benefit has resulted. So, what makes something NOT creative? Perhaps the broken promise of greatness, or the underlying resolute pursuit of economic gain over purity of form comprise part of this disappointment.

So, in summary, the items viewed as creative did the following:

1. Shifted the mindset or schema of the audience.

2. Provided depth and breadth of interpretation and interest

3. Combined products or ideas in new or unique ways

4. Followed many aspects of the Success method

5. Were rare or unique in at least one aspect of their creation.

And, the “not” creative item did the following:

1. Had conflicting or alternative agenda related purposes

2. Was produced for a practical need that was not clearly defined

3. Was superfluous or just re-used many aspects of previous projects in the same way

4. Was incomplete in vision or scope

5. Expended much effort or resources for very little return.

Keep scavenging for creative stuff...