How to Build Creativity

1:24 Kicking off the conversation, Dr. Robert Bilder shares the science behind how creativity is built in the human brain. Dr. Bilder emphasizes the importance of engagement, freedom, and connections for creative thinking.

10:09 To get our creative juices flowing, MIT student Audrey Cui describes her experience with THINK, a research organization that provides funding to teens for creative research projects. Cui describes what motivates her to be creative and how she uses computer science and painting to express herself.

12:19 Providing deeper insight into the neuroscience of creativity, Dr. Darya Zabelina, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Arkansas, explores how various parts of the brain become active as we think creatively. Dr. Zabelina discusses underlying characteristics of creative people such as “leaky” attention, imprecise perception, and attention disorders. Ultimately, though, she points out why creative thinking is beneficial and should be encouraged and lauded.

23:04 Another former THINK program finalist, Brooke Nuesfsky, emphasizes the importance of creativity as a catalyst for progress in society. She discusses her passion for STEM and how success in STEM fields relies on creative thinking.

24:40 “What is creativity?” asks Natalie Evans, Temple University Graduate Student at the Infant and Child Laboratory. While this question has many answers, Evans emphasizes that creativity is not simply a light bulb moment and suggests that parents lay the groundwork for cultivating creativity by encouraging curiosity in their children and by allowing them to explore on their own to find solutions to given situations.

33:03 Brandon Niederauer, prodigy musician and Broadway actor, improvises a musical performance on the guitar and shares his story of creativity.

36:00 An actress, screenwriter, director, and recipient of the 2020 Outstanding Director Award of the Young Artists Academy, Dana Koops explains how creativity means being inventive and brave and urges parents to give children and teens space to be innovative.

38:01 Focusing on the emotional side of creativity, Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Director of the Creativity and Emotions Lab at Yale University, highlights the importance of creativity and shares that it comes from daring to attempt what might be uncomfortable or socially risky. Dr. Pringle maintains that even mundane tasks can be filled with creative moments.

50:13 Performing excerpts of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on violin, Dr. Joanna Kaczorowska, Director of Undergraduate Performance Studies at Stony Brook University, emphasizes the importance of listening to and playing music for inspiring children’s creativity. As she plays excerpts from the piece, she invites parents to ask their children what they imagine.

56:05 Getting creative with parenting strategies and therapy can be incredibly impactful. Dr. Charlotte Reznick, Child and Educational Psychologist, recommends several imagination tools to creatively address behavioral and psychological challenges. Dr. Reznick demonstrates how breathing is key to managing emotions and regulating our body’s internal state and discusses how mindfulness is intertwined with creative thinking and imagination.

1:07:45 Joining us from the UK, Dr. Pamela Burnard, Professor of Arts, Creativities, and Educations at the University of Cambridge explores why both the arts and sciences matter for education through the interplay of disciplinary and transdisciplinary creativities. She draws important distinctions between the specific disciplinary types such as mathematical creativity, scientific creativity, and various arts creativities, as well as those that arise through social and community exchanges. Professor Burnard notes how children and parents can utilize technologies to support creative endeavors.

1:20:32 Art teacher Emily Howard demonstrates several open-ended and creative at-home artistic activities for all ages, from recreating classic art pieces with random objects to transforming a blob with imagination and a crayon.

1:24:50 To conclude this dynamic webinar, Dr. Bilder facilitates a live Q&A session with the audience. Topics discussed include the psychological safety of creative contribution, how to create a positive learning environment that fosters invention, how socioeconomic background influences creative opportunity, and technology’s role in building creativity.

Pamela Hurst Della-Pietra

Hello, my name is Pam Hurst Della-Pietra, and I am founder and president of Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development, and host of today’s special webinar on creativity. I’m delighted that you could join us. Our panelists have reviewed the questions that you submitted and will answer as many as possible during and after their presentations. If you have additional questions during the workshop, please type them into your Q&A box at the bottom of your screen and indicate whether or not you would like to ask your question live on camera or if time permits and it’s possible the moderator would read your question. We are recording today’s workshop, and hope to upload a video on YouTube in the coming days. It is now my great pleasure to introduce our moderator. Dr. Robert Bilder is the Tennenbaum Family Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Chief of Psychology at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, director of the Tennenbaum Center for Biology of Creativity. His team recently completed the Big-C project examining brain and behavior in exceptional artists, exceptional scientists, and a SMART comparison group, and is now leading a national endowment for arts research lab to develop a novel arts impact measurement system. Welcome, Bob. 

Robert Bilder

Thank you so much, Pam, I’m really glad to be here, delighted to be part of such an amazing panel that you have assembled. And to start things off, I thought it would be fun to talk a little bit about certain aspects of creativity that we’ve learned at the Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity over the last few years. And I hope that folks can now see my screen. Our topic for today is really how to build creativity, how to launch creative futures for our kids. And, the one message that I would like to get across is that it’s important to find balance in all of this work. As you know, if you look into the self-help sections of any bookstore you can find an infinite number of  authoritative works that will tell you the one thing you need to focus on in order to enhance your own creativity or that of your kids. And what I’d like to say is I think that there is no one thing. In fact, I aim to write a book that’s called The Other Thing, to highlight that what is really important is balance, the balance of flexibility and stability, that balance of action and rest. There are the kinds of mechanisms that occur within the individual human brain, and that I think that we can promote to enhance creative potentials. And that flow state that I think is such a desideratum of our work. Now, of course, to persuade you that any of these ideas are true I need to show you colorful images of the brain because we know that colorful images of the brain are what persuades us that data is actually accurate. These are images that we constructed from working at what the word creativity does when it is intersected against the entire world literature, looking at all of the neuroimaging studies that have ever been done. And, fortunately we have some great people here today to talk about various brain processes and other kinds of processes that are important in creativity. But I want to tell you just a little bit about the studies we have done that have looked particularly at functional creativity. Now this is an example from a colleague, Roger Beaty and his friends, who looked at certain patterns of creativity as people were performing cognitive tasks. And, one of the interesting things that they found is that usually when we get engaged in tasks, certain parts of our brains turn on and other parts turn off, that in the creative brain, there’s a tendency for these different functional systems in the brain to work together and to be turned on simultaneously rather than at alternating times. And that’s the kind of pattern when we look at networks in the brain that deviate from a uniform or regular pattern. Some people have talked about the small world pattern of brain networks that highlights how we can make a more efficient brain by connecting certain things together. But interestingly, when we looked at Big-C individuals, we were able to mount a study with support from the John Templeton Foundation to look at exceptional visual artists, exceptional scientists and compare those folks to what we call a SMART control group, who were matched on intelligence and education but that did not possess these amazing creative achievements. And what we found is that they showed a more random pattern of connection in their brains. And indeed, to whether they were at rest or performing certain cognitive tasks, that they tended to explore different kinds of random connections in their brain relative to other comparison participants. So this is basically a pattern that is less efficient, they showed lower amounts of small-worldness but more randomness. And this was found particularly in Big-C creative scientists but also in exceptional visual artists. Now one way to think about that, since many of you may not be specialists in network topologies and stuff like that, but if you’ve flown on an airplane, you’ve seen, you know, the transportation maps, and maps of airline clusters, and you can see from these that there are certain places that are connected very strongly to others, those are the hubs of transportation, while others are more remotely connected. And this is a more efficient pattern of organization that enables us to actually get in airplanes and fly around and get from point A to point B most efficiently. But what we are finding in some of our exceptionally creative individuals, is that they are more likely to have random flights going from say Duluth to Burbank, where you don’t have to go to other big hubs (LAX) in order to get from point A to point B. The exceptionally creative individuals are exploring these alternate ways to get from one place to another in the brain in a way that is not necessarily the most efficient way to think but is exploring connections that others would not explore.

So, now, there’s something else that I think is pertinent to today’s series of talks. And that is, what happens to our brains when we are subjected to an environment that is restricted, and is focusing more and more of our attention, for example, onto Zoom screens, where we have to look at a very small segment of our entire world. And there’s a long-standing literature that looks at the broadening and narrowing of attention. And I think that the idea that I was mentioning at the very beginning about balance is critical here. The key to creativity, from the work that I have seen and that we have done, is that one needs to have a balance of broadening and narrowing of attention working together in order to promote creative achievement. What we see though, as we have all been trapped in the “Zoomosphere” and are spending all of our attention online is a narrowing of attention, which goes along with anxiety. And I think that what we critically need at times like those we are confronting now is ways to broaden our attention, to liberate ourselves from the constriction of attention that leads us to overfocus. And the more time we can spend in open monitoring and to promote that aspect of our world and our lives and to do so for our children is probably one of the greatest things that we can do to promote creativity. So, in the most scientific study yet, I asked my two children, I have twins who are now 18 years old, but here they were when they were about 7, and I asked them what promotes creativity and they described the things that made a difference to them and those included intensive engagement, and I think that every bit of research that we’ve identified shows that motivation to be engages and stay engaged is critical to creative achievement. But even more important than that in some ways is the freedom to explore alternatives, I think that to identify problems that don’t have correct answers, where there is no right or wrong, that those are critical components of creativity that we can support for our kids. And then finally I think that one of the amazing elements that helps to support creativity are not only connections in our brains, but connections to others, connections to other kids, connections to other people in our environment, that interaction among people, and like the prairie voles that are behind me showing side-by-side behavior in caring for their pups, it’s that kind of connection, connectedness and attachment that helps to support creative achievement. So with that, let me just thank you for paying attention and thank those who sponsored our research, and let us move on to the rest of the program, which I think is a very exciting one and that I think we’ll begin with a vignette. One of things that will be an exciting distinction about this particular conference, is that throughout the course of the day, not only will you be hearing from fantastic speakers, but you will additionally be getting special vignettes from students, art teachers, musicians, and young creatives that will further enhance the process. So with that what I’d like to do is let us turn to a project segment where we can see Audrey and her creative teen video.

Audrey

I am a Freshman at MIT, but currently I am stuck home in California. So, think is a high schooler research program, where high school students can submit a proposal detailing their ideas for a research project and finalists receive funding and mentorship from MIT students and faculty to make their ideas a reality. So, I was a finalist in 2019, my junior year of high school, and now I’m on the committee that runs the program, so things have come full circle for me. So what motivates me to be creative? Well, the two things that I enjoy learning about and exploring the most are computer science and art. When I’m not coding, most likely I’m painting. So what I love most about art is the sheer freedom it gives me. So it enables me to bring flying cats to life and it also gives me the voice to express who I am and how I see the world. And I kind of see computer science in a similar way. Computer science also lets me bring my ideas to life and create what hasn’t existed before, like an AI art critic. Applications for the 2021 THINK program are now open, it was one of the meaningful experiences I had in high school, and you can apply at think.mit.edu. 

Robert Bilder

Well that is amazing. Thank you Audrey and I hope that everyone will be looking up those applications and submitting things to the THINK program. Next, I am very honored to be able to introduce an amazing researcher about creativity, someone who knows more about the brain and creativity than just about anyone, Darya L. Zabelina, who is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Zabelina’s work focuses on understanding creative cognition, imagination, and other related processes and how these processes are linked with more traditional subfields of Cognitive Psychology such as attention and executive functions. Darya, take it away.

Darya Zabelina

Thank you very much, Bob. Thanks for having me. So, I would like to share with you today just the birds eye view of the neuroscience of creativity. First, our brains are sort of structured in a way that there are several different networks. Right, that several different regions of the brain that activate and are involved in some kind of thinking or cognitive process. And as Dr. Bilder mentioned before, there are two brain networks that seem to co-active when people are thinking creatively. And that’s really interesting because previously they thought for, for most types of cognition, they don’t work together, but for creative thinking specifically they seem to come online at the same time, which is really really amazing. So that’s the cognitive control network, the frontoparietal control network that’s now the name for it. Typically, that network is these brain regions are involved in error monitoring, initiation of tasks, core networks for task control, things like that. And then the default mode network is generally activated for internally directed attention, self-generated cognition. And again, for creativity, these two types of networks, these regions appear to both be really important. So, that’s in terms of sort of where creativity happens in the brain. Now let’s briefly talk about what type of activity is important for creative thinking. There’s many studies at this point that show that alpha band activity, some of you have probably heard of alpha activity in the brain. So that is activity that happens between 8-13 hertz, so it’s the frequency of neuron oscillations in our brain in the brain. And this type of activity is generally present when we have our eyes closed, when we are relaxed, again when our attention is directed internally. And it appears specifically that this type of activity becomes more prevalent when people are thinking about these uncommon thoughts compared to more normal, kind of standard thoughts, so that is really interesting too. And also some of our work and also as Bob mentioned there is a lot of work from previous literature that also shows that creative people just, generally more creative people have what we call “leaky” attention and we define that as sort of as where their attentional filters are not very precise. So not is it only broad attention but we have seen that with P50 ERP, that’s an event-related potential, where more creative people, their sensory filters, even their sensory perception is not very precise. They let in more sensory information, they notice more things in the real world that other people might not notice. And as you can imagine that probably serves as a double edged sword that some people with this type of attention might have difficulties with attentional focus, this might lead to increased mind-wandering or attention disorders. But, on the other hand it might also help these people to introduce unusual or original pieces of information into their cognition sort of making them more creative. And sort of tying all of this information into the topic of today’s webinar: media and creativity. You know, this is probably a very common scene that we are all now familiar with where kids go to the playground to all stare at their phone, maybe don’t talk to each other, probably texting. And this type of external attention by definition might lead to fewer engagement or lesser engagement of that default mode network, less alpha-band activity that is so important for creativity. And of course, you know, the balance is important but external attention to a device all of the time does not allow kids to sort of think or to direct their attention inwards. And I just wanted to briefly mention a study that shows that not only does media and cell phones affect default, might affect default mode network but it also appears that it might also have an effect on our cognitive control as well. So we have a study where we had participants perform a cognitive control task and we measured their brain activity and let them listen to either smartphone sounds or cognitive control sounds. So they were just kind of randomly appearing before each trial on this cognitive control task. And what we found is that participants when they heard smartphone sounds they were slower on the consequent trials, and they also showed smaller overall N2 ERP which is a marker of cognitive control, suggesting that right after participants heard the smartphone sounds, there was a brief reduction in cognitive control, right so they were slower and there was a brief reduction in cognitive control. So it appears that media might affect both default mode and cognitive control networks. So very briefly what can we do about it? Other speakers will talk about this in more detail today but time in nature, unstructured play, role playing. Yeah I have some potential slides here so time in nature, unstructured play, there’s a really good podcast on this, role playing, reading of course, and mindfulness appears to actually facilitate creative thinking. So thank you very much, thanks to my lab, sources of funding, and I have quite a few resources that will be shared with you later, books and webinars and other videos. Thanks very much.

Robert Bilder

That was fantastic Darya. Thank you so much. I learned a lot during your presentation, I’m sure the audience has as well. One of the things I wanted to bring us to, in addition to these amazing resources, you know, some of the tips that you have provided, I’m wondering how do we apply them to the very young, to young kids and infants. You know, older kids can engage in a number of these kinds of activities but what do we do with our real little ones? What are your thoughts about that?

Darya Zabelina

Yeah, sure. That’s a really good question. So, creativity, some people when you bring up the word creativity they think of the arts right away. Right, so, you think well with older kids, you can give them things to draw in art classes. However, the way that I think about creativity is just a way of thinking, right. So it’s encouraging even younger kids to explore. So rather than giving them things to do all the time, trying to engage them, trying to sort of occupy them every single second I think it’s really important to, and research shows that it is important to actually let them be bored sometimes. Let them find a way to engage that default mode network, let them engage in mind wandering. So that’s, you know, even for infants, instead of sort of trying to occupy them every single moment, let them be bored, let them explore. 

Robert Bilder

Really? You mean we don’t need to plug them into Baby Einstein videos 100% of the time?

Darya Zabelina

I mean that’s okay too sometimes. I wanted to make a point that I don’t think we need to say that media and cell phones and everything is bad. Right, so they definitely serve a function. We can connect with loved ones and learn. But no, we don’t need to plug them in front of the TV all the time. 

Robert Bilder

Yeah, I have one more quick question which may not deserve, may deserve more than a quick answer but we’ll have time for a quick answer and that is what do you see in the EEG patterns of creative people or when people are performing creative tasks? What kind of patterns do you observe?

Darya Zabelina

Yes, right, so, as I mentioned I think alpha activity is the most frequent brain oscillations that seem to be really important for creativity and again that’s the oscillations that come online when we are internally focused, when we are bored, when we are on the bus looking outside and sort of mind wandering. So we can actually see, and of course that brain activity is not only specific to creative thinking. There is no such region, there is no such specific type of activity or region in the brain that’s a creativity region. And no, the right brain is not more creative than the left one. But we can definitely see markers of creative thinking and also just markers of creative people. Creative people just in general there is some research showing that creative people just tend to have more alpha activity in the brain.

Robert Bilder

Really fantastic, really fantastic. So that seems to be compatible with the idea that relaxing some of the constraints on our cognition. That this opportunity to decrease the level of intensive cognitive control may be valuable to creative thoughts. 

Darya Zabelina

Yeah, exactly, yes.

Robert Bilder

Arlright, well that is amazing. Wonderful, wonderful. Well thank you so much Darya.

Darya Zabelina

Thanks for having me.

Robert Bilder

I look forward to hearing more about your exciting work as we move along. I think that what we have coming up now is another project segment where Brooke is going to give us another example of a creative teen.

Brooke

Hi my name is Brooke Dunefsky and I am a junior from New York. I have always been really passionate about stem because I believe it really just provides people with an amazing opportunity to find an intersection between technical scientific thinking and creativity. So, I have always just really wanted to pursue this path, and I really just in general am so interested in using creative expression in all that I do, because I believe that creativity is really just the catalyst for progress in society and I think that’s so important that people understand the value of creativity because I feel like that sometimes within school systems creativity is not always easy to express or easy to value, so I think that’s so important that people take the time on their own to really just nurture their ability so that they can use their creative abilities to really just make an impact on the world.

Robert Bilder

Well that was an incredible presentation. There’s a little lag there but it’s very exciting to hear from our teens, how they’re going about doing creativity in the real world. But, next up I’m excited to introduce Natalie Evans. Natalie is a doctoral candidate in developmental psychology at Temple University, one of the meccas of creativity research, and she’s working there with Kathy Hirsh-Pasek. Natalie’s research focuses on fostering curiosity, exploration, and creativity during playful learning, which is perfect for today’s topics. So, Natalie, take it away.

Natalie Evans

Thank you, I am excited to be here with everyone today to speak a bit about how we can understand creativity and foster creativity in young preschool children. So I thought I would start off by thinking about what is creativity? I think what comes to a lot of people’s minds at first is this “A-ha” light bulb moment where you suddenly come up with this brilliant idea, but we know that there is more to it than that. So something that we look at quite often in creativity research is divergent thinking, so this process of idea generation, coming up with lots of different ideas in response to a prompt or problem. And this is actually the most common way that creativity is measured in both children and adults, through tasks such as the alternative uses tasks where, for instance, a child might be asked what are all the ways you could use a newspaper. But you also might be thinking that just coming up with ideas in itself isn’t enough to be creative. You need to then combine that divergent with convergent thinking, which is honing in and trying out one of the ideas that you came up with. And another thing that you might be thinking is how do we get to that stage of idea generation in the first place. And what I would suggest, and other researchers would suggest, is that first need to engage in curiosity, asking questions about the world around us that then sparks exploration where you get to explore your surroundings and start to generate those ideas. So when I was trying to come up with the tasks to understand and measure creativity in young preschool children I wanted to address those issues that I just brought up. A. I wanted to move beyond just simple idea generation to a task that would allow kids to try ideas or converge on one idea and I wanted exploration to be a vital part of that task. And that is how I came up with this through looking at other research I came to this ball and jar task. So when I give this task to kids, I put a tall jar in front of them with a ball in it and ask them to try and figure out how to get the ball out without sticking your hand in or without tipping the jar over. And I give them a variety of everyday objects to help them do this. So, for instance, I get pipe cleaners, spoons, sticky clay, things like that. And what this allows us to do is look at not only can kids get the ball out, which to be honest, is a pretty hard task for preschoolers to do, but perhaps more interestingly how do kids try to go about getting the ball out. And what we did is we measured the sorts of behaviors kids engaged in while they were participating in this task. In particular we looked at exploration behaviors. So these were behaviors for kids which physically manipulate the properties of an object, such as bending the pipe cleaner or mashing up this sticky clay. And what we found is that kids that engaged in more exploration behaviors were more likely to be successful on this task than those that did not. So this moves on to a bigger point of how do we then foster creativity in kids. And on the flip side of that I think it is also helpful to think about how do we kill creativity in kids. I think one way that can happen is when we discourage exploration by saying that there is only one right answer to a problem someone is faced with. So, Liz Bonawitz did some interesting work on this topic with young children looking at exploration and what might hinder it. So she gave children this exciting novel toy you see here that has several different functions such as switches to turn on lights, music, squeakers, trap doors, things like that. And she presented this to kids in a few different ways. So some kids received some direct instruction, so they were shown this toy and a button on the toy and they were told to push this button by the adult that was showing them the toy. Other kids were given a question such as I wonder what this button can do. And kids after being given directions or instructions were then given a chance to play with the toy on their own. What the researchers found was that those kids who were given direct instruction that very direct prompt of how to play with the toy, they chose to play with that toy for less time and they also discovered fewer functions on that toy compared to kids that have been given questions instead. So to wrap it up with some takeaways of how we can encourage creativity through play, we are looking for exploration in play that embodies certain qualities. First of all, it has to be joyful, kids have to be having fun in the process of exploring and playing. It should be interactive, so this can be peer-to-peer interaction between kids, or it can be an adult providing a supporting role for kids in a creative activity or in whatever they are trying to do. It should be meaningful. So, it should be child-lead. The child’s interests should come first when it comes to exploration so that they stay engaged. So that is willingness to be minds-on and engaged without distractions. Next, it should be active. So kids shouldn’t be sitting back and taking a passive role, they should be hands-on. And one way we know we can really encourage that is by asking questions of children and also encouraging children to ask questions themselves. And finally, including an iterative nature. So, what we mean by that is, when kids have the option to try and fail things, retest things and try again, that is an important part of exploration leading to creativity. So thank you very much and I will leave it here with just a recap of what the key behaviors we are looking for to cultivate creativity through play.  

Robert Bilder

That is really fantastic, thank you so much Natalie, that was really wonderful and among the questions we have coming in, I’m wondering, what can we do following the kinds of tips that you have provided especially with kids who may have intellectual disabilities. What are the kinds of activities we might be able to do to engage with them?

Natalie Evans

That is an excellent question. I think it all comes back to what I was saying before with taking the child’s interest first. You know, I think with the work of preschoolers, we sometimes we hear that creativity is this lofty thing that you have to come up with something that is novel and useful. But really I think that creativity is something that is accessible to everyone. I think with young kids and perhaps kids with intellectual disabilities, I think to go off something Darya was saying before, creativity is a way of thinking and I think it starts with finding out what is the child’s interest and following up there. I also want to say something about the role of adults there, you know. When I was explaining direct instruction before, we do not want adult involvement that is too heavy handed, that is telling the child what to do, leading along the way. But adults can be there in a supporting role, so if the child displays interest in a topic, you know, asking questions or trying to get that child to elicit questions might be those first steps to bringing out creativity in young kids.

Robert Bilder

Right, well that is wonderful. And I am wondering also as we move to, you know, these older folks, older learners, people who may be in advanced education, higher education, graduate students. You commented on joyfulness. It seems like sometimes in graduate education, the joy is not always obvious. How do we spark joy and that excitement for learning as we go through life?

Natalie Evans

Yeah that is an excellent question and very pressing as a graduate student myself. At the moment, I think it keeps coming back to you know grounding what we do in what that spark of curiosity was, what led us to these questions or these roots of education that we pursued from the beginning. You know, what questions were we answering or trying to answer. What led us to want to explore more I think that is the place to start.

Robert Bilder

That is really brilliant and I love that idea. Maybe you can have another seminar for your fellow graduate students as a follow on project from your dissertation. Well that’s fantastic. Well, let us move along to another project segment that we have from Brandon another creative teen.

Brandon

Hey guys, my name is Brandon Niederauer, I’m a 17-year old musician and actor from Long Island, New York and I’m so happy to be here for this amazing webinar for Children and Screens. We’re going to be talking about creativity today. Creativity is something I hold very close to my heart. I try to be creative every single day and I’m so happy that my parents got me involved, you know. They bought me my first guitar at age 8. I’ve been playing for 10 years now and that went into so many things in my career involving you know, acting and singing, you know, all stem from the guitar. The arts are so subjective, you know, it’s all about you, and it’s all about finding yourself and getting lost in it, and that’s something that I feel like all kids, and everyone in the world, should be able to experience, you know, just getting lost in the music or getting lost in art or anything, you know, anything creative. I feel like it’s the parents’ job to really, you know, immerse themselves in their child’s environment, and try to, you know, support them in their quest to find creativity in their own lives. So I’m going to play a little piece for you. I’m just going to make something up, to be creative, you know, be spontaneous, and I hope you guys enjoy it.

[plays guitar] 

Yeah, in that moment, when I’m playing guitar and making all those stank faces, there’s just something about it that, you know, nothing can beat it. And I hope all kids and all parents get to see that. Yeah. Thank you guys so much and I hope you guys enjoy the rest of the webinar. Peace. 

Robert Bilder

Well that is indeed incredible. Brandon is such an inspiration, I’ve got to say. In honor of Brandon, I have to change my background to something that is a little bit more musical. Yeah and here we go. This is a place that we found long ago. Wait a minute, forget about that, we are just going to go to the brain background for the time being while we search for the other musical performance territory. Oh boy, there we go. Anyhow, Brandon is truly inspiring. I love the way that he described getting lost in the music just as I have gotten lost in the midst of my virtual backgrounds. What we would like to do is move on to present you another vignette from Dana, a creative teen and I think that will further get us the message about creativity and teens.

Dana

I’m Dana Koops, I’m 18 years old. I’m an actress, screenwriter and director and a first year student at Paris College of Art in Emerson. I am studying film. For me, creativity means being innovative, inventive, imaginative. It means having an open mind and being brave. It means thinking outside of the box, and I think to some degree means being human. I think that we all have a part of us that is creative. Whether we are artists or mathematicians it’s in every aspect of life. When it comes to how kids can be creative, the key is just giving them the freedom to be so. As I mentioned I think that we are all innately creative, and kids are especially so because they haven’t learned to doubt themselves yet. As we get older, we learn to be less self-confident and to question our work. As a result we tend to box ourselves in and kids haven’t learned to do that yet. They, and so, they might not have the technical knowledge of whatever that subject is that they are interested in, but they have that just but have raw, unfiltered creativity that is so great and so powerful and if you really nurture that and encourage them in that they will take that and run with it and carry that with them the rest of their lives. Merci and bonsoir. 

Robert Bilder

Well that is fantastic, what a beautiful, beautiful message.

Next, I am really excited to introduce another one of our distinguished speaker and that is Zorana Ivecevic Pringle. Dr. Zorana Ivecevic, excuse me. Excuse me Zorana I am stumbling terribly on your name, Ivecevic, yes? Okay. Dr. Pringle is a senior research scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Dr. Ivecevic studies the role of emotion and emotion skills in creativity. Zorana, thank you so much.

Zorana Pringle

Thank you Bob. I’m going to share my screen. There we go.

Thank you for the introduction, and I am very glad to be here. It is an honor to be with you. I want to talk to you today about the emotion side of creativity, and specifically I want to talk about why, why does it matter, what is involved in creativity and how the creative process works particularly from this emotion side. So first, the question why? The world economic forum has done a survey to identify top skills for the economy of the future and at least three out of ten are related to creativity. And here I’m going to argue that another one, emotional intelligence is crucial to make creativity happen in real life. But there is another reason too, and when we studied what kinds of tasks are perceived by high school students as creative challenges, they have primarily told us, overwhelmingly told us about experiences with art and music and certainly art and music are creative, but in other words, they did not see creativity as coming into play in other areas of their endeavor and areas, other subjects. That really brings us to the first creativity tip. We have to uncover creativity in everyday tasks. People are creative when they think creativity is called for. We see this obviously and clearly in creativity testing, when it makes a difference if we just tell people that they should be creative, we see it in work and school. To make children more creative, mention something as requiring creativity, it’s that simple. It can be saying to a kid let’s create something or let’s be creative about that. It changes their perspective from looking for the correct answer to looking for possibilities. So our next big question is what? What is involved in creativity? And the best answer I think was given by Mattisse, the great 20th century artist, who said creativity takes courage. What does that exactly look like? We did a study with high school students and we looked at how they think about creativity and we found different apprehensions they had. One is this concern about negative social consequences of creativity. People might think that original ideas are silly, and consequently, they have this attitude that it is better to be safe than original. But the third way is thinking that creative projects really feel deeply important. So what do we do with this? Well, it is not possible to erase those apprehensions, but it is possible to make them clear and obvious. So, my, I have a 10 year old son and recently they had an invention project at school. I discovered that he was really apprehensive about what teacher is going to say to different ideas and his plan was to stick to examples that the teacher has mentioned. But once we uncovered this apprehension, he dared to venture beyond and he has transformed an imaginative game he has played with his best friend into a board game he is going to fully develop and market to a local store. 

So our next tip is identify sources of apprehension and help kids manage their emotions. So how do we do this, right. It is easy to say but what’s the process. Is it about grit? And you might have heard of the concept of grit, it includes consistency of interest and perseverance on the way to goals and it’s very useful if you want to perform well on a spelling bee. It is very well defined what you have to do to do well on the task and you have to stick with exactly defined set of steps. However, it doesn’t work like that with creativity. Creative individuals have broad interests, they draw from these different interests and this is not going to help but what is going to help is passion, is having goals defining one’s identity in terms of activities so you are not just writing poetry, you are a poet or an artist. Intent to engage in an activity and the desire, a burning desire, to do something. So, what do we do with this? Brings us to the third creativity tip, start with existing interests but also allow for interests to change. Interests are going to be different at different ages. So for a 3 year old, use those Amazon boxes you have lying in your basement. They might go to the moon or they might create trains. And for the older child it is going to look different. My child is interested in archeology, he’s reading the Smithsonian magazine. So on a walk in nature we have invented an elaborate story investigating and digging for a lost civilization. And creativity takes self regulation. It starts with some skills of thinking, but then we are facing a blank undefined task. Think of multiple ideas, choose ideas and also jump over hurdles. Throughout this process, there are emotions and we can use those emotions. We can use those emotions of interest, and joy and enjoying something that we are interested in. But also, we can use frustration. A lot of inventors, a lot of entrepreneurs are moved by frustration of how something doesn’t work right in the world and they want to make it better. And throughout this process we manage the emotions in order to reach an end product or end goal. This managing emotions is crucially important once we have this impetus for creativity and interest in creativity. Managing emotions is going to help us stick with it, manage passion, maintain passion, and finally have something that we end up with. So my third tip for you is that self regulation is going to be crucial in transforming ideas into action and to do that we have to know what to expect. We are going to find a range of emotions. Joy is very important, and it’s going to be important for coming up with ideas. But there will be obstacles and there will be frustrations and there will be revisions to an original idea and we have to provide space for autonomy, time for exploration and for making mistakes. And there I would like to end. Thank all those who made this possible and leave you with Calvin and Hobbs and a way of perhaps not doing creativity. I will stop my share now and get back to Bob.

Robert Bilder

That’s fantastic Zorana, thank you so much. I’m really inspired and yeah your final cartoon, you know, indicating that panic can sometimes arise when we’re confronting some of the emotions that need to be grappled with. I think that’s a really unique feature of your presentation is, you know, how managing emotions, regulating emotions can be a key to creativity. And I’m wondering what kinds of advice you can give us about how to promote kids’ capacity to tolerate ambiguity, to stick with a problem for longer. I know that’s one of the correlates of high levels of creative achievement is the ability to stick with a problem longer, to resist premature closure, yet this frustration is something we all confront. So I wonder what we as parents can do to help manage that for our kids and help them bridge that gap.

Zorana Pringle

That is a great question and what oftentimes happens, is that because of those uncertainties which are uncomfortable, people don’t even venture, do not even dare to embark on the creative processes. So, being able to deal with the uncertainty is the first step of making that jump. I think the crucial thing with kids is to model, to model this process and make it clear to them that creativity is oftentimes fun, but it’s not all the time fun. That it’s not a problem with them, and how they are doing it if they are encountering difficulties, it is really inherent in the creative process. There will be difficulties and there will be frustrations. What we can do is show them how to deal with them and show them in what we do. For instance, my child is sometimes frustrated with the process of having to revise his writing, his creative writing at school. He is very imaginative. It is not a problem to come up with ideas, but to end with the sophisticated product is more of a challenge. And both my husband and I are scientists and we write research papers and he is very interested in science, so you use that interest to get in and to sustain attention and we share with him how many revisions we go through in writing one scientific paper. I open my folder for my latest paper for him and show him track changes how everything ends up getting changed and he can see the relation to changes that have to be made in his creative writing. 

Robert Bilder

Well that is beautiful, I love the way you are able to bridge the identification and the connection to yourself and your work with your kid. So I think that is a beautiful way to show them what’s involved. Although I heard from others, Zorana, that your first drafts are perfect every time. I heard that you didn’t require any revisions in your work.

Zorana Pringle

No, no, of course not. 

(Laughter)

Robert Bilder

That’s really great. Well thank you so much those are fantastic tips and really great advice. At this point what we would like to do is move along to another vignette that we have from Joanna, who will express creativity in her way. 

Joanna

Good afternoon everyone, my name is Dr. Joanna Kaczorowska. I’m the Director of Undergraduate Performance studies at Stony Brook University on Long Island. Today I will be talking about the importance of music, listening to music, and playing music in inspiring creativity in our children. So playing an instrument engages both left and right brains. So, mathematical brain and creative brain are collaborating all at once. And so, playing music increases volume and activity in the bridge connecting both our left and right hemisphere, which is called with a fancy name, corpus callosum. Therefore I would love to encourage you to engage your children in a lot of musical activities. Play a piece of music for tham and have them talk about how they feel, what kind of mood they feel, maybe the music makes them feel happy, maybe the music makes them feel sad. Create a little dance, imitate the mood, start laughing if the music is funny or pretend that you are sad if the music is sad. For example, if you hear music from Vivaldi again, [plays violin] that’s different music, that’s no longer happy music. In Antonio Vivaldi, there’s this  thunderstorm with lots of lightning and lots of rain. But maybe your child imagines something different, maybe he or she says well, it’s a scary magician just doing some crazy magic spell and throwing it on, I don’t know, a bunch of fairies. Who knows what they are going to create. For example, then after the storm in Vivaldi come back to the different mood, [plays violin] What painting will they make for that particular music. Vivaldi changes the mood in the second movement he goes like this [plays violin] on and on and on. The mood is very different. Suddenly, mood is very relaxed, maybe sleepy. In Antonio Vivaldi, shepherds and their sheeps are sleeping in the meadows covered in flowers. But that is Vivaldi. Your child will certainly have a different idea. Music is the most incredible way to engage your child’s brain and create wonderful, wonderful thinkers, little thinkers who are terrific in math, in linguistics, in creativity. Go ahead, engage their musical spirit and their musical brain, have them listen to the music. Spend time with them listening to the music and discussing music and the best of all, sign them all for music lessons. Good luck. 

Robert Bilder

Well that is really spectacular and I was able to find my musical background. The Knitting Factory, a little jazz club in New York City, and  I love the way Joanna has identified engagement in music as a way to promote creative engagement and I think it harkens back to a number of the other presentations, which have really highlighted how there is no right answer to what Vivaldi is expressing in their music, and throughout musical expression–it’s open to interpretation, and I think that’s a beautiful thing that we can engage in out kids not to impose upon them any preconceived notions about what that music represents. And then as children get to be involved in producing music, I think that offers even greater opportunities for expression of emotion and a channel that is really remarkable–look at what Brandon was able to bring to the table in that respect. Anyhow, very inspiring work, and to continue us on the path of inspiration, I am delighted to be able to introduce our next speaker Charlotte Reznick. Charlotte Reznick is a child educational psychologist, a former UCLA clinical professor of psychology (Go Bruins!), and is the foremost authority on how to engage with and develop mindfulness, mediation, and imagination in children, teens, and young adults. She is the author of The Power of Your Child’s Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety Into Joy and Success. Dr. Reznick.

Charlotte Reznick

Oh Bob, I’m so happy to be here. And I’m in the trenches with kids. So, as a child and teen psychotherapist, I try to help them engage their imagination to solve their everyday problems. And I try to have fun with them because why not. We know that in creativity, it’s important to have fun, and that’s what we do. So I thought I’d share with you just a few tools that you could do with your kids with things that come up. The only thing that changes in ages, like I’m going to be sharing a little bit of a story about an 8 year old girl I’ve been working with, is that if you work with an older or younger, you just change the language that works for them. So, for instance, maybe thank you for showing the next slide.

 The first thing that’s really important is to connect with them. I always tell kids that I don’t have their answers, but I’m there to help them find their own answers. And so the first step is that they have wisdom within, we have to center and get connected.
And I find this is a perfect balance from all the screens kids are on. So here we have a little, this is what I call the balloon breath. I like it because it’s an easy visual, but for teenagers, you may just call it deep breathing. And in fact, as you’re listening, you might just put your hand on your belly, below your belly button. And the idea is, when you breathe in the balloon gets bigger and when you breathe out it flattens. And this kind of breath centers you, and you might do it just to a count of three. And the idea is, when you go inside, and the next step is to find a safe place, so thanks for the next slide.

Because this is one, this lovely adorable girl’s special places. And you can see it’s typical, beautiful, there’s a rainbow in there. And in her special place is a place that she can relax and take a little mini vacation from life’s troubles, but she also can do her inner work in a fun way. So we invite, with kids, I like to invite maybe protective animal friends, and maybe wizards, if they’re into Harry Potter. She happens to have a fairy, here she has Sparkles the Unicorn, and Mochi the Mouse and her rainbow fairy is Alexandra. And they’re to help her solve her problems. And it’s kind of a fun way to trick their emotions, trick their logical thinking to get to a more creative spot, to get to their wisdom, which I really believe they have. So, if you look at the next slide, this little girl that I’m working with has a lot of trouble with anger and big feelings and maybe melts down. And her goal, her goal, not my goal, not her parents’ goal, well it is kind of our goal, but her goal that she states is I want to control my mad feelings and be in charge of my sad feelings. So Sparkles, so what we do is have her close her eyes to connect, and ask for someone to show up. So Sparkles shows up and offers her a gift to help her. And what Sparkles offered was this cake of self control. And she was very creative and made the cake, and you can see it’s three dimensional, because she made a stand for it. And the instructions were to take 2 bites a day, when you wake up and in the afternoon, and that’s going to help you keep self control. And that really works for her. And then, maybe show the next slide. And the idea is, you have to have a whole bag of tricks for yourself. A whole, you know, many animal friends might come and many special places might come. And whatever the kids create or imagine I accept, it’s great.  So here she has another animal friend called Kangacat, because it’s a combination of a kangaroo and a cat. And this little girl says she gives wisdom. And what does Kangacat suggest? She suggests you can take deep breaths and wash away your feeling sad. So the idea that this little girl can be active in her own healing with a fun thing to do, it just works for her really well, and works with so many kids that I worked with over the years.

And so, if we look at even the next slide, this is another one of her special animal friends. He’s a chubby teddy. He must be a COVID teddy because he got chubby over COVID. And he helps her with having happy dreams, because she has some scary bad dreams. And because she believes it, even if we call it the placebo effect, which I think is about 30% effective, that’s fine. One little girl had a dragon wrapped around her bed to keep her safe when she was sleeping. And she told her friend about it, she was a little bit older. And her friend said, what are you doing? It’s just your imagination. And she said, my fears come from my imagination, so I had to go into that realm and fix it. So just stories like that that kids really take to heart their imagination and how it could help them. And let me share, not only does she have a chubby teddy, if you look at the next slide she has a whole slew of teddies that help her. And you can see, one has a heart in the center, that’s to help her feel more loving, and one has a star, like a sun, and that’s to help her feel brighter, and the other one helps her stay calm. So, it’s great to have a whole slew of animal friends, and some kids have many and some kids just have one, and that’s fine. We just want to work with wherever your child is at. 

And then on the next slide you can see this butterfly which we think of sometimes as an animal of transformation. And she said that her butterfly brings her notes of encouragement, like nothing bad’s going to happen, because there’s always someone for support, which I thought was really sweet. So, within these few slides, and you can go to the next slide now, the last one which shows you how you could find me or track me down. But, within these few slides, you can see how one child’s imagination could be ignited to help her solve her life’s problems. So you could definitely do that with your kids, with just listening to these few minutes, you have five tools, five imagination tools. You have the balloon breath, you have special place to go that’s safe, you have wisdom inside through animal friends and wizards, and you have gifts that they give you. So I hope that’s helpful, you can just take it away.

Robert Bilder

So wonderful, thank you so much Charlotte, I decided to bring one of my animal friends to try to feel a little bit better. And you have so many wonderful pieces of advice. One of the things that really strikes me, that we don’t often hear much about is the importance of breathing, and I wonder if you can tell us a little bit more about the connection to our own internal states and our bodies, and how you see that playing a role in managing anxiety, managing fear, and managing negative emotions in general. It seems like that’s an important message for people to get.

Charlotte Reznick

It’s so important, and I’m so glad you brought that up, because we take it for granted, well we all breathe. But there are different kinds of breathing that changes how we feel. For example, what I’m calling the balloon breath, breathing two inches say below your belly button, really centers and calms you. When kids are upset, or when anyone is angry or upset, they often breath up in their chest and give short breaths, which is not really helpful, it just makes them all upset again more. So if you breathe down below your belly button, which in Eastern thought is your tandin, it centers and calms you, it helps reduce your blood pressure, it’s just a really nice kind of breathing. And kids like it because it’s a fun way of saying it. There are all kinds of breaths that you can do with kids, some people like to do the finger breath, where you follow your finger. And it’s nice to change it around to make it more interesting for them. But the breath is critical, and what I usually do is I use these little round stickers that you get at Staples, and I ask kids to put up a sticker somewhere that they see a lot. It could be on their mother’s forehead, but no not really, like on the fridge or their desk, somewhere they see a lot, so when they see that sticker they take three slow breaths. And when they don’t notice it anymore, they habituate, they just change the color and start doing that again. And then I have them just do a minute of breathing, and I’ll time them and count their breaths by looking at their belly. And so some kids might go between 7 and 10 breaths. And I have them find a minute in their day to practice that kind of slow breathing, just to recenter themselves. So, it starts to make a big change. If they could set their little iWatch or Apple watch every hour and do 10 breaths, do a minute of breathing, that starts to change their life a bit. 

Robert Bilder

Yeah

Charlotte Reznick

And Then we’ll work our way up. Five breaths more, two weeks later, I’d slowly move it in.

Robert Bilder

Yeah, I was just thinking that, in terms of moving things up, I know that you’re an expert in how to incorporate meditation practices for young adults, teens, and kids, and I just wonder, is this a path to embarking on a lifelong practice of mediation. Is that the way you see it?

Charlotte Reznick

Oh my god Bob, you are reading my mind. Yes, absolutely. In fact, that’s why I do it slowly and depending on if–you know mindfulness is very popular now. And I think part of what the world has embraced is the word mind is in it, but the word mediation is not. We know mindfulness is a form of meditation. And I’ve been meditating over 35 years, so I started very young, and so I tried to slip it in. Some kids are not open to it, one girl, a teenager. I said, do you do any yoga or meditation? And she goes, ah no, my mother does that. Do you do any yoga or meditation? No, my mother does that. And I said, fine we’re just going to do some deep breathing. So I’ll call it whatever we want, but yes, that is my slow way to introduce it. Makes a big difference.

Robert Bilder

Truly fantastic, thank you so much Charlotte, those were really great tips, great advice.

I’m delighted to have next up on our schedule, Dr. Pemala Bernard. Dr. Pamela Bernard is Professor of Arts, Creativities, and Education at the faculty of education, University of Cambridge, where she chairs the Arts and Creativities research group. She is co-editor of the journal Thinking Skills and Creativity, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the RSA, in the United Kingdom. Pamela.

Pamela Burnard

Great! Hello, hi, welcome from Cambridge. I am an Australian, and have lived in the UK and worked at Cambridge for 20 years. And I’m bringing tonight in this 5 minutes with you, a sort of push against the legacy of the renaissance and romanticism associated with creativity in the arts and the enlightenment where we saw creativity associated with science. I’m going to be looking at other discourses beyond divergent thinking and problem solving, and asking questions about which creativities are we educating for. I am going to invite you to have a little rethink about the idea of why science and arts creativities matter for future making education. 

So let’s trouble these discourses, let’s have a look at Bjork here, who has done a lot of work with David Attenborough, who is a natural historian. In these pictures you see an amazing artist who is also wearing her own inventions, but also bringing together the meeting of science in this molecular outfit and reading a very thick book. So let’s look at Bjork who has developed an album, some years ago, called Biophilia, which is also about the sound of nature, and nature culture, the interaction of art and musical artifacts, and she has an app, which is incredible in terms of the interaction that she invites us. Well, what does her work exemplify? It brings into play diverse creativities, multiple creativities. What is seen and done at the intersection at performing arts. I’m calling it performance creativity. Well, she also composes and songwrites, so I look at that and call it compositional creativity, because she is authoring new music, not just performing  in her own voice, but she also designs and innovates as you can see in these images. So we can call that form of authoring,authorship design creativity. 

Plus, of course she’s a musician, but there is a lot of science. So there’s disciplinary and transdisciplinary creativities playing out in her work. And so, what does this tell us? Let’s think now about music. Because we’ve heard a lot, and thank you Brandon, amazing acts of musicality, and also Joanne with her incredible performance creativity. Her voice being heard playing Vivaldi, her interpretation of Vivaldi. And Dana, she was looking at the creativity of drama, but also mentioned mathematics, as did Audrey who mentioned computer science and acting, and Brooke who actually said the word STEAM.

What happens when technology enhances creativity? When things change, when you open up to the digital world, and here you’re seeing a couple of children working as inventors, creators, with a platform called Sonic Pi, and it’s created and developed by Sam Aaron, who’s here at the University of Cambridge in the UK, in partnership with Raspberry Pi foundation. It’s an open source software tool and platform and it’s fantastic for school children to learn programming. Technoscience practices, where music meets science and meets with technology, and it’s a fantastic way to, and here’s tip number 1, to actually invite different ways of thinking about the making and creating and producing of science and arts, music and maths, and actually helps to dismantle the gendered and hegemonic regimes and discourses which tend to discriminate, dominate, and restrict users who can be creative, who can be musical, who are the scientists of the future. Knowing that we actually have scientists who are women, and we can speak about that at a later date. 

Here is a really interesting experiment where we asked children, young people to show us their mathematical understanding and their arts understanding. And what do we see in such an image? This is one of 300 pictures like this, drawings like this that we have actually analyzed in terms of the meeting, the transdisciplinarity of what do arts and maths teach together. What matters, what matters to the children. And actually, the experience that connects, the sense of the symbolic self referencing. The intimate knowledge that this unending, hinted also by the hair that’s drawn here, of a self-identity, an art-self, a manga-self, a South African self, a student self, a mathematician self, an arts self. Multiple identities here. 

And if we move on, to think about what is a school. This is a very complex image, and I’m not apologizing, because I think it is complex, but you can rotate around it to see there’s transdisciplinary creativity, there’s childhood creativity, curriculum–how do teachers author change in their classroom? How do we do everyday creativity? How do head teachers and leaders do leadership creativity? Or indeed when cultures come and meet together into cultural creativity. So these authoring of different kinds of modalities and practices and authorships are multiplicity that changes discourse and changes how we speak and how we unlock and sculpt new creativities for the basically for change to create change and to reform education in terms of future making which is going to be in the hands of children who become adults soon.

I’m just going to stop sharing and say, oh I don’t think you can see me, because I haven’t put my video on. There I am. This is me. My argument is about: can we think about multiple creativities, and ask the question, which creativity are we educating for? Some of the tips and tricks we might think, there are no tricks, but the tips might involve asking ourselves questions, observing children with a deep hangout. Give them space, give them time, give them trust, give them a safe space to engage in their own advancing their own ways of seeing and knowing and doing and becoming, that transcends narrowly defined disciplines. And how to talk with and invite young children to tell us more and more and to teach us new ways to see and know and do things differently in a very different world that we all find ourselves in at this time. I’m going to stop there and say I look forward to your questions, and I’m so pleased and proud that you invited me tonight. I have books, if you just look at Pamela Bernard, Cambridge, you’ll see the most recent one, which actually asks the questions: what science and arts creativities, why they matter, and what do they teach together.

Robert Bilder

That’s really fantastic Pamela, thank you so much. I can see that you’re surrounded by books and I decided to surround myself with some technology to promote creativity in the meantime. I’m just wondering, your focus is so exciting on many different kinds of creativities, and I wonder as many of us parents confronting the pandemic and have our kids learning remotely. What are the, what would you say are the top priorities for the types of creativities we can promote right now?

Pamela Bernard

Yeah, I think one of the things about this pandemic, I’ve seen home creativity. How do parents or carers, families, friends create a space for children to learn at home. And that space itself, that space for learning, that space becomes, can be not so segmented into time zones, but really led by children. It could be in the kitchen, working with science experiments in the kitchen. Working with cooking and working with how things come together in the kitchen. Thinking about the real world phenomenon that actually are problems to be solved, but actually allowing the children to set the agenda, to read a book for the day. But then, to do something with that reading, and do something that celebrates the making of authoring new ways of seeing and thinking. And dismantling the myth making that there’s creative children and there’s children who are less creative. I am a great believer that we need to really recognize the ubiquity of creativity, and that everyone, we’re humans, and even non humans like animals are creative in how they play and dance and engage and interact with us. It’s not just thinking creatively, it’s doing and being and becoming. I have to say , this is one room in our house in England. This little house is very tiny. And downstairs is filled with instruments, but it’s also filled with other things to do. Looking at the planets and there’s this meeting of science and music and arts downstairs. But I’ve got to pretend to look very serious and have books behind me so that you do believe I am a professor. It’s again, the many faces that we wear. So allowing ourselves to find those faces. I saw it in Brooke, in Audrey, in Brandon, in Dana, in Joanna. Jimi Hendrix, for example, Brandon was channeling Jimi Hendrix, but with a different voice. He had a performance creativity that made that piece his. Beautiful.

Robert Bilder

Really fantastic, and thank you for leading us to encounter various kinds of creativities and to highlight the manifold of creativities that are available to all of us. Wonderful.

Next up, we have a hands-on presentation from Emily, and we’re very excited to have Emily join us up next. 

Emily

Alright hello, can everyone hear me? Yes? Okay. My name is Emily Howard, I am a middle and upper school teacher at Greenfield School in Wilson, North Carolina, and I also own an art studio, also in Wilson. I am just so happy to be a part of this conversation and I’m just going to share a couple of ideas for creative projects that can be done at home. As so many of us have moved virtual, we’re constantly in search of ways that we can engage with kids and so many different creatives like visual artists, authors, musicians have been creating content for people to try at home. As a teacher, I’m always trying to consider what materials students are able to use and access is always something we try to take into consideration. So I try to create a mix of skill based activities, with art supplies, but there are also many different types of activities that you can do with materials you can find at home. So you can do a found object color wheel, which is creating a giant color wheel on the floor with different bits and pieces at home. You can also create famous pieces of art work with materials that you can find at home. This is actually an example of what my brother did, this is the Girl with the Pearl Earring, and this is my brother’s recreation, he actually has a mask on his head which I thought was timely. 

And just, in terms of being able to do projects at home, I would definitely recommend keeping a little kit. Different things that you can include in that are oil pastels, you can have canvases, just available for kids to mess around and explore with during bouts of boredom. Markers. And then probably my favorite material, having just a watercolor set. Watercolor is one I just think people love across the board. It’s a little bit lower stakes than other art materials. And this is actually a project that you can try with your kids at home. If you have water colors just create little blobs of color, you don’t even have to tell them what they’re going to do with it, just create these different little shapes, and then they can quickly create drawings out of their shapes. So this one has now become a bird! And you end up with all sorts of different things, and it’s a really, really great exercise in creativity, and I think it’s almost like an artistic riff on the “how many uses for a paperclip” experiment in divergent thinking. I think it also takes away that fear of having a blank piece of paper and feeling like you have to create something perfect right off the bat. It’s just a really great example of an activity that you can do as many times as you’d like with different results every time. I thank you so much for inviting me to this forum and I just so appreciate being here. Thank you so much.

Robert Bilder:

Emily, that is wonderful, and I really appreciate how you’ve transformed one of the original torrance tests of creative thinking into the new watercolor blob test. Or, what would you call it?

Emily:

Watercolor blob test sounds good to me!

Robert Bilder:

Okay! Alright, well there you go. We’re going to patent that then, since you got to have a good title. But I really love that idea, and I think it is a beautiful exercise, as well.

Emily:

Thank you so much.

Robert Bilder:

All the tips you had are really wonderful, great assets for our families and for our kids going forward, really opening up a lot of avenues for them. Thank you so much. 

Emily:

Thank you.

Robert Bilder:

Well I think that is the last of our formal presentations. We’ve had some amazing presentations from talented teens, experts, and our panelists have covered an amazing amount of ground. And so what we’d like to do now is engage all of our panelists in a little bit of discussion. One of the questions that’s come up from our audience is about how safety figures into this. You think about what’s the relation between creativity and feelings of safety. Is there anyone who’d like to jump in on that one?

Zorana Pringle:

I would jump in. There is research on the effects of psychological safety and creativity in different contexts, in schools and in the workplace too. So this is not just for children, but also for adults. We are social beings, by definition, so we are always going to have some level of apprehension about the evaluation that is inherent in sharing ideas. So that is always going to be there. But a psychologically safe space is one that enables people to still contribute or still share, in spite of this level of apprehension. So again, curiosity comes into play. If you give feedback with that curiosity, “how have you wondered about,” it is going to be very different than starting with, leading with potential problems, which there are always problems with every idea until it’s fully developed.

Robert Bilder:

Yeah, that’s brilliant, it brings to mind, there’s a fun book, not necessarily about kids, well maybe they are kids, but Ed Catmull, who is the Head of Disney Animation Studios and Pixar, which has become pretty well known, wrote a book called Creativity Inc., in which he highlights the really critical importance of the freedom to fail. And one of the things that they do at Disney Animation Studios and Pixar is to give people some security of employment, and know that they can explore and they can fail. They can’t fail indefinitely, but I think that it’s a key message that is important for us to get across in workgroups and in kids is knowing that it is not going to be so bad if they make mistakes, if they fail, that they can still go forward.

Pamela Bernard:

It’s interesting, it’s a great question and in one piece of research, a child said, “I kept on having these collisions”, and “I never thought of making mistakes as a collision.” But he said, “I just kind of backed up and moved in a different direction.” And it was this beautiful metaphor of reinventing the experience of risk and failure as a collision that sparks another idea. And when you look at great people that have created, that have been inventors, women and men, that have created amazing, like the engineer and architect who created the Millenium Bridge in London, when they walked across the bridge in the year 2000, it started to sway, you’ll remember, and he laughed as the media were biting at his heels, and said he’s failed, and he said “No, I have more failures than successes. That’s why I am so successful”, and he fixed it. Because, it was a problem that still hadn’t been solved, and there were other elements that he hadn’t configured. So he had to rethink, and revised and went back and look at that amazing bridge now that runs to the Tate Modern. I do think children and teachers and parents need to co create safe spaces, learning environments that is full of trust, playfulness and is co constructed because my rules are going to be different to your rules, it’s inevitable. So how can we co construct that together, and in that, establish together what it can feel like. I think play, we had an amazing presenter earlier with some lovely ideas about play, and playfulness, and having contexts that are not about measuring and testing and trialing but rather that freedom to be and to become. Thanks.

Robert Bilder:

Beautiful. Others? Darya, I see you’re unmuted. You must have something to say.

Darya Zabelina:

I was just thinking there’s a lot of really great work by Sandra Russ, so she spent entire career studying play in children, and its impact on creativity, and the link between fantasy and creative thinking. So if anybody’s interested, Sandra Russ, just google, look her up, she has some great work.

Robert Bilder:

Really wonderful. Well, we have some other questions from the audience. One of them, the examples that we’ve seen so far in some of the vignettes have really focused on teens who’ve enjoyed quite a bit of privilege. And one of the questions that arises is, how we can spark creativity and nurture that in children who come from less privileged backgrounds, that are resource poor or impoverished. What are the kinds of things that we can recommend in a less than resource-rich environment?

Charlotte Reznick:

I am going to jump in. The kids I worked with initially were from the inner city in LA and they didn’t have the experiences that the privileged kids I work with now have in terms of seeing the world and traveling, and so sometimes it was helpful to show them pictures to spark their imagination, to spark their creativity about what is possible. So, maybe they didn’t have that internal experience, but when they were exposed to possibilities, it would spark something inside, and that was helpful.

Zorana Pringle:

Another take on that, this is a very important question and it is certainly something that  hasn’t been addressed nearly as much as it should be in research. I think that privilege stays there even when we do some things, but there are some bright points. For very young children it doesn’t take very much in the way of resources. It takes play, it takes time for unstructured play, and if you have Amazon boxes that’s going to really do, and we all have. Using everyday objects in different ways, modeling and playing and engaging with them, and so if they keep telling you the same kind of use, you can switch them and model that flexibility of thinking. So for very young kids, it’s less of an issue, all their time is always there, and there are parents who work multiple jobs and do not have that time, so we have to acknowledge that privilege too. There is another bright element. Oftentimes kids who are very highly privileged, from upper middle class families, who are on track to go to Ivy league schools, we can imagine these kids. They are on very specific tracks where they have lots of activities, they have lots of things that is going to go on their CVs, they might not have time, that time does not exist there, and it becomes a big problem. In research that I have done with Dr. James Kaufman at the University of Connecticut, we have examined how students of different social and ethnic backgrounds think of their own creativity. And actually we have found some things that are counterintuitive, that there are things from less privileged backgrounds actually can see their own creativity, while those from more privileged backgrounds don’t always. That element of self-efficacy, thinking you can do it, is important for engaging in creativity ultimately.

Robert Bilder:

I’m wondering, how do we promote that attitude in our homes and schools to try to identify that kind of creativity as the important outcome and help our kids not be locked into a particular roadmap or agenda. I wonder what your thoughts are on that, panelists? What are things we can do as parents and educators?

Charlotte Reznick:

Oh my gosh, I think of when kids are young and depending on the school they’re in, some teachers might say, “we’re going to make a duck and it’s going to be yellow, and stay in the lines” because that’s fine motor skills development, and gosh it doesn’t really matter. The imagination is there, the creativity is there, just open it up, and let them–I love that scribble thing with the blob, and drawing from that. Just let them see what comes out and there has to be a shift in focus for the older kids about the academic achievement and have a little more, it’s more important to be creative, to just let your mind go and brainstorm. And then, from there, of course the academics are important, but we’re losing a lot without letting them just be free.

Pamela Bernard:

I agree entirely Charlotte. I mean this is about the intersection of inclusion into culturality or transculturality and diversity. And that’s what we do as teachers and as communities. But it’s in this authoring of getting young people and children to have a voice, their voice, and to connect with each other, to be together, and for teachers and parents to be listening deeply, and giving them time and space for making, you know, the materiality of making and doing together. So that from the ground up arises an intercultural creativity. Not something imposed, but something that comes up from the community in an inclusive and intercultural way. And I think that’s where creativity, if we think of, it’s not just about thinking, it’s doing and it’s being creative. The potential to affect people’s lives is so powerful. And it comes from, yes, people lots of arts projects that have increadile outcomes on wellbeing and connecting communities through arts practices. But also, transdisciplinary practices, where they’re making maths and science projects together outside in an installation that remains in their community, so it’s an investment and ownership. I think we have to listen deeply and do some deep hangouts with 21st century children at whatever age and stage and communities. It is not about bringing to a community something, it is about being in that community and growing the practices together. There is a lot of research on this. 

Robert Bilder:

Very nice. 

Pamela Bernard:

It says don’t go in and, be a member of in a trusted safe space as part of that community, and incredible things happen. Incredible creativities emerge. 

Charlotte Reznick:

You know I’m working with the kids everyday, so I’m attending to their emotional needs, their concerns, their goals, and everyone’s different with their creativity and imagination, but maybe I’ll say, “do you have a dance for that” or “play some drums,” “give me a happy song,” “give me an angry song.” Whether they sing it to me, or play it on drums, or they’re dancing it, just give them the freedom to be creative and how they share themselves and they appreciate that. 

Robert Bilder:

That’s fantastic. Well, I know that we’ve had a lot of emphasis talking about the kinds of things we can do away from the technology, and to get divested from the screens, but are there some things that are on screen activities and programs and technology that you all would recommend to help enhance and promote creativity? What do you think about that? Since we know that technology is not going away.

Natalie Evans:

I think there would be some parallels to thinking about what sort of activities are kids doing off screen as well that we apply those principles as well to on screen. Are kids engaging activities where, perhaps they don’t have those opportunities to explore, or to ask questions, because I think that is one of the things that technology gives us, is this open source, within parental guidance of course, to follow those interests and to follow those curiosities. So thinking as a tool in that regard. And then, in terms of games and activities, thinking about maybe those more open ended places, I’m struggling to think of examples, but moving away from places where kids are hitting buttons and doing one thing and finding one right answer at the time is what we’d be looking for. 

Zorana Pringle:

Another idea with technology, or another way of looking at technology is it is the best when it interacts with the real world. So there is a technology component, but it is not only in that box. As an example, there are lots of opportunities for activities for kids that are administered online, but interact with the real world. To give you a specific one, we are in the time of a pandemic, and out of school activities that have been available previously, they’re not available in the last, well almost a year, right? My son is very interested in photography and he took a class online in photography with students, children from all over the country, which he wouldn’t have been able to do previously and in other ways. And one of the days the class met, the teacher would explain things and give assignments, essentially and for several days children were then exploring and taking pictures in the real world. And another day that they would meet, they would give each other feedback and discuss ideas, so there’s the technology component, there’s interaction with the real world component, you have to go out and be able to interact with the world, and then you come and have that community that otherwise you might not have.

Robert Bilder:

I love that. I also wanted to mention something, I teach a summer course at UCLA, it’s called Personal Brain Management, and it’s sort of a fun course, but we get a lot of UCLA undergrads and other people from around the world who can join in. But one of the teachings we have there is from Jaron Lanier, who has written some really great books. He comes from a technology background, but has recognized the pitfalls of technology, and one of my favorite books of his is called You Are Not a Gadget, and what he highlights in You Are Not a Gadget is that technology is not good or bad, it’s what you do with it. And what he suggests as one key idea is to really be pioneering in what you do with the technology, to be engaged with the technology in a way that doesn’t have the technology dictating to you what you do with it. But rather, you putting yourself out there in authentic and realistic ways. So rather than on a, let’s say, social media channel, following the template that Facebook or whatever social media platform has given to you, but rather make up your own webpage, put yourself out there. Never put online something that’s just rehashing your experience, like a video that you just took yourself. Always put online only things that took you 100 times longer to make than they take to watch. And a few guidelines like that. I think highlight the importance of authorship and honesty and integrity and putting yourself out there not anonymously in your postings. These are some tips that Jaron Lanier has given us. 

Okay. Very good.

Pamela Bernard:

Can I just jump in and add to that? May I add? Hello, can you hear me? Yes.

Robert Bilder:

Yes.

Pamela Bernard:

What I mentioned before was Sonic Pi, which is an interesting way for children to actually learn algorithms, to learn to code using music, it really is extremely motivating for primary school children and early secondary, but I’ve also seen older secondary school students really be intrigued with what can happen. Because the coding is the music, the composition is the performance. Live coding, you’re creating something, the sound is coming out, it’s not having to have grade 5 theory of 30 hours, 3,000 hours of practice, it’s another way of engaging in a participatory culture as having children learning to code, means they are not just working with the outside of the machine, they are inside engaging with another language. And the learner agency that comes from that, in terms of the controlling, the parameters, and them seeing themselves as music creators, as music composers, and performers, not having to play western art music or have 5 years of lessons I think is really quite transformative. I know there’s a lot of literature that I was hearing tonight about video games having some negative effects. There’s also literature and research happening that video games can also for children, actually, engage them in thinking about societies and changing their identities and seeing structures and making decisions, and engaging in a different modality, to a children’s picture book. So invite us to think there are negatives but there are also positivers around technologies and learning how to manage and be open to ways of thinking about children as they are growing through the 21st century with technology. It is with them, it is through them, they are, it’s part of them, in a way it maybe it’s not be for us. I’ve seen very young children swipe windows, thinking that they can swipe as a screen, and that is, they are living in, that’s their world. To use technology, to utilize it, and to develop new technologies and use them in schools in a creative way, for creative teaching, and teaching for creativity is very important.

Robert Bilder: 

That’s really great. And I see we have Barbara Rosati has joined us. Barbara? I wonder if you’re able to come on and, there we go! There’s Barbara.

Barbara Rosati:

Hi, can you hear me?

Robert Bilder:

Yes!

Barbara Rosati:

Alright, thank you very much everybody, thank you to the organizer, Dr. Bilder, and thank you to panelists for the fantastic presentations. I’m in awe, I’m also a scientist, I live on Long Island, I’m a mom of a teenager, and I am interested in creativity because in my experience as a parent and as a teacher, I find that it is essential for children in order to find themselves and express themselves, so it’s an essential component to making a whole individual. So my question is the following, for any of the panelists, I’m interested in the relationship between sleep and creativity, as we know teenagers often end up sleep deprived, for a variety of reasons. So if anybody could tell me what is known about these two important things. 

Darya Zabelina:

All I can say is we have a set of data right now that’s on my desktop that has been collected (Barbara Rosati: okay) on sleep and creative thinking but has not been analyzed yet (Barbara Rosati: right). Great question, but, I don’t know yet. 

Robert Bilder:

Stay tuned.

Barbara Rosati:

Alright I will.

Darya Zabelina:

Maybe somebody else knows the literature.

Barbara Rosati:

I did read that there is a correlation between the amount and quality of the REM sleep and creativity. So kids often tend to be, and people in general, tend to be more creative when, as they just wake up because they’ve just had their fair share of, hopefully, of REM sleep. But I was wondering if anything more was known. 

Darya Zabelina:

I know also that, (Robert Bilder: I will say one interesting.) oh, sorry go ahead Bob.

Robert Bilder:

No go ahead, go ahead (Darya Zabelina: well). It’s this infinite loop of people on Zoom going no, no you go ahead. 

Darya Zabelina:

Yeah, or can you hear me? Can you hear me now?

So this is not really information, but I know that Paul Selig, another researcher he has done some work, on, so he had participants right as they were falling asleep he would wake them up and ask them to generate creative ideas. The question was, would their ideas be more creative during that time when they’re not quite asleep quite yet, but not awake? And the hypothesis is that yes, the cognitive control part of the brain lets go, we’re relaxed, that’s just basically approximating that relaxed state of mind wondering, not being too focused.

Barbara Rosati:

That’s absolutely a great observation, a great study. I actually have a funny story, my daughter was tricking me when she was little into reading her stories into bed, especially when she saw I was very tired. I would doze off while reading the story to her. And at some point I was awakened by her chuckles, because apparently I kept reading and I put in funny, unrelated words into the story, and she says, “Mommy, I really wish I wrote them down.” because I would’ve made a really funny storybook. 

Darya Zabelina:

Yeah, that’s funny. My grandma used to do that, I still remember it was great. Those were much more fun than the actual books. 

Barbara Rosati: 

Maybe you’ll see me as an author next time

Robert Bilder:

Well this is, now we know the secret to Darya’s creativity, it was grandma reading those special stories (Darya Zabelina: yeah) Do we have any final quick thoughts from our panelists. Maybe we can go in our original order. Darya? Any final words you’d like to leave us with?

Darya Zabelina:

Final words, just have fun. Just try to have fun, and I know it’s hard right now, but just find that one little thing that you enjoy everyday, whether it’s a walk or a book or something, and same with kids. We keep talking about, “oh, let kids be free and let them be bored” but I also know how hard that is, especially if you’re a teacher and you have 30 kids in your classroom, you can’t just have them all be free and roaming around, so it’s hard, we all live in the real world, so just try to find a balance.

Robert Bilder:

Beautiful, beautiful. Natalie?

Natalie Evans:

Yes, to go off of that, I think having fun is the most important part. And when kids show that spark, of interest or curiosity in something, do what you can to promote it by helping them follow up on it any way they can.

Robert Bilder:

That’s fantastic. Zorana?

Zorana Pringle:

Having fun is a start, in that working with creativity and realizing creativity beyond having an idea, you will have lots of other experiences, some pleasant, some unpleasant, some very frustrating, and acknowledging that that will happen is going to help people manage it, and knowing that that’s to be expected makes it more possible, and people more willing to embark on it. I love the story from one of my favorite writers, Agatha Christie, who wrote close to 100 novels, and before each one she would lie on the couch and stare at the wall for 2 days straight out of sheer desperation on how difficult the process is. But she would get up and do it anyway. I think that that’s important to keep in mind, that there’s fun aspects to creativity, especially when we are free and coming up with ideas, but there are also going to be difficult times, but you can do it anyway.

Robert Bilder:

Fantastic, and Charlotte?

Charlotte Reznick:

I think it’s important for parents to trust their intuition and to give themselves space also to connect with their creativity without judgement. And to remember that kids really, it’s easier for them to be creative when they feel safe, and that’s safe not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. So that’s good to remember.

Robert Bilder:

That’s beautiful, beautiful, and Pamela B.?

Pamela Bernard:

Thank you, I think for families, we’re still in lockdown here in England, to create together, to learn together, and to open up new paths together by asking two questions: what if and then what else.

Robert Bilder:

I love that, I love that, really beautiful, what a perfect closing. To all of our panelists, we’re so grateful to get your insights and to hear the brilliant science, and other works that you’ve been engaged in. But most, I’d like to thank our fearless leader and organizer Pamela Hurst-Della Pietra for bringing this all together. Pamela, it’s back to you.

Pamela Hurst-Della Pietra:

Thank you so much Bob, Zorana, Darya, Charlotte, Pamela, Andrea, Emily, and Joanna and our creative teeangers, Brandon, Brooke, Audrey, and Dana, for sharing your experience, expertise, and ideas with us. Thanks to all of you who joined us today, we hope that today’s discussion will inspire you and your family to flex your creative muscles. To continue learning about this topic, be sure to visit our website where we’ll post additional insights in the coming days. We’ll also post a video of today’s webinar on our YouTube channel, which we encourage all of you to subscribe to, and share with your fellow parents, teachers, clinicians, researchers, and friends. For more from Children and Screens, please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn at our accounts shown on the screen. Our conversation addressing children’s wellbeing and digital media will continue throughout the winter and spring. On Wednesday, December 16th, our experts will talk about how to make the most of being home for the holidays. Stay tuned for more information about this and other events that are happening in 2021. When you leave the workshop, you’ll see a link to a short survey. Please click on the link and let us know what you thought of the webinar. Thanks again and everyone please be safe and well.