"Nice Unit"

(A little jazz for your listening pleasure.  I think there is a point, which I'll get to later.)

Every Direction Is North

I'm putting this right here so I don't lose it. Hey! Future self! Read this again!

This is a really cool documentary about building the new South Pole station, which I am proud to say I was a part of back in 2000-01.  Lots of real-life problem solving, to be sure...and so much more.  I substituted for some sixth-graders last Friday.  The teacher had planned for me to show them CNN Student News, but suggested I vet it first.  The topic was Trump's transition to the White House.  I hadn't vetted the program, but I had overheard a few conversations in the class that led me to believe those were waters best not waded in as a substitute teacher.  I decided to show them this instead.  The South Pole station is certainly a testament to human ingenuity and resilience, and it is also a place that values the types of thinking we have studied in this class.  Furthermore, it was a place where gender equity was very evident, providing, perhaps, some alternative role models to consider.  (It is over an hour long, I guess I am really just sharing the link for effect.  But it is pretty cool.)

I checked out John Barell's book Problem Based Learning from the library last summer, as well as the other texts for this class.  I thought I would go ahead and preview the reading over the summer.  As we know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and of course, I didn't get any of that reading done.  Well, almost any--I did read Barell's introduction, and I was hooked.  The way he described his Antarctic obsession resonated with me on several levels.  For one, I can remember being that youth he describes, energized by different passions, and often the seeds of these passions were a book, gifted or found.  For another, I've been to Antarctica.  I wouldn't say I had had a passion specifically for Antarctica the way Barell describes, but I have always yearned for adventure and exploration in general.  I think that in some ways, the most important thing about my journey to the South Pole is that it is reflective to an adherence to not a specific objective--content, if you will, but rather to a guiding mission statement.   I didn't have a mission statement in those days, at least not one I had written down, but I think I had a pretty good idea where my polestar was.  Of course, the thing about the North Star to keep in mind when you're at the South Pole is that you can't even see it.  Luckily, every direction from there is North, so all you have to do is start walking.  And keep walking.

The idea of a mission statement has evolved for me.  Years ago, I took a screenwriting class.  The instructor, Phil Atlakson, made us adhere to a mission statement of sorts, a guiding proverb, a basic human truth distilled in a sentence or two that would guide our screenplays North.  How much we wandered East and West, I guess, is what gave our stories, well, a story.  I am reminded of my first post in this class, when I talked about how a resume version of our life is like a linear, straight line--an exclamation point--the highlights of our life, but it was the winding, curving question mark that told the real story.

So I guess the third way in which Barell's (and really everything else we've read in this class) has resonated is in the way I've come to look at my own personal mission statement as an educator.  In point of fact, I just went and updated my resume, and quite honestly, for the first time in my life I have written an objective on it that I truly, whole-heartedly believe in.  Not something that, to paraphrase Barell from page 9, is a "guess" at what is on the interviewer's mind--what is the "right" answer to get me this job.  Here it is:

Objective: Educate children to be creative problem-solvers, critical thinkers, 
and content masters.

Funny how that last part took a second line, and now it sits there by itself, in a place of prominence--or as an afterthought?  A byproduct of what came before?

This Part Might Get A Little Political, So Skip It If You Are Squeamish.  Particularly if you are sick of people whining and complaining and running around claiming "the sky is falling."

I was at the South Pole when I heard the news that George W. Bush had won the presidential election of 2000.  I was disappointed, even a bit disgusted--I didn't vote for him or Gore, but I felt that at least at that time, John McCain would have represented a better Republican candidate, but he'd lost, in some small part because my staunchly conservative relatives wouldn't vote for him because he favored the very conservative idea of eliminating the Sugar Tariffs that artificially help make sugar beet farming a competitive endeavor in Idaho.  You know, big government social welfare for a select few.   

Aargh!  I'm totally off track already.  My point was, I felt disappointed, maybe a little disgusted or discouraged. I would imagine others have spent the last eight years feeling the same way.  

Last Tuesday night was a different feeling entirely.  Cue the video below to 4:39, to see how I felt, although the whole clip shows what might have happened if Dumbledore had been allowed in the fight.  The Spanish subtitles add a nice touch.

No, I am not equating Voldemort to Trump.  I wish it were that simple.  At this point, I can see that nothing would be different if Clinton had won; the roles would simply be reversed. No, I felt like I'd been hearing Harry warning me that evil truly existed, but, like the Minister of Magic, I'd had my head in the sand and refused to believe it.  Tuesday night and its aftermath have upended my notions of reality, but in the process, my objective hardened, crystallized.  Since I've already taken a rather melodramatic turn, I'll show you a vision of what I saw coming for my sons:

This isn't just a scene from a movie.  This just happened a blink of an eye ago; and is still happening.  I had to let out a laugh when I saw the part where the soldiers are vomiting, because just the other night, I gave some young college guys an Uber ride, and one of them almost puked in my car.  My fear for those boys isn't that they can't handle their liquor, though.  It is that their solution to the problem of having to walk six blocks to get home was to tap an app.  I suppose that is a better solution than driving themselves...

And the landing craft driver--I worked with a guy when I was a bellman in Sun Valley.  He and his wife were bored with retirement, so they traveled around, living in interesting places and just doing whatever job.  In his case, he wore the stately garb of the Lodge doorman.  He was a retired sheriff, and in WWII, he had been a landing craft driver in the Pacific.  This was before Saving Private Ryan even came out, so what he told me was rather prescient and relevant to what is depicted in this clip.  He told me a lot of drivers would stop short of the beach, because they didn't want to risk getting stuck, and so, exactly what is depicted in this scene would happen.  Soldiers would have to swim to shore, sitting ducks, their equipment waterlogged before they even got a chance to fight.  He assured me he rammed his landing craft as far up the beach as he could, to give his men a fighting chance.  

Do I think a World War is coming?  Not necessarily--but I see now how it happened before, and how it could happen again.  I'm serious when I say I want my sons and students to be equipped with the thinking skills that will help them survive and thrive in the world to come. If it is a future D-day, I want them to be sure they are fighting for the right side--and if the "right" side is even worth fighting for.  And if they do fight...I want them to live.  I want to drive the metaphorical landing craft as far up the shore as I can.  After that, they will be on their own.  No teacher, no apps.

Hopefully, it will be as simple as finding a job in a rapidly changing world.  By the time they graduate, there won't be jobs with UPS or Uber.  I heard as much on NPR today, at least the Uber part.  The easiest way for Uber to eliminate their biggest expense, the wages they pay their drivers, is to eliminate those jobs.  There are millions of people driving for Uber across the world.  Eliminating those costs makes perfect economic sense, but it makes me wonder what exactly people will do for work in the future.  I certainly don't know how to teach content that hasn't been invented yet.  (Edit:  Sure enough.  Here is an article describing those self-driving trucks, and the socio-political implications thereof.)

My mission then, is to teach my sons, and my students, to be critical thinkers:  What has shaped the world?  How and why do things happen?  Am I on the right side?  What is right and wrong?  Whose Facebook posts should I believe, if any? If cars drive themselves, but I drive truck for a living, is it fair for me to lose my job?

And creative problem-solvers:  What can we do to prevent these kinds of wars from happening?  And realistically, how do we survive war, and thrive in difficult situations?  If cars can drive themselves, what does that free me up to do?  If my financial aid runs out, how will I finish school?

In this context, I can see why teaching content becomes less relevant.  I'm certainly not going to be teaching the art of warfare in my class.  The content I am directed to teach will probably change anyway, which is fine with me.  I want students to think, critically and reflectively.  Know how to learn, not what.  Solve problems, creatively or practically.  That is my mission.  

So there you have it, probably a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing.  I hope when I check back in in two weeks, I'll be able to share ways in which this mission statement is manifesting itself in my unit plan, in more practical terms. This image is kind of mesmerizing.  It's getting harder and harder to look away...must go north...but it looks like the best route might be to veer to the east, through that valley, and then over that low pass...or should I just try and go straight over the top of that mountain?

When You Assess Something, You Are Making An Ass Out Of "U" And...Whoops

"Der Vivisektor" by Gabriel von Max (1883)
http://www.greanvillepost.com/2016/02/07/115395/
(random website attached to photo that looks interesting)
((Hey, this picture may be a good one to use in a "Zoom In" routine.))

Searching Google for "brain on a scale" yields a multitude of images depicting hearts outweighing brains on a scale--a worthy metaphor to consider for our students, to be sure. For them, and indeed, many people, it is truly a creative product to consider:  The idea that what you feel, how you act, and the love you show is more important, more weighty than what you know or how you think.  This idea may have originally been depicted by von Max in this painting from 1883.  If so, to him go the kudos of originality of thought.  Based on the unit he was studying in school about value judgements, I would give him excellent marks for his creative process.  All the other kids in his class wrote five paragraph essays that quoted heavily from the Bible.

As far as the product goes, it would be unfair of me to judge, as I know nothing about art history, but I can tell you this:  Compared to his peers on Google Images, von Max has created an innovative and appropriate depiction of a now cliched metaphor, as well as demonstrating technical proficiency.  See for yourself:

Using the following hastily constructed rubric, I submit that we could get consistently reliable assessment results:

Wait a second...we probably couldn't, based on interrater reliability.  Without more detailed criteria, my rubric is not reliable.  Some may find all of the images lame--or interesting.  Or exactly opposite.  This is complicated, but I see that creating a valid and reliable form of assessment is fundamental to teaching creativity.  We need to be able to find a way to reliably assess with a valid process that encompasses both innovation and appropriateness.  (Phew, knocked out all my vocab in one sentence, and even included the bonus word for the week.)

Anyway, let's try a slightly less-hastily created rubric, with innovation and appropriateness as the axises(sp?):

Better--I think it may be a bit more reliable, but is it valid?  What constitutes "original?"  Original to our students, or original in the history of the world?  And maybe some student truly saw the value of heart vs. mind as a seemingly inappropriate image like this:

Starko mention "Glogster" at the end of one of the chapters (9?) and I wanted to try one out.  Kind of neat, but spendy. It is supposed to be embeddable, but Blogger wouldn't allow it, so I just screenshotted it in.

Clearly, this student just repurposed a Glogster she made for a science project about the water cycle...or did she?  What if the text said something like: 

 Life is a constant process of bouncing between following your heart and following your mind.  As a young water molecule of limitless potential, your mind tells you to move to Lake Tahoe and ski your brains out, but the winds of your heart instead blow you to Seattle, where you become frozen as snow in the mountains, thinking and gazing at higher, now unattainable heights, unattainable because you can't turn back time and float on the jet stream anymore.  Instead you melt and rage downhill, bouncing back and forth, first following one course and then another as you follow your heart and then your mind and then back and forth again and again.  And then you slow down like a mature river, feeling stagnate at first, but then accepting that you are simply merging back with the sea...

 As a depiction of the water cycle, it's a nice enough product, but as a creative way of looking at the question at hand, this student suddenly seems both innovative and surprisingly appropriate in her choice of metaphor.  At least in my judgment.  

Lets take a quick break, and think back to those original images of weighing brains. Brains.  Brains on scales.  Brains in jars...

I feel refreshed, somewhat.   I think my biggest fear in considering assessing for creativity is the potential and power I have to accidentally squelch it.  To be someone who inadvertently shovels dirt on creativity, because I didn't recognize it, or wasn't looking for it.  Creativity is in all of us, I believe, but is easily frightened underground.  For me, writing in a blog has been a much welcomed and anticipated respite from the rest of my schoolwork.  It feels creative to me, and I think it has been creative for me--it has helped me to create meaning from this class in a way I otherwise wouldn't have.  Whether or not it is creative to anyone else depends on who else the audience is, and how much they understand of the context.  I'm not sure if I would have continued if I'd have received any hint of negative feedback.  I only have to look at my "Spring 2016" blog, all one post of it, to be reminded of that.  (I quit that one not even because of actual feedback; I think I quit because I imagined I was rocking the boat, or being different, or something.)

  My challenge, then, is to both recognize it in my students when I can, and also, to create a classroom environment that nurtures it.  Ultimately, this is a lot of snake-chasing-its tail, I think.  Or, as Starko sums up, blind men feeling an elephant.  If one of my students is ever creative enough to trick me into thinking a snake actually is an elephant tail, then what?

Here's my assessment plan, Version 1.0, in no particular order:

• No matter the content or whether the task is sciency or artsy or mathy, find ways to use problem-based, authentic (or authentically simulated) tasks.  It's easier to assess a solution to an authentic problem--and easier to justify that assessment.
• Have a generalized rubric kind of like the one I made above to use as a template for everything--including myself.  I want the students to learn how to use it.
• Model creativity.  I am fairly confident in my ability to be creative myself, but I worry I won't be all that effective at fostering it in others.  BUT, rather than worry about that too much, I've realized that if I can consistently model creativity in how I teach and manage the class, I'll at least have my money where my mouth is. 
• On that note, with young kids at home, I get near constant opportunity to practice all of this.  How much teaching do I do, and how much preaching?  I've been considering a scenario from this past weekend.  We have lots of leaves to rake.  I thought this might be a chance to motivate the boys extrinsically, with the promise of cold, hard cash.  To my surprise, this had no effect, I think because of the fact they have actually saved and held onto a few dollars for once--at least more than they ever have.  So I went to plan B.  I raked up a big pile right next to the swing.  After a few dozen launches into the pile, I offered up the blower and the rake, so they could make the pile bigger.  Here are the results:

The assessment results vary widely depending on the goal.  For the boys, maybe in twenty years I'll be able to assess them based on their attitudes towards work:  Do they look for creative ways to make it fun?  Assessing myself, I thought it was a pretty slick way to get them to work, although the resulting pile was none too neat, and later on Wally got walloped on the cheek by the swing.  Which is a whole other lesson learned (hopefully)--keep your head on a swivel when in the vicinity of a swing.  Or helicopter rotors, or whatever.

To continue:

• In the interest of promoting a creative environment, I thought the mini-checklists were a nice idea, and again, something that works for parenting as well.  "Did I try at least three strategies" to solve that math problem/find my favorite black cargo pants/complete that discussion board assignment?

Why Assess...not sure what punctuation to use...am I asking, or telling?

Calvin pretty well sums up why we create, in four neat panels.  Maybe I should take a cue from him...why do we need to assess creativity?  Is it to assess man's quest to express himself, to assess how well he brings form to thought or how well he discover's meaning in experience?  Or is it because we need a grade for the grade book?  I'll stick with the former, and the reason, the only reason, would be to help student's become self-aware of the process, so that they may become more adept at that process.

My self-assessment for this post:

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Stragery Smorgasborg

A note of explanation about the menu

I was using the thinking strategy Ponder-Understand-Believe ("PUB", alternately known as Ponder-Understand-Belch, and affectionately referred to by researchers as Pitcher-Uv-Beer) and had a few thoughts.  One was that while the strategies described in section 2 of Making Drinking Viable, er, Making Thinking Visible were quite delicious, I was consuming them far too quickly for proper digestion.  I didn't cleanse the palate, between courses, and all the capitalized thinking words were starting to run together.  I decided to fall back on that tried and true college coping mechanism, which is to say to myself, "I'll keep this book.  I'm sure I'll reference back to it for the specifics of the strategies at some future date."  For now, I needed to focus in on just a few choice morsels.

With the food metaphor in mind, the next thing I thought of was that I needed to find an angle, something to hang my thinking hat on when I sat down to write.  Since we were instructed  to talk about three strategies, and there were three sections, and I was thinking about food, I thought of a three-course menu.  So I Explored Google to find some images. I got a lot of menus from people's weddings. Which made me Wonder, "What is the most commonly served entree at American weddings?"  I Think it is probably Chicken Cordon Bleu.  If you asked me "What Made You Say That?" I would probably cite the Evidence of the images I found, as well as Connect To Prior Experi…whoops, wrong book.  Well, I've been to a lot of weddings, and been served Chicken Cordon Bleu several times.  I think we can agree, my Claim should be accompanied by a flashing Yellow Light. 

Anyway, as the Generate-Sort-Connect-Extend concept map in my brain grew, I also realized I was looking for a format to write in that would help me to make my interminably long posts a little more…palatable in length.  The idea of the menu fit nicely, so I drew a mental line connecting those two thoughts.  I also thought it might be a fun exercise to try and make some of our textbook material sound like it was Created by a Master Culinary Craftsman (don't call him a chef) using only the finest Locally-Sourced Australian Vignettes of Soul, with short descriptive phrases that use the words "oak" and "caramel notes" at some point.  And "smoky."  There definitely needs to be something smoking.

Which led me to my last connection--the idea of synthesizing a lot into a little is partially the point of Chapter 6, "Routines for Digging Deeper."  One particularly appropriate strategy described in that chapter is the Sentence-Phrase-Word routine, which was adapted from the Text Rendering Experience used by educators affiliated with the National School Reform Faculty.  I've adapted it here using the Chamberlin Variation, which was first developed by Joel Huettig on October 17th, 2016 at 6:21 pm MDT.  The Chamberlin Variation of the SPeW routine uses the student's own words, rather than taking them from the text.  Additionally, the students also choose a Video, Image, or Gif (one of each) to make additional metaphorical connections.  Now, I will SPeW your dinner menu.  My apologies if it is only half-baked.

*I forgot to comment on the actual menu I chose to use above--after all those cordon bleus, this menu was so completely and somewhat absurdly different that I had to share it.  And in all honesty, it sounds kind of fun. I really want to spear some venison with a hand carved tree branch.   I also want to dial that phone number the next time my kids turn their noses up at dinner.

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Primero

Compass Points

A dish better served in print than on video, this routine will have your 

head spinning as you savor the extravagant excitements, wonderful worries, caramel-noted needs,

and smoky suggestions.

Parents like it too!

Reconsider

via GIPHY

Synthesazo

CSI: Color, Symbol, Image

"Morning Mist" might mean more metaphorically than a million muttered meandering musings.

I use CSI in this blog!?

Differentiation

"Deeper" Dish Pizza

Circle of Viewpoints

The Lord of the Rings from the viewpoint of Sauron, an oliphant, an orc, and a resident of Rohan.

Then with a book on contemporary Afghanistan.

Irony?

Dessertivo

Conclusion

All joking aside, while I had issues with the idea of "trademarking" the thinking processes we all do every day, I've learned that the power in identifying and isolating those processes can be quite profound-- paradoxically, perhaps the key to unleashing a person's latent potential proclivities for powerful perception is to harness unbridled curiosity and creativity within a meaningful and purposeful routine.

To clarify, "PUB" thinking was only a joke.

Publish

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Author's note:  After posting this, I realized in my first course contains an error.  When I referred to "better in print than on video," I believe I was actually thinking about the Explanation Game.  I had watched the video of that routine first, and thought that it was nice enough, especially considering it was demonstrated in a kindergarten class.  However, when I read about it in more depth, I thought much more highly of it.

I had skimmed over the Compass Points, and again wasn't totally enamored with it, in part because my son had just finished a geography unit and learned all about "Never Eat Soggy Waffles."  Mixing up the mnemonic at this point in his life might permanently skew his sense of direction!  However, like the Explanation Game, once I read about Compass Points in more depth, I gained a new appreciation for it.  Thus, my one word description "Reconsider" applies to both.

Another reason I use this blog to post--I can go back and edit!

Note to Future Self:  This article contains some more great thinking routine ideas:

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2016/10/5-ways-foster-creativity-students-and-why-you-should#.V_5Xym9oAat.email

Visible Thinking

A little music: Telegraph Road, Mark Knopfler

"Then came the churches, then came the schools, then came the lawyers, then came the rules."

Funny how Knopfler plugs "schools" into that line.  Well, not funny, really.  But probably appropriate.  If you stick to negative connotations with the above mentioned institutions, you probably don't think about thinking for yourself, let alone thinking visibly.  The ten commandants, the rule of law, and school curriculums don't invite thinking as much as they do a legalistic adherence to the letter of the law.   The ultimate summative test lies at the pearly gates, and we practice for that in front of judges, and in front of test proctors.

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In the Calvin and Hobbes comic, Hobbes asks the essential question: "Why do we care?"  Clearly, they don't care, so they generate a reason to care, in the form of creating a geometric representation that, if they fine tune it long enough, might come out to tangibly represent the equation "6 + 3" in a way that has true meaning.  They are resisting the impulse to spit out the legalistic interpretation of what those squiggly lines mean, as decreed by the lawyers and scholars and priests in days gone by.  Is Calvin being difficult and intentionally obtuse, or is he actually thinking on a higher level?  "Why" does 6 + 3 = 9?  Why not 8?  How does it work?  And why, indeed, do we care?  

I would suggest that what Calvin is doing is exactly what is described in "Making Thinking Visible," on page 29: 

 This means we need to draw on our understanding of what thinking is and the types of thinking we seek to foster so that we can name, notice, and highlight thinking when it occurs in class: recognizing a student who puts forth a new point of view, offers up a nascent theory or conjecture, proposes an explanation, makes a connection, sees a pattern, and so on.

The comic is "ah-ha" funny, not just "hah-hah" funny--Calvin is that student.  Conveniently, it seems as though mathematics instruction has become all about not just showing your work, but about showing and explaining the thinking behind that work.  It is comforting to realize that just as there is a push to integrate curriculum, the various pedagogical methods we've been learning in different subjects can be cross-pollinated as well.  How do you teach a social studies lesson using the science-based 5E method?  I don't know, but it is just as important to find a way to "Engage" students in social studies as it is in science; at least when teaching the Smoot-Hawley tariff.  Not sure what "visible thinking" looks like in Language Arts?  Well, we know a lot about what it looks like in math, so that is a good start.  It looks like a right triangle.

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I might be a high school English teacher right now, if not for a fateful intervention by the universe.  With the birth of my first son seven years ago, I reluctantly dusted off my English degree and decided to put it to use.  With a one year Graduate Program, I would be granted a certificate to teach secondary school.  To get in, there were but a few minor hoops to jump through.  One of the prerequisite classes was titled "Educational Technology 202."  I needed to either take it, or pass out of it by way of a test.  Not having time or the desire to take the class, I opted for the test.  How hard could it be?

In time, I deduced that the test would assess my skill at using the three main components of Microsoft Office:  Word, Excel, and whatever the Database program is.  From experience, I knew that if I (or anybody else) had an authentic task to accomplish with one of those tools, I could figure it out, through trial and error and probably a hefty dose from the "Help" menu.  So I didn't worry too much.  I practiced a bit with the Office suite I had access to, which didn't happen to be the most up-to-date version, and then went and took the test.

I don't know if I've ever been more frustrated and angry in an academic setting in my life.  The test would ask you to execute a task--say, insert a a specific table in a specific place.  If you clicked the wrong button, you got a strike.  Three strikes and you miss the question, and move on.  I failed miserably, and was quite bitter about it.  I certainly wasn't inspired to go and take a semester-long course that would teach me how to use a computer program that would be obsolete in another year or two.

 But more importantly, I was turned off by the whole notion of the test.  It didn't measure my thinking at all.  If  I needed to create an Excel spreadsheet for the purpose of keeping grades, I think I, like anybody else, would have figured it out. Eventually.

Thus was my teaching career so easily thwarted.  Make no mistake--I let it happen.  Failing that test was not an insurmountable obstacles, but is was a significant enough roadblock to make me reevaluate where I was at in life, and what I wanted.  I realized I didn't want to teach high school English for one thing.  So, it was a test, of sorts.  And in a way, I did pass.

Fast forward six years, and I found myself in school pursuing an Elementary Education degree.  And Edtech 202 was still a requirement.  Yes, we created a spreadsheet on the second or third day of class.  Together.  No, I could not whip out a mistake free spreadsheet right this second.  But the class was about a lot more than building spreadsheets, and it turned out to be one of the more enjoyable classes I've ever taken.  In the process of attempting to understand, if not master, a variety of technological skills, I was allowed the freedom to think my way through authentic problems as I created a lasting portfolio of artifacts.  You can view it here, but if you are reading this blog, you are already seeing some of the fruits of that class.  I write my reflections in this blog in part to keep my technology skills from rusting.

Another reason I am using a blog to record my reflections is that it feels slightly more authentic.  The blog is getting published for the whole world to see, and even if, as is likely, no one does read it, posting it as a public blog raises the stakes, not only with what I write, but how I present it.

EdTech 090

A third reason I like using Google Blogger instead of Blackboard, is it doesn't time me out when I get up to go ponder on things, or cook the kids a grilled cheese sandwich, or swat one of the ubiquitous flies roaming around our house this time of year.

*Please enjoy this re-creation of something I did when I was little, as I clumsily fill this whitespace I created by inserting the image in the wrong place to begin with.  In my case, I inserted a croquet hoop in an outdoor 220 volt socket.  Luckily, I didn't learn about completing circuits that day.



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We were assigned the first chapter from Howard Zinn's "The People's History of the United States" in my Social Studies methods class.  He describes his purpose:  

I prefer to try to tell the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slave…of the rise of industrialism as seen by the young women in the Lowell textile mills, of the Spanish-American was a seen by the Cubans… (10)

And so on.  He continues to say on the next page:

If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win.  I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than  its solid centuries of warfare. 

 The authors of "Making Thinking Visible" describe a way to engage students, to make learning more authentic.  Page 32 details a technique used by a teacher in which she engages her students by asking them to not only think about the story, but about the "other story."  This seems an awful lot like what Zinn is talking about, which is more than just a nice bit of symmetry between two of my classes.  For me, it ties into both the second quote from Zinn, as well as the above one.  He is talking about not just doing better in school, but a much bigger picture--making the world a better place.  And it also ties into the Toffler quote.  The "learning illiterate" are already all around us, hopelessly caught in a negative Facebook feedback loop.  They don't know how to think for themselves, wouldn't know visible thinking if they did see it, and probably can't conceive how a tree is literally composed of thin air.  O.k. just air.  

Asking those tough questions about the "other side" will lead to discussions about Zinn's perspective on history, and if you credit his sources, you have to rethink your meaning of Columbus day.  You have to, as Toffler admonishes, "unlearn" that construction paper Santa Maria you made in second grade, and the Pilgrim hat you made out of a square and a rectangle and glued together.  And then learn again, from a broader, more nuanced perspective.  In doing so, you might see parallels to modern times, and ways to apply that learning.  It is about more than unlearning iOS 9.6 and learning 10.1, although to function in today's society I guess that is almost a requirement.  It is not about a version of iOS (or Microsoft Office) at all, it is about the ability to learn.  I didn't pass that technology test then, and I wouldn't pass a similar one now, but I could have figured out how to build a spreadsheet then, and I still can.  But can my students?  How do I know?

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The NPR article discusses a way: "strip away the stiffness of adulthood and plug people into their innate creativity."  But I'm an elementary teacher, so I don't have to worry about the "stiffness of adulthood," (be careful of taking that our of context) do I?  

I do, actually.  Where do you think that rigidity comes from?  That cute little Pinterest project above is an example of creativity, and visible thinking--by the person who originally created it--but not for the innumerable adults and children who have struggled to recreate it.  The 2nd grade diorama, built to specification, becomes the 5th grade essay about bridges.  Indented sentences, a topic, supporting details, and a conclusion; all cut and pasted to perfection.  And completely devoid of voice or life.  How can you see a student's thinking, when it looks and sounds identical to a picture found on Pinterest?
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I hit a turning point last semester.  Simultaneously, I was taking the Writing Instruction literacy class, observing in a fifth-grade, and writing my letter of application to the Teacher Education program.  In class, we were learning about the Six Traits + One of Writing, a topic conspicuously absent from my Creative Writing degree program.  One of the things I came to realize about my writing was that "Organization" as I had been thinking of it was a lot broader than I'd imagined.  I thought you were either organized--you wrote from a linear outline--or you weren't.  I realized that I spent a great deal of time "organizing" my thoughts, and that the actual writing, when it was good, came much easier after I'd done so. But I wasn't very good about making my organization visible, because it didn't fit that linear, Roman-numeraled outline.

At the same time, I was observing a fifth-grade student as part of the writing class.  I gave her a survey, looked through her notebooks, and interviewed her.  And then I "analyzed" a piece of her writing, supposedly an example of her best, that her teacher had provided me.  It was a stiff, adult-sounding informational bit about a bridge in Australia.  I read about a few dry facts, but I didn't see anything of the student in that paper.  Nothing that reflected how she talked about reading and writing in our interview, except maybe what she thought I wanted to hear her say.  And there was nothing in that paper that was reflected in the stack of recreational reading books she had stacked on her desk.  This could have been any piece of expository writing by any fifth grader in the world.  The only thing I learned about that student was that she could probably look up facts on Google, patch them into an outline, and paste them into a report.

Meanwhile, I was trying to write my own essay, on why I wanted to be a teacher.  I'm 42, and I've written a lot of application, life story-type essays.  I kept writing in a certain voice that I thought would be pleasing to a certain audience I imagined in my head, and I kept managing to turn a life I am rather proud of, warts and all, into a stiff, boring and lifeless essay.  And then I happened across this Venn diagram.  I'd never seen it before, or if I had, it hadn't resonated.  It was the perfect way for me to organize my thoughts visually, and it became the structure for my essay.  It enabled me to write in my voice.  And it didn't hurt when I realized my audience was teachers.  I was writing about being a teacher, to teachers.  Rather than write what I had dreaded reading in all those high school English papers--stiff, lifeless, "guess what the teacher is thinking" (page 31, Thinking) essays, I chose to write what I  would want to read, if I were the audience.  Maybe it sounds silly, but it was quite liberating.  I found my voice.  I realized that even throughout my undergraduate career in the Creative Writing program, writing fiction, I had been "guessing" about what I thought the teacher wanted to hear. It is exhausting trying to think, and write, other people's thoughts.

I carried what I'd learned from writing that paper over into another class, an online literacy class with 40 faceless, and unfortunately mostly voiceless, students.  After a couple of rounds at the discussion board where I literally answered the instructor's prompts, double-checked that I had an adequate number of citations, and whatnot--and honestly not generating much discussion at all-- I said fuck it.  If nobody is reading this, I'm going to just write what I really want, how I want.  My reflections got longer, and much more personal, and I was much more proud of them.  I like to think you could "see" my thinking, flawed though it might be, rather than "see" me patting the author's on the back and nodding my head.  And I got good grades on them.  Alas, they still didn't generate much "discussion," but that is probably another story.

Towards the end of the semester, I was tasked with writing a couple of papers, using APA format.  I didn't even know how to do that, and would have failed a timed test had I been given one, but guess what?  Thanks to the Purdue Owl, and a pre-formatted Google Doc, I was able to figure it out.  If someone wanted to argue with my premise here, I suppose they could say I could adapt to the APA style because I was already familiar with the MLA style from ten years ago, and that I'd probably written a really nice bridge essay full of outlined facts back when I was a fifth grader.  Maybe they're right.  But at what cost?  Losing my voice for 30 years? The real challenge is finding a way to let my voice shine through the formatting; if you're not taught how to find your voice--show your thinking--when you're young and flexible, how is it going to be any easier when you're an adult?

Which takes me back to that fifth-grader, who had already begun to "guess" at what the teacher was thinking.  I think of it as teaching theater.  Are we teaching students how to memorize one particular role?  Or should we be teaching them how to be actors, giving them tools that make them capable of adapting to any number of roles?

 Are we confusing formatting with scaffolding?  Am I?  I don't know. Maybe Jack Handey was right:  "Sometimes I think the so-called 'experts' actually are experts."

*I can't find a Saturday Night Live video of that particular quote, but I did find one of Handey reading an excerpt from his book, where he gives us a sort of example of "visible thinking."  Enjoy this comedic respite.


 


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There had gotten to be too much white and black on my workspace.  (At least there had been, on an earlier draft, before I inserted the video.)  Anyway,  I needed to doodle something, as Barry encourages in the NPR article.  I took a walk, and when I came back, I was ready to doodle.  Barry would probably consider it a cop-out, but rather than draw my own images, I use the whole internet as my doodle-pad.  For this I typed in "tree of life images."  I'll save you the trouble, if you want to see all that I had to choose from, and from that you can perhaps glean a thing or two about me, as you ponder the one tree image I did choose.  Or you can just make your own meaning from this image.  Take in all you know about everything, trees and sunlight and nutrients and that job you had climbing trees and the tree house you had in that cherry tree as a kid and that tree in the Shawshank Redemption that symbolized hope, perseverance, and rebirth to you, and how both that tree and the cherry tree have since died but hope hasn't and neither has the joy of climbing trees, and keep on going until you need a breath of air…then you think some more about that image of the tree of life on the back of the tree company t-shirt--the Celtic image, and you think about when you were so into Celtic music like Enya, and her song Lothlorien, named after the Elvish forest in the Lord of the Rings, and how everything seems to come back to that epic journey, that quest to cast the Ring into Mt. Doom…more air...

I've studied photosynthesis formally at least three times in my life, in sixth grade, early in college in Plant Science (there was something neat about the C4 pathway and corn, but what was it…) and again later in college in Botany, which I took mainly because I was chasing a girl at the time who was also taking the class...  At no time did I picture a tree being made of thin air, the way I did when Drori pointed it out.  I knew it--I could point all the way back to that diagram I made in the sixth grade, how the carbon dioxide in the air was being converted through the process into the carbon we see in the tree, and that we eat as carbohydrates.  I even knew that burning the tree, or fossil fuels, released that carbon back into the atmosphere.   But I don't think I understood it the way I do now, as I walk down the street, trying to imagine the gaping holes around every tree that would needs be there if trees were mostly made of nutrients.  They are made most of air!

I've seen towering ponderosa pines grow on the side of rocky cliffs--how did they "pull" nutrients out of solid rock?  They didn't of course; they reached up and pulled it straight out of the sky.

In that, Drori gives us the perfect metaphor for making thinking visible.  Our ideas are like air, and the tree is the result of mixing those ideas, that carbon, with sunlight.   The tree is us, our visible thinking. When a tree is stunted, we think, oh, it must need more nutrients.  We can see nutrients, we can see soil.  That much we can do, so we shovel manure on it and wonder when it still doesn't grow.

What the tree needs is sunlight.  And we, the teachers, are that sunlight, correct?  Showering down the sunshine of our knowledge, energizing the photosynthesis of learning--synthesis, that highest pinnacle of Bloom's hierarchy.  

Perhaps not.  I think sunlight is the motivation to learn in this metaphor, and we teachers are but the breeze that parts the trees, the sudden gale that springs up and drives away the clouds and then is gone just as suddenly, the hand that lifts the grass to expose the seedling to the light.  We are not manure spreaders.  Are we?

Case Study of a Creative Individual(s)

A Brief Digression…or is it a Diversion?

I came across the picture of the double-decker taxi while searching for images of double-parked cabs.  This image of an unusually un-aerodynamic vehicle is much more interesting than an image of a double-parked taxi, of which there are thousands.  While it may spur many interesting questions, this picture is actually a digression from the digression, which can't even be properly called a digression, because it occurred before I even started talking about the actual topic at hand.  Perhaps a predigression?

At any rate, I began driving for Uber about a week ago.  At first blush, driving people from Point A to Point B might seem like the opposite of a job that requires creative thinking.  However, in the context of what we have been learning in this class, I can see many ways that driving a taxi requires creative and critical thinking skills, and "imaginative" ways to get from A to B are among the least of your worries.

This post isn't about me, or other Uber drivers--although I think it would be incredibly interesting to do a study on Uber drivers in general.  50% quit driving in their first year, apparently, and as I sat there on Saturday night waiting for Officer Viens to write me a $90 citation for double-parking on Sixth and Main, I contemplated joining that 50%.  I was mad at the police, mad at Uber, and mostly upset with myself.  I had clearly broken the law--just like I'd already done several times, just like I'd seen other people do--including the car that had just been right in front of me, and perhaps most important--just like I'd seen it done on TV thousands of times.  Without a detailed manual to consult, how could I prevent this from happening again?

I actually have little experience even riding in a taxi and none in an Uber.  Uber does next to nothing to train you outside of offering an optional five-minute tutorial video.  It has been pretty much a trial by fire.  So it is little wonder why 50% of drivers quit, and why I considered it for a while that night.  I still have 50 more weeks of driving to make it through, to avoid being part of that 50%, and if I'm going to make it, I have to get…creative.  Which is why I think it would be interesting to study Uber drivers in the context of creative behaviors and how they relate to retention rates.

Double-Parking Done, I Will Now Merge Back Into Traffic

First, for your listening and viewing musing…

Yo-Yo Ma/Earth From Space

And now, to further set the mood...

via GIPHY

To make this assignment purposeful and relevant for myself, I decided I would observe one of my sons.  When I applied my stereotypical notion of "creativity" my thoughts went naturally to my younger son.  Relative to his brother, he is more intelligent (as measured by academic success like reading benchmarks,) he is able to maintain sustained focus, he seems to have a more naturally curious attitude, and he is more open to new experiences--his eating habits being just one example.

As a parent, however, I am proud and protective of both my children.  With the help of our readings and discussion, I've gotten a new appreciation for how multifaceted this whole notion of creativity really is.  I love and believe in my older son just as much as my younger, and I came to realize this assignment could be an opportunity to see not only him through a different lens, but also my future students.  Ultimately, as Starko notes at the end of Chapter 5, I feel like many children like my older son, who don't fit into my stereotype of a creative individual, are not only creative in non-stereotypical ways, they may be often misdiagnosed as having ADD or "Other" types of learning disorders.  Regardless of how they do on traditional measures of academic success--or maybe especially because of how they do--I want to find ways for all students to find success in the classroom, and in life.

A Case Study of Gus and Wally

Lonesome Dove Painting - Leaving Lonesome Dove by Peter Nowell

Yeah, they are more or less named after character's from Lonesome Dove.  It wasn't super intentional, and obviously we didn't end up copying the story verbatim, but when my sons were still just a gleam in my eye, my wife and I were referring to them as Gus and Woodrow, in homage to the wonderful characters in Larry McMurtry's novel, and portrayed on television by the inestimable duo of Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones.  Push came to shove when the second child was born a boy.  We opted with a similar-sounding family name instead of Woodrow.  It was either that, or Pea-Eye.  Somehow (!) "Wally" has turned out to fit him perfectly.

I was going to analyze milestones, but honestly, they are both relatively middle of the pack on most things.  Nothing stands out, like walking or talking particularly early or late.  The only thing really notable I can think of, is that Wally still poops his pants occasionally, and Gus still mostly sleeps in our bed.  But I think I can see ways in which those behaviors fit into Starko's framework, so more on that later.

(Quick note--Augustus is 7 and a 1/2, and Walter is just over 5.)

Five of MacKinnon's "Seven of the salient characteristics…of creative groups," from Creativity in the Classroom, page 102.  

I thought it would be useful to look at the boys from as many angles as possible, so I started here.  

Intelligent

The only empirical evidence I can submit are their scores on the Idaho Reading Indicator, which, in my opinion, is a dubious gauge of reading ability, let alone overall intelligence.  Nonetheless, Gus has consistently scored well below benchmark, While Wally, in his first go at it in Kindergarten, scored off the charts.  This may strongly correlate to future academic success, but I am not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg.

I see this as a difficult area to assess in younger children.  I would note that anecdotally, Wally seems to learn faster, in that he seems to hear and retain things much better relative to Gus.  (That is a problem with my study--everything is relative to each other.)  Gus is a child you have to tell to look in your eyes to make sure he hears something important, whereas Wally will spit out the answer to a question not even posed to him, while seeming to be quietly playing in the corner.

However, in more subjective ways, I have a hard time saying one is more intelligent then the other.  In the subjects that have mattered to Gus, he is quite adept.  He can list and describe any number of dinosaurs, discuss raptor biology and predator-prey relationships, and he can sing and hum large sections of the score of all seven Star Wars movies.

Original

This is another hard one to assess, so I will look at it in terms of how they solve problems.  I feel they both display originality of thought in some areas.  Right now, it is so hard to get past thinking about how they play with Legos.  Wally has long been much more fluid with how he can adapt to missing pieces, or the need for new sets, whereas a hallmark of Gus has been a desire to get specific sets so that he can have the thing he sees in the pictures.  I would say, with encouragement, Gus has changed notably in that regard over the past year or so.  He is much more willing to use his own imagination to build versions of the sets he wants us to buy him.  Perhaps more importantly, he seems to be feeling some intrinsic value from building his own ideas.

Independent

These descriptors from MacKinnon describe Wally to a T:  "Highly motivated to achieve in situations that allowed or demanded independence…not necessarily well-rounded, nor do they fit smoothly in group situations (not always true with Wally, but when he doesn't want to, he speaks up about it,)…curious, receptive, and willing to learn."  That last, "willing to learn," is a major difference between the two.  

On the other hand, the "independent" description goes on to say: "they were accepting of multiple aspects of their own character and apt to express traditional female characteristics if they were male…"   While I am probably simplifying a bit, Gus has always seemed to typify this descriptor.  While at times he is "all boy," he has a soft side and is not afraid to express it.  I am making assumptions about  MacKinnon's definition of what constitutes "traditional" gender behaviors from 1978, but Gus has both displayed that softness in inner nature that might be associated with the feminine, as well as dressed up in girls clothes.  He had a "Frozen" phase for sure.  Even now in second grade, he often wears a purse to school.

Intuitive

By my knee-jerk, intuitive definition, this is an area where Gus scores highly.  He has seemed unusually alert to the "as-yet-not-realized."  Particularly in the area of spirituality/questions about "God"/life-after-death.  Gus has, with little prompting, developed his own sense of life after death, which generally involves reincarnation.  Granted, he, like many people, has constructed this meaning out of a fear of loss, a type of dependence on others that is antithetical to the creative motif.  However, I grant him credit for being aware and conceiving of these questions in the first place.

On the other hand, some of what I've talked about with Gus would almost indicate a lack of intuition.  When the book mentions "stimulus or object bound," I think of Gus.  So, I'm a little confounded.

One more note, which I'll stick in here--one of them believes in Santa, but the other, when presented with evidence from classmates, has elected to stop believing.  It would seem that intuition would tell you Santa, or the Tooth Fairy or whatever, does not really exist.  But at this early age, maybe these types of beliefs are a manifestation, or an openness to that idea of the "as-yet-not-realized," which would then represent another contradiction.

Strong Sense of Destiny

How do you measure that in a young child?  I think the remarkable thing to think about here is how strong a sense of destiny all children have.  They haven't lost that belief that they truly will become a police officer, or a paleontologist, ninja, or Jedi.  The belief is strong in my sons, but the actual destiny changes every few months.  We've learned to wait to buy Halloween costumes until the actual date is at hand. 

(Sgt. By The Book, Officer Maverick, and Officer Loose Cannon.  Officer Maverick decided last second to go undercover as a construction worker.  He is wearing a sheepskin "safety" vest and a Mouse King "hardhat.")

Conclusion

Analyzing the boys through the lens of adult profiles was interesting, but fairly inconclusive.  I don't think I have any mega-prodigies on my hands, but they are still young enough to be mini-prodigies at least.  So what are some other ways of looking at their traits?  Let's take a look at some other characteristics, as described by Starko.

Cognitive

Connectedness and Metaphorical Thinking

I like to think I'm a big metaphorical thinker--big as a big river big.  Like a big ol bunch of rubber bands are stretched out on the peg-board of my brain, connecting all sorts of stuff.  Wait a second…"like" and "as"…hmm, maybe I'm into simile thinking.  Anyway, I found it hard, again, to note any metaphorical thinking in my boys, except for the time Wally said about a largish rock, "that rock is nature's heart."  We were on a little hike, and he promptly started climbing on it.  I thought that was a fine metaphor, and though I don't have documentation, I feel like he is more apt to use language metaphors, which is certainly the easiest way to assess metaphorical thinking.  

He has led the way in metaphorical thinking and visualization when it comes to the boys Lego building adventures.  Wally is much more fluid in his thinking, and adaptable, whereas Gus will spend much time obsessing over pictures of what he wants on Amazon, Wally is off building it.  Gus as improved in this capacity, but it doesn't seem like a natural inclination.  

 

                    

Gus wants exactly this.                    Wally built this…                    Based on this.

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For Gus, I wonder how much metaphorical thinking occurs through music.  Where Wally has shown intensely focused behavior while playing Legos, Gus has exhibited the same kind of focus in regards to listening and humming music.  He will ask to listen to the same song over and over, and it is always a song from a movie, typically the orchestral score to Star Wars or Jurassic Park, although he knows most of the Nutcracker Suite by heart.  I know from my experience that music can evoke metaphorical feelings, so I believe listening to the music is a way for Gus to "connect" back to the movies and stories

 which he is currently "in to."  If we are driving in the car and he is unable to play with his toys or watch the film or whatever, the music helps transport his mind.  Because it is not just the style of music--he isn't appreciating the music just for the sake of the music.  I have created a "John Williams, Composer," station on Pandora.  He can get frustrated and impatient when it won't play the  exact song from the movie/theme he is currently into, even though I find it enjoyable to listen to the similar yet different selections.  It's something we're working on.  


As a side note, it has been interesting raising children in the "on demand" era.  It takes a lot of work as a parent to keep easily obsessed children open to new things, when they can so easily binge on the things they like.

Independence in Judgement

I have the note "dichotomy" scrawled in the margin of page 116, in the section discussing "ambiguity."  In all honesty, I can't remember what I was thinking when I wrote that.  However, it is a word that keeps coming up in my mind as I read and ponder creativity.

There is much duality described in the reading, and in my case study.

Both boys had a chance to dress up like pirates at school this week, and neither one wanted to.  I'm not sure of the exact reasons, but for both, particularly Gus, I could sense this push and pull between doing what they wanted--independent thought, and trying to fit in.  I think Gus was doubly conflicted because the part of him that wants to fit in was equally worried that he would be the only person not dressed like a pirate, or if he did dress like a pirate, he would still be the only one.  He clearly wanted to fit in.  But he also seemed to have an equally strong conviction to dress as he wanted.  He has always been someone with an awareness of what he wears.  At times, he has insisted upon wearing the same clothes for days on end.  Other periods, he has changed clothes multiple times in a day.

Wally takes independence a different direction.  He is generally not accepting of ideas until he has made the choice for himself.  This isn't unusual, I don't think, for children his age.  He just seems to take it to another level.  When I see Starko describe students as "stubborn, argumentative, or resistant to authority," I think of Wally at bedtime.  He hasn't displayed this quality in school yet; quite the contrary actually.  He is fierce as a grizzly when prodded too hard, and I have made a point of asking his teachers if he has ever displayed this at school.  So far, he has been cute and cuddly Wally Bear.

Coping Well With Novelty

Again with the contradictions in Gus.  In realistic, external situations, he does not cope well with novelty.  New and unexpected things make him anxious--he seems to like secure boundaries in his world.  I made a Samoas Cookie Pie for teacher appreciation day last year and brought it to school.  When I parked the car to take the pie in--instead of just dropping     

 him off like usual--he crumbled.  Somehow, he thought he was going to have to deliver the pie by himself, which made him anxious for a whole new reason.  It was anxiety on top of anxiety, and certainly not indicative of a person who copes well with novel situations.  For his river guide father, this is a bit troubling, as I am someone who welcomes novelty to the extent that I may sometimes be subconsciously self-destructive, in order to bring it into my life.

On the other hand, Starko says "students who cope well with novelty…thrive on the question 'What if?'"(107)  As does Gus, in the internal, theoretical sense.  What if?  There is a Santa, or we are reincarnated as a family of Peregrine Falcons?


My knee jerk reaction with Wally is to say the opposite-- he seems to cope with novelty quite well.  The best evidence is how they reacted (and still do) to being dropped off at school.  Gus is a crying clinger, and Wally is a back-turning hand-waver.

However, that example just sets them up as opposites.  As with Gus, I can think of examples with Wally where he doesn't exhibit openness to novelty.  Again, dichotomous.

Logical Thinking Skills

Wally seems to excel in this area.  He loves to puzzle things out.  I had been playing "The Room" series of games on the iPad, and he spontaneously joined in.  Many of the tasks in the game are logic-based puzzles, and he delighted in helping me solve them.  Moreover, he became indispensable in helping me recall things we'd seen together--sometimes we'd find a peculiarly shaped object, for instance, and he'd have an uncanny ability to remember a spot where that object might fit.  This may have been a combination of visualization, logical thinking, and even finding order in chaos, as well.  He also seems very logical in how he responds to parental instructions--there needs to be logic behind them; simply saying "because I said so" is not enough.

Gus hasn't seemed as pre-disposed to logical thinking, so it has been a clear area to work on him with.  Like many kids, he is always "losing" things, which provides a wonderful opportunity to practice logical thinking, and to find order out of chaos.  Link to an early attempt to motivate reading and logical thinking.   In order to find his toys, Gus had to read a set of clues.  It was geared towards motivating him to read, but looking back, it had a second purpose--think through a logical progression of "likely" places he might find his lost toys.

I'm going to leave off with Cognitive Traits here.  Put simply, I am seeing that Wally displays more strength in the cognitive traits of creativity than Gus.  However, Gus has shown the ability to improve--with mindful and purposeful guidance.

In all honesty, I've had trouble at times truly understanding the nuanced meanings of "cognitive" and "affective," but as I contemplate my way through this assignment, they are starting to clarify for me.

Affective Traits

Willingness to Take Risks

Since I just stated Wally shows more strength in cognitive creativity traits, I am tempted rate him less strongly in the affective traits.  I say that, because what "leaps" to mind with risk-taking and the boys is the very description of it that Starko kind of warns us away from: "This is not necessarily the type of risk taking that spurs a person to bum gee jumping or mountain climbing.  Rather, it is a willingness to accept intellectual risks.(110)

I've described in Gus some significant issues with anxiety, and yet, on occasion, he has shattered my conceptions of him when it comes to risk-taking.  In this linked video, Gus at age 5 spontaneously does a front flip at Jump-Time.  Last winter, after two previous winter in which he had staunchly refused to ski, he suddenly announced he was going to ski.   He showed perseverance, drive, and commitment that day, never wavering.  I used to ski instruct, so I had a whole plan in mind, but when we got to the top of the hill, it was pretty much "get out of the way, Dad."

And this last summer, after years of resistance and anxiety around water, he surprised and scared the hell out of me when he decided to swim across the deep end of the pool.  Talk about P,D, and C.  And no panic, even when he got half-way and realized just how far he still had to go.  He made it, of course, although it was a long few seconds for me.  The swimming success carried over, as he later challenged the swim test at the public pool, and achieved success.

When taking the above mentioned risks, Gus does not seem to be approaching them cognitively.  Like Nike used to admonish, he "just does it."  He wants something, but it's not necessarily to be able to say he did it.  He does it on his terms, when he is ready.  And when he does decide to take those risks, he becomes very different from the Gus I've described in places above.  

Wally's risk-taking behavior is certainly not unusually bold.  He mirrors Gus in a lot of ways at a similar age--he is still a reluctant swimmer, has refused to participate in gymnastics lessons for two weeks in a row (they just started,) and only reluctantly consented to ride his bicycle without training wheels about a week ago.  Which, in fact, is about a year earlier than Gus did.

Wally does, in other ways, show that perseverance to task that I talked about in Gus, but   it seems to manifest more as that hyper-focused mathematician that Starko quotes on page 117.

Both boys, however, do typify Starko's description of creative individuals who "almost always persist and struggle over self-selected tasks, not over those assigned by others."  (113)  This, I would add, may well be a universal human trait.

Curiosity

Quickly--Wally seems to have a broader curiosity, although it can have depth.  This more fits my definition of curious--a general interest in everything.  However, when I think about Gus, he too is a curious enough fellow, but in a more focused way.  Moving on.

Openness to Experience

It seems like I already talked about this, but with Gus in focus a bit more, I am drawn by Starko's discussion of "openness to inner emotional experiences."  I've discussed Gus' awareness of life and death, but another recent episode may help illustrate it in another light.

When we moved into our house seven years ago, Jack the Cat was already living there.  He'd been a neighborhood cat for years, and had taken permanent residence with the previous owners when their dog was dying of cancer.  He was an old soul, and a good friend.

He suddenly died this summer, which seemed almost inexplicable to me.  I told my family.  Wally was sad, but I think he might have been very "focused" on something else at the time.  Gus, on the other hand, was pretty broken up.  We made this memorial for him, where he is buried.  The stuffed snake was the one Jack had most recently dragged out of the house, in his continual quest to protect us.

We all went back inside, but a few moments later, Gus said he wanted to go and talk to Jack.  I brought him a chair, so he could sit with him whenever he wanted.

This event is typical of Gus, and something I feel very much fits with how Starko describes openness to inner emotional experience.  Starko's later advice has special significance for me:

Creative adolescents have enormous need for empathetic understanding that conveys confidence in their ability to overcome the anxiety while not belittling the intensity of its effects or the reality of its causes.  (115)

Gus had started sleeping in his own bed with the start of the school year.  However, at about the same time I first read this, we got a call from the school nurse.  He'd complained of his heart racing.  My wife and I have pretty much taken this as the sign of an anxiety attack, which fits right in with other behaviors at school.  We took this as a cue to let him sleep in our bed if he wanted, while at the same time, a renewed call to help him "overcome" his anxiety.

(Due to time and length constraints, I'm going to skip Broad or Focused Interests and Value Originality, and Being Internally Occupied or Withdrawn. I don't feel like I have anything profound to note that I haven't already at least discussed obliquely.)

Neatly enough, I've determined that Gus leans more strongly towards affective traits of creativity.  This feels intuitively correct, and maybe all of this is a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy.  But in trying to see the strengths and areas for growth in my own children, I think I've learned a valuable lesson about seeing the creativity in all students, and the need to hone it.

Conclusion

First, one of the finest conclusions in cinematic history:

Finale to "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", of which this post has been equal measures.  

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I spent the day substituting in a 7th grade Life Science classroom.  They have been learning the various components of the cell.  Today, in a nice little bit of cross-content curriculum, they were asked to think of a metaphor for the cell.  The example given was that of an amusement park--the fences are the cell membrane, the food court is the mitochondria, and so forth.

It was a little disappointing to see how difficult this assignment proved to be for most students.  Sure, the content knowledge wasn't cemented for a lot of them, but many of them didn't have a very good grasp on metaphors at all.  It was a task that called for and invited creative thinking, but I didn't see much.  The day gave me a renewed since of purpose in regards to instituting creative thinking in my elementary classroom.  Not only that, but I feel like teaching something like the parts of a cell might be best done metaphorically before every opening up a book or website and reading a technical definition.  I believe a lot of subjects are that way--it's truly a fantastic way to "connect to prior knowledge."

As for my own sons, what can I do?  I've discussed a few things we've already done somewhat intuitively for general growth, rather than specifically as seen through the creative lens.  We have also started a slightly more purposeful plan--a goal chart of sorts.

The goal chart has eight attributes that I stole from a book about the Shaolin Monks, arranged in a circle.  Very Taoistic/Jedi.   The attributes are mini-lessons in thinking metaphorically, as you'll see.  There is extrinsic motivation involved, which I don't love, but the emphasis is really on being a well-rounded person.  The idea is that a Shaolin Monk (or a Jedi) doesn't just study fighting, they must be skilled in many areas.  Ultimately, the hope is that progress in those areas will fuel the boys intrinsically.  The eight attributes are:

The Warrior

Not just for fighting, the Warrior must be skilled at many motor skills.  Riding bikes, tying shoes, whatever might fit the bill.  The daily lightsaber duel probably doesn't count here.  Gymnastics do count.  Gus has already demonstrated that "affective" risk-taking behavior in class, while Wally has refused to participate.

The Sage
For now, the Sage accomplishes his goals by reading, under purposeful guidance.  Gus is stronger in the Warrior, which will give him confidence, but hopefully he will begin to place equal emphasis on the Sage.

The Poet
This would eventually have much deeper meaning, but for now, it is learning to communicate well through writing.  Both boys have produced copious amounts of written work, but without much guidance.  For now, particularly with Gus, this attribute is a sideways attempt to help is overall literacy, through word study and spelling.  

The Artist
For now, this means "creator," which mostly means original Lego creations, but also includes artwork or whatever else.  Confidence building, low-hanging fruit.

The Craftsman
The Yang to the Artist's Yin (or is it the other way around?)  This covers mathematics, and again circles back to Legos, and the counting and categorizing thereof.

The Musician
Like the art and writing, the boys love music but lack focus.  They do take a music lesson, but rarely practice, and don't respond well to enforced practice.  The intent is to help them begin to show some discipline.  If Gus (or Wally) does have some musical talent, it will be hard to unleash without a little structured practice of the basics.

The Healer
Pretty broad, can encompass bedtime routines and clean-up--a healthy house is one in which Grandma won't break her ankle stepping on a Lego.  Spontaneous displays of empathy or other social skills fit here as well.

The Fool
This is the best one to use for metaphorical thinking, and it has a lot of possibilities.  For now, it aligns with risk-taking of any kind, whether it be attempting to ride a bike without training wheels for Wally, or chancing to raise his hand in class for Gus.  The big idea ultimately is to align with Starko's idea of being willing to take intellectual risks.

There are no daily requirements.  When they accomplish a mini-goal in any area, they get a little sticker, and when they've accomplished 5 mini-goals in each area, they get a big sticker, which basically means they've earned some money towards more Legos.  Like we need them.

Like I said, there is still some of that sticker-based extrinsic economy, but I feel like it provides some structure, without being guilt based.  They seem to like it, but we'll see how much staying power it has.

Aside from that, I find a wonderful way to nurture their--and my--creative soul is to get outside.  Outside, in nature, not just the park.  Last weekend we took a trip to Tablerock.  I was in a mindful mood, so I wrote down all of the things we talked about, "educationally." 
Some of the titles might sound a bit pretentious; trust me, this was just a dad and his boys talking about stuff.

--We did M & M math with our snacks; mostly subtilizing/partitioning/addition based on color.
--Lizard Life and Fire Ecology and Life Cycles
--Inclined planes
--Gravity and acceleration
--Why the color black is hot.
--Brain and nerve biology--we were discussing the idea of being paralyzed if you fell off a cliff.
--Milky Way math--how to divide up two pieces of candy evenly between three people.
--Principled behavior (ethics) regarding litter and graffiti.
--Imagining shapes in our Cheetohs, and rocks.
--We did talk directly about risk-taking behavior, especially in how it pertains to having conversations with strangers.
--Life and Death.  Gus wanted to know my Dad's favorite animal, so that he could know what animal he might be reincarnated as.  For now, it is a horse.
--The meaning of the word "opposite."
--And last, but not all, Gus asked me what to do about all the Cheetoh cheese stuck to his fingers.  This is an analyzable trait in itself, but I'll just say that before I could answer, Wally answered for me.  "You lick them."

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This case study has provided a lot of food for thought, as well as practical experience--I've already become much more mindful about finding ways I can guide my own children towards finding confidence in the traits they are good at, strengthening the traits they are bad at, and prettying up the traits they may be ugly at.  And I don't mean ugly as in really bad, but ugly as in unstructured or undisciplined.  Thank you for reading.