When we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we did things together.
-Barack Obama (Clapp, 2017, 4)
-Barack Obama (Clapp, 2017, 4)
When I wrote part 1 of this theme many months ago, I was (and still am) inspired by the idea of collective intelligence and the interconnectedness of participants within a system to produce innovation. I connected strongly to the ideas presented on the shift from the biography of an individual to the biography of an idea (discussed in greater detail below). It resonated with my own world views and dovetailed so nicely with the social systems of trees I had just read about in the Wohlleben book discussed in my previous post. It brought up powerful questions about the implications for the classroom. How do we provide opportunities for students to collaboratively develop their creativity? What does a classroom look like that inspires kids to be innovators? What systems or provocations or cultures need to be established to support this type of learning? However, while Clapp's book provides powerful theoretical underpinnings for making changes to the way the work of a classroom is structured, it falls short on practical applications of this theory. As such, I got stuck on how to write the promised part 2. I have given myself permission to finish reflecting on the theory of Clapp's book without diving into the ideas in practice. I suspect I will circle back around to them again as I have found connections to the inquiry work in math that we are doing at our school currently, but I will leave that for another time. Happy New Year!
Clapp defines participatory creativity as a process “of invention and innovation centered around the development of ideas that are generated by a diverse network of actors each of whom contributes to the idea development in unique and varied ways” (40) He suggests reframing the idea of a biography from that of a person to that of an idea. In this way, it deemphasizes the “Great Man” theory of history where the lone genius toils in isolation and places these great people within the social context of learning. He uses the example of Einstein and reframes the biography of Einstein as a biography of Special Relativity. True, Einstein was an exceptional person, yet he places him within a line of scientific and mathematical thinking and questioning influenced and inspired by Newton, Maxwell, Foppl, Lorentz, Poincare, and others. All of whom laid the groundwork and developed the ideas that inspired and challenged Einstein. They set the stage for Einstein to advance the world’s understanding and so elegantly expresse the idea of Special Relativity. But without Newton and Maxwell and the others, there would be no Special Theory of Relativity (94-95). Einstein would have still been exceptional, but he would have been working on other ideas. This paradigm shift in thinking about how knowledge is created has profound implications for the classroom.
Clapp delineates 6 core principles to support this shift:
The inquiry-based classroom can provide a culture of learning that supports this and offers opportunities to develop this type of creativity. In this type of classroom, the role of the teacher is quite different from the traditionally structured class. The teacher does not give knowledge but “seeds ideas” to the students through provocations, questions, and setting the environment and context (in the form of project based and problem based learning engagements) to support and model the inquiry process. During the inquiry, the teacher is mentor, coach, and historian. She helps to document the learning journey, influence the groups direction as needed through questioning and recasting to move the thinking forward and elevate the learning, provide knowledge and information as needed to support the process, and mediate the group to develop collaboration skills among its members. (This is very similar to the role of a teacher in the Reggio classroom. See my previous post on this subject here) During the process of doing this, students develop content area knowledge and skills, intra- and inter-personal skills (such as empathy, perspective taking, leadership, confidence, team membership, grit) and a sense of self as a creative participant in the learning process. (169-170).
These are all skills that have been identified over and over again as key indicators for success. Even Google has identified strong communication skills, ability to understand differing points of view, empathy and support of colleagues, critical thinking, problem solving, and the ability to make connections across complex ideas as more important indicators of success at their company than STEM knowledge. (See more here) So teachers and schools need to mentor students in working and thinking in this way.
The theoretical work underlying Clapp’s work is powerful but his case studies are not. I was disappointed that his case studies featured not classroom examples, but two different year-long afterschool activities consisting of kids who had self-selected into the group. While there is some insight that we can learn from this, it is hard to apply more universally to a classroom of kids with varying degrees of interest and motivation within the confines of a set curriculum. And so, Clapp’s work leaves us with many questions and opportunities, but little guidance on how to move forward to put these ideas into practice. I suppose that will be our professional inquiry in the years to come. Please share your thoughts and experiences with me. I am very curious. I will continue to share mine.
References
Clapp, E.P (2017). Participatory Creativity – Introducing Access and Equity to the Creative Classroom. New York: Rutledge.
Clapp delineates 6 core principles to support this shift:
- Individuals are not creative, ideas are creative;
- Ideas function as conceptual throughlines that are embodied in a succession of artifacts over time;
- Creative idea development is distributed amongst a diverse and dynamic set of actors known as a contributing stakeholder group;
- The development of creative ideas is purposeful work;
- There is no one way to be creative, but rather multiple ways for a variety of individuals to participate in the development of creative ideas, and;
- Individuals play various roles when they participate in creativity, but those roles are neither fixed nor unidimensional (45)
The inquiry-based classroom can provide a culture of learning that supports this and offers opportunities to develop this type of creativity. In this type of classroom, the role of the teacher is quite different from the traditionally structured class. The teacher does not give knowledge but “seeds ideas” to the students through provocations, questions, and setting the environment and context (in the form of project based and problem based learning engagements) to support and model the inquiry process. During the inquiry, the teacher is mentor, coach, and historian. She helps to document the learning journey, influence the groups direction as needed through questioning and recasting to move the thinking forward and elevate the learning, provide knowledge and information as needed to support the process, and mediate the group to develop collaboration skills among its members. (This is very similar to the role of a teacher in the Reggio classroom. See my previous post on this subject here) During the process of doing this, students develop content area knowledge and skills, intra- and inter-personal skills (such as empathy, perspective taking, leadership, confidence, team membership, grit) and a sense of self as a creative participant in the learning process. (169-170).
These are all skills that have been identified over and over again as key indicators for success. Even Google has identified strong communication skills, ability to understand differing points of view, empathy and support of colleagues, critical thinking, problem solving, and the ability to make connections across complex ideas as more important indicators of success at their company than STEM knowledge. (See more here) So teachers and schools need to mentor students in working and thinking in this way.
The theoretical work underlying Clapp’s work is powerful but his case studies are not. I was disappointed that his case studies featured not classroom examples, but two different year-long afterschool activities consisting of kids who had self-selected into the group. While there is some insight that we can learn from this, it is hard to apply more universally to a classroom of kids with varying degrees of interest and motivation within the confines of a set curriculum. And so, Clapp’s work leaves us with many questions and opportunities, but little guidance on how to move forward to put these ideas into practice. I suppose that will be our professional inquiry in the years to come. Please share your thoughts and experiences with me. I am very curious. I will continue to share mine.
References
Clapp, E.P (2017). Participatory Creativity – Introducing Access and Equity to the Creative Classroom. New York: Rutledge.