Creativity

My second favorite theorist (yes, I have ranked them 1-67) is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the creator of Flow Theory.  We will talk about Flow at the academy, but I want to introduce you to two of his other interests: Creativity and Play.  I have included a link to a great article by him explaining some very interesting aspects of creativity, from the book on the right.  I wanted you to read this because I have recognized a tremendous amount of creativity amongst you all, and this is a very, very insightful look at the construct in a way most of us don't think of. Also, I would argue most of you would agree it is our job to encourage and develop the creativity of our students. I hope you enjoy reading it, and I look forward to your comments and our discussions!
For now though, I want to talk about Play!  Some of you have discussed some pretty intuitive notions of play in your assignments, and I thought it would be a good topic for us to start to think of as well. Csikszentmilahlyi (I took me three years to learn how to spell his name) talks about play being an activity that we do throughout our lifetimes - it changes a bit, but we do it from birth to death.  He found that there were two critical aspects of play - that play is autotelic and negentropic.  Autotelic comes from the two Greek words "Auto" meaning self, and "Telos" meaning goal. Play is such a unique activity, because the activity is the goal itself, not a step towards a goal. That might seem like a small distinction, but it is actually quite large.  We as humans are constantly emerged in enterprise of some sort all the time.  We are doing things in order to get other things.  At times, we are many steps away for our eventual goal, and we even teach ourselves and others about goal setting techniques. We talk about distant, global, proximal, short-term, and long-term goals.  And if we ever do reach a goal, we immediately set another.  Did you know that many people in America, particularly men, don't live long after retirement?  We don't know how to live now!
When we play, we are not doing so for some future goal.  Playing at the moment is the goal.  A few of you mentioned how important it is to go outside and see your students playing. I agree with this totally - the more situations we can see them interacting in, the better we can know them.  I will take that suggestion one step further - I believe it is important for them to see us in other situations as well. I have learned to go out an play with my students, to be silly, to through away (temporarily) my inflated sense of dignity, and to just open up and have fun. I can reenter the classroom and still manage it though.  I think I have said "before you delve, divulge" already in another context, but I think it is important here to. Before we ask them to play, open up, or take risks, we should too.  But the most important lesson of autotelic play is that I offer my students opportunities and experiences where there will be no subsequent test, no demand for further connection.  Just time to be in and enjoy the moment.
Negentropic is a word that relates to the physics of things usually, but in this case it reflects on the ability of an activity to unify our experiences. It is the opposite of "entropy" which is a process in thermodynamics where by energy and heat is lost, transferred, or not available for use. Through most of the day, we are engaged in all types of activities that collide with each other, concepts like "role strain" and "role conflict" emerge. We become fragmented - even our thoughts and desires are sometimes separated. Our goals, our family's goals, the goals at work, of our friends all swirl around and actually can drain us by depriving us a unified sense of being.  But things change when we play! Think about a time when you really play with friends, when you are having fun.  Your atmosphere changes, everything is brought down and into the activity. Everything you do is connected to the event, and you are focused and completely connected. Your thoughts, goals, actions are all in line and you receive constant feedback. You have power and efficacy, and you can adjust immediately inside the "flow" (a later lesson :) of the activity.  How far is this experience from the experience of our classrooms sometimes for some of our students?
Please read the article below about creativity, and think about the brief discussion above about play. I am very interested in your thoughts now, and we will be talking about these thing soon in the academy (less than a month!).


http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199607/the-creative-personality