Arts classrooms have long been a safe place for students to exhale their creative side amongst a school day that can often be very by the (text) book. The act of creating something is a personal one, not just on an emotional level but also on a brain-based level too. Original, authentic creations are cognitive thumb prints that speak of an individual’s creative process. To truly understand the creative process means unpacking the process of problem solving. One uses creativity in the process of problem solving to design the path that takes them from vision to fruition. For example, to conceptualize a piece of art or solve a math problem one must be creative with their prior knowledge of concepts, tools and methods. When one takes this perspective on creativity it sheds its artistic exclusivity and becomes applicable to a diverse range of environments. It becomes an approachable skill to apply to a wide range of professions, a tool in designing new solutions through the curation of existing problems.
In order for the creative process to thrive in K-12 education it needs to be supported by a learning environment that understands the importance of cognitive discomfort in forming healthy habits of mind. Promoting the creative process with the integration of the arts can nourish characteristics linked to personal and professional success. To pinpoint these traits, a team at the Harvard School of Education examined the regular processes and habits of mind of artists. They developed a framework called "8 Studio Habits of Mind" (also known as the Studio Thinking Project). The list includes the following traits:
- persistence
- the ability to connect ideas of person to community relevance (connected to service learning)
- observation
- reflection (inward and outward)
These habits of mind are the foundation for whole brain competencies such as resilience, evaluation and analysis. Further, when students become observers of art, the critical thinking skills of interpretation and communication are developed. Each of these are traits crucial for student autonomy and achievement.
When one takes the perspective that creativity is crucial to the problem solving process the case for arts integration becomes further justified. The lasting question becomes when do we start demanding a curriculum that acknowledges creativity’s worth in the development of the whole-brain child and push back against the hypocrisy of applauding students who construct, design and build creative solutions to the world’s problems while measuring their intellectual worth with impersonal, stagnant and bias assessments.
Brain Fact:
In the field of neuroscience, finding the specific areas of the brain engaged in creativity remain a challenge to researchers. Two areas believed to be part of creativity are the hippocampus and the hypothalamus (areas linked to emotion and memory). These images show creativity engaging three main networks across the hemispheres: the executive attention network, the imagination network, and the salience network.
No comments:
Post a Comment