Birth of a Salesman
Tweet
13 tools, 7 concepts, 1 goal. Creativity! Tried and true techniques from some of the most brilliant minds of our time. Read on to find out more!
Elevator Pitch
White Paper
“Everyone thinks. But not everyone thinks equally well”. That is how Robert and Michèle Root-Bernstein begin their book Sparks of Genius. As special education teachers, we work with students who may struggle with basic concepts, but they are still capable of thinking. Their thought processes are just different and sometimes slower than their same aged peers.
We all think in different ways. It is interesting to consider that famously intelligent people are not necessarily the most intelligent in the area that you would expect. Who knew that Albert Einstein struggled with math? However, these famously intelligent people have developed tools that have helped them to increase their intelligence. Perceiving, patterning, abstracting, embodied thinking, modeling, playing, and synthesizing are all crucial parts of creativity in learning and it is important that our students be taught to use these tools.
As Barbara McClintock and many others have experienced, it is possible to “know” something without being able to explain how it is known. It is all about feeling. We all have feelings, but in education we learn that “feeling” is not enough. We need evidence and we need it now. This is possibly why young children are able to be more creative. They do not need reason. As we grow and progress in school, reason is all that matters and everything else gets stamped out of us.
Thinking about observing brings to mind a favorite Yogi Berra quote, “You can observe a lot by watching.” Mr. Berra was certainly right in the traditional sense and most simplistic form of observation. However, observation is so much more than seeing things with your eyes. Robert and Michèle Root-Bernstein point out that observation “goes well beyond the visual” (36). It is all about perception and how we perceive the things that we are observing.
It is true what they say. If you are deprived of one sense, the other senses are then heightened. Many museums have exhibits where only one sense may be used, such as touch or smell, to obtain information about an unknown object. This is an activity that could be utilized with students as they are exploring nouns and adjectives. Students will be given as unknown object, a thing, and have to use other senses than sight to describe it using adjectives. Another activity would be to give the students the name of a person, place, or thing and they have to describe how that noun would smell, feel, taste, sound and look like without actually having the physical noun in their presence. The sense of smell and taste would certainly have to tap in to their creativity.
Observing and imaging are both skills that are not inherent. These skills take practice to master and as teachers, we have a responsibility to assist our students with mastering these skills. As we can observe objects with our different senses, we can also imagine how certain objects would line up with those senses. Most imaging is “polysensual” (59) and that means we can usually imagine different items or feelings using multiple methods whether they are aural, kinesthetic, or visual. It is important for students to understand that there is not one right way to imagine something.
During math lessons, students are often asked to recognize patterns to figure out which number would come next in a given number sequence. Math is a very obvious place to find patterns. It is also possible to draw attention to the rhyming patterns when reading a story or poem. Sometimes these patterns are obvious, other times there is more thinking involved to discern the necessary pattern. “Recognizing patterns sometimes requires a certain amount of tolerance for dawdling and play” is an important awareness pointed out by Robert and Michèle Root-Bernstein (114). It is sometimes difficult as teachers to allow students extra time for play and discovery when there is so much material to cover. However, it is important to allow these explorations for patterns to take place even if it means a lesson uses more time than originally intended.
Teaching students to not only see things for what they are, but for what they might be is a useful tool. Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein also emphasize this concept, “Only when we can see things for what they might be and not just for what they are can we begin to use them in novel ways” (156). Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein encourage us to “don’t just look- think!... See with your mind, not your eyes!” (73). However, “abstractions are so common in our society that we rarely pay attention to them” (Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein, 70). Often we never learn how to look beyond the obvious. Encouraging our students to not see things for what they are, but for what they could be is the essence of invention and could be why inventors are such successful thinkers.
Empathizing is one of the most important tools that we have as teachers. Students with severe behavioral difficulties need assistance to try understanding why they feel the need to be violent. “The key to empathizing is learning to perceive the world through someone else’s mind and body” (Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein, 186). The easiest way to make any impact on our students is to attempt to gain a level of understanding as to where they are coming from.
Our students should also practice empathizing. They so often have the mindset that the world revolves around them that they do not see how their actions impact others. Frequently role playing situations that have happened in our classrooms can help students to gain a deeper understanding of how the situation affected all parties involved. It not only helps us to understand our students, but role playing helps our students to better understand themselves and their classmates.
Root-Bernstein and Root Bernstein state, “In almost all cases, the point of a model is to make accessible something that is difficult to experience easily” (229). For most special education students, learning is something that is difficult to experience easily. We always have to model for them how to learn a concept. It is never easy enough to tell them what to do, we have to show them. We have to show them how to learn a mathematical concept or create a sentence using proper English. Our days should be filled with modeling. Modeling helps us to gain mastery of concepts (Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein, 240).
Modeling is also a great assessment tool. Our students can show me their understanding of a concept without a traditional, and often more confusing, paper and pencil test. Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein agree that “out of modeling come understanding and control” (243). We can ask our students to demonstrate their understanding of a story by creating a diorama of a certain scene or glean their understanding of an animal cell by observing their model created out of household items. Students enjoy it when their learning is hands-on, so we all win when students are asked to model.
Out of modeling often comes playing. One of the types of play that children often engage in is game playing (Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein, 249). We all tend to make up our own rules as we play a game especially as children. Adults are always reading directions, but children often change the rules to a game or make them up as they go. This serves to foster their creativity and transforms one game into something completely different.
Playing and transforming are two creative tools that are really fostered in childhood, but tend to disappear as we grow. As adults, we do not use these tools as much. However, as we become parents, these tools may be revisited. We should not wait until we are faced with raising a child to tap back into favorite aspects from our own childhoods.
Playing with words is a good educational practice and gets students to think about the different forms a word can take. Think about a verb, for example, and play around with the word ending to change the tense of the word. This could be made into a race by dividing the class into teams and placing a word on the board for the students to race to make it into a past or future tense. A “slap game” could also be created where the students are given fly swatters and have to smack the appropriate word posted on the whiteboard. The School House Rock segments could be redone to serve the needs of any classroom. Making rap songs and dances about verbs is also something that catches the attention of students. Ron Clark is an educator who also used educational raps in his classroom and is a fantastic example of a teacher using play.
When all of these tools are combined, an inevitable synthesis of knowledge occurs. Associational synesthesia occurs in about half of all young children and from 5 to 15 percent of the adult population. The huge difference between the number of synesthetic children and adults suggests that the typical educational experience focuses on unisensory experiences and expression which stifles an early and natural association of perceptions (Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein, 301).
Combining these seven cognitive tools in an effort to assist our students in becoming more creative thinkers will only serve to enrich their educational experience. We have a duty to give them the best education that we can and learning to think is possibly the greatest gift that we can provide. If our students leave our classrooms as more competent thinkers then we have done our jobs.
We all think in different ways. It is interesting to consider that famously intelligent people are not necessarily the most intelligent in the area that you would expect. Who knew that Albert Einstein struggled with math? However, these famously intelligent people have developed tools that have helped them to increase their intelligence. Perceiving, patterning, abstracting, embodied thinking, modeling, playing, and synthesizing are all crucial parts of creativity in learning and it is important that our students be taught to use these tools.
As Barbara McClintock and many others have experienced, it is possible to “know” something without being able to explain how it is known. It is all about feeling. We all have feelings, but in education we learn that “feeling” is not enough. We need evidence and we need it now. This is possibly why young children are able to be more creative. They do not need reason. As we grow and progress in school, reason is all that matters and everything else gets stamped out of us.
Thinking about observing brings to mind a favorite Yogi Berra quote, “You can observe a lot by watching.” Mr. Berra was certainly right in the traditional sense and most simplistic form of observation. However, observation is so much more than seeing things with your eyes. Robert and Michèle Root-Bernstein point out that observation “goes well beyond the visual” (36). It is all about perception and how we perceive the things that we are observing.
It is true what they say. If you are deprived of one sense, the other senses are then heightened. Many museums have exhibits where only one sense may be used, such as touch or smell, to obtain information about an unknown object. This is an activity that could be utilized with students as they are exploring nouns and adjectives. Students will be given as unknown object, a thing, and have to use other senses than sight to describe it using adjectives. Another activity would be to give the students the name of a person, place, or thing and they have to describe how that noun would smell, feel, taste, sound and look like without actually having the physical noun in their presence. The sense of smell and taste would certainly have to tap in to their creativity.
Observing and imaging are both skills that are not inherent. These skills take practice to master and as teachers, we have a responsibility to assist our students with mastering these skills. As we can observe objects with our different senses, we can also imagine how certain objects would line up with those senses. Most imaging is “polysensual” (59) and that means we can usually imagine different items or feelings using multiple methods whether they are aural, kinesthetic, or visual. It is important for students to understand that there is not one right way to imagine something.
During math lessons, students are often asked to recognize patterns to figure out which number would come next in a given number sequence. Math is a very obvious place to find patterns. It is also possible to draw attention to the rhyming patterns when reading a story or poem. Sometimes these patterns are obvious, other times there is more thinking involved to discern the necessary pattern. “Recognizing patterns sometimes requires a certain amount of tolerance for dawdling and play” is an important awareness pointed out by Robert and Michèle Root-Bernstein (114). It is sometimes difficult as teachers to allow students extra time for play and discovery when there is so much material to cover. However, it is important to allow these explorations for patterns to take place even if it means a lesson uses more time than originally intended.
Teaching students to not only see things for what they are, but for what they might be is a useful tool. Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein also emphasize this concept, “Only when we can see things for what they might be and not just for what they are can we begin to use them in novel ways” (156). Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein encourage us to “don’t just look- think!... See with your mind, not your eyes!” (73). However, “abstractions are so common in our society that we rarely pay attention to them” (Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein, 70). Often we never learn how to look beyond the obvious. Encouraging our students to not see things for what they are, but for what they could be is the essence of invention and could be why inventors are such successful thinkers.
Empathizing is one of the most important tools that we have as teachers. Students with severe behavioral difficulties need assistance to try understanding why they feel the need to be violent. “The key to empathizing is learning to perceive the world through someone else’s mind and body” (Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein, 186). The easiest way to make any impact on our students is to attempt to gain a level of understanding as to where they are coming from.
Our students should also practice empathizing. They so often have the mindset that the world revolves around them that they do not see how their actions impact others. Frequently role playing situations that have happened in our classrooms can help students to gain a deeper understanding of how the situation affected all parties involved. It not only helps us to understand our students, but role playing helps our students to better understand themselves and their classmates.
Root-Bernstein and Root Bernstein state, “In almost all cases, the point of a model is to make accessible something that is difficult to experience easily” (229). For most special education students, learning is something that is difficult to experience easily. We always have to model for them how to learn a concept. It is never easy enough to tell them what to do, we have to show them. We have to show them how to learn a mathematical concept or create a sentence using proper English. Our days should be filled with modeling. Modeling helps us to gain mastery of concepts (Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein, 240).
Modeling is also a great assessment tool. Our students can show me their understanding of a concept without a traditional, and often more confusing, paper and pencil test. Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein agree that “out of modeling come understanding and control” (243). We can ask our students to demonstrate their understanding of a story by creating a diorama of a certain scene or glean their understanding of an animal cell by observing their model created out of household items. Students enjoy it when their learning is hands-on, so we all win when students are asked to model.
Out of modeling often comes playing. One of the types of play that children often engage in is game playing (Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein, 249). We all tend to make up our own rules as we play a game especially as children. Adults are always reading directions, but children often change the rules to a game or make them up as they go. This serves to foster their creativity and transforms one game into something completely different.
Playing and transforming are two creative tools that are really fostered in childhood, but tend to disappear as we grow. As adults, we do not use these tools as much. However, as we become parents, these tools may be revisited. We should not wait until we are faced with raising a child to tap back into favorite aspects from our own childhoods.
Playing with words is a good educational practice and gets students to think about the different forms a word can take. Think about a verb, for example, and play around with the word ending to change the tense of the word. This could be made into a race by dividing the class into teams and placing a word on the board for the students to race to make it into a past or future tense. A “slap game” could also be created where the students are given fly swatters and have to smack the appropriate word posted on the whiteboard. The School House Rock segments could be redone to serve the needs of any classroom. Making rap songs and dances about verbs is also something that catches the attention of students. Ron Clark is an educator who also used educational raps in his classroom and is a fantastic example of a teacher using play.
When all of these tools are combined, an inevitable synthesis of knowledge occurs. Associational synesthesia occurs in about half of all young children and from 5 to 15 percent of the adult population. The huge difference between the number of synesthetic children and adults suggests that the typical educational experience focuses on unisensory experiences and expression which stifles an early and natural association of perceptions (Root-Bernstein and Root-Bernstein, 301).
Combining these seven cognitive tools in an effort to assist our students in becoming more creative thinkers will only serve to enrich their educational experience. We have a duty to give them the best education that we can and learning to think is possibly the greatest gift that we can provide. If our students leave our classrooms as more competent thinkers then we have done our jobs.