12/11/04creativity, fourth class1 creativity fourth class, december 11

12/11/04 Creativity, Fourth Class 1

Creativity

Fourth Class, December 11

http://www.is.wayne.edu/drbowen/crtvyf04


Agenda(Please check your name off on the list)• Finishing up• Einstein and Relativity• Comparing Csikszentmihalyi and Gardner• Gardner’s conclusions in Creating Minds• TS Eliot• Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET)• Importance of Creativity• Updates on Gardner’s seven• Personal conclusions

- may be skipped


Finishing up (end is 12/15)If you are not going to finish by the end of the semester, your options are:• Incomplete (I – must have substantial work in)• Withdrawal (W – complete official form)• Regular grade (D or E)• Unofficial withdrawal(X)

It is important to make the best choice for your situation - see a counselor and let me know.


Creating Minds

Einstein and Relativity


Creating MindsSpecial contributions (DB):

• Einstein:

Special Relativity. (Speed of light = 1 ft per nanosecond)


Creating MindsSpecial contributions (DB):• Einstein:

° At speeds much less than the speed of light (ordinary speeds), we see the auto as moving the 90 feet that the railroad car moved, plus the 20 feet that the auto moved on top of the railroad car, or 110 feet. The distances and speeds add.

° At speeds near the speed of light, we see something else.


Creating MindsSpecial contributions (DB):• Einstein:

° What happens if we do not see the car moving 110 ft or 110% of the speed of light?

° We see the railroad car and the car as shorter; car moves 6.6 feet instead of 20, we see it moving moving 96.6 feet, at 96.6% of the speed of light, instead of 110%

° People on railroad car don’t see that as shorter, though. They see us as “thinner.”



• Einstein:° I learned about this (Special Relativity) about

55 years later, and my jaw dropped (“He can’t do that!”)


Creating Minds

• Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, Gandhi. Not one nice person.

• Compare these seven with Csikszentmihalyi’s 91, who were so happy that the author apologized (Creativity, Pg 16 ff)

• Can being too creative mean pulling away from the field, losing human contact? The Faustian Bargain.


Creating Minds• Another difference – Gardner’s group,

unlike Csikszentmihalyi’s all had apparently comfortable childhoods.

• Possible conclusion: a difficult childhood can motivate you but not support you in a positive way.


Creating Mindsapplying Gardner’s conclusions

• People are creative within one domain, must be accepted by a culture (focus). (The seven worked in two of Gardner’s intelligences – this is more than most people.)

• Regular creative activity – ten-year rule for major breakthroughs (sustained focus)

• Self-promotion; effort at presenting themselves as creative (raising the bar)


Creating Mindsapplying Gardner’s conclusions

• Faustian bargain (commitment)

• Personal and professional support at the time of breakthrough (risk)

• Importance of domain in childhood (time)



• Eliot: loss of moral certainty, questioning of authority° From The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock:

“Let us go then, you and IWhen the evening is spread out against the skyLike a patient etherized upon a table.”



• Eliot:° from The Waste Land

“I think we are in a rat’s alleyWhere the dead men lost their bones.”

° from The Hollow Men“This is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper.”



• Eliot:° from Little Gidding, Pt 5, in the Four Quartets

(retelling of Homer’s Odyssey?)“We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd to know the place for the first time.”Eliot being positive?????



• Eliot:° Other poetry speaks of the moral bankruptcy of

authorities – they are no better that we are.° I think this led to our current mixing of public

and private lives. They used to be separate, but now are mixed. Example follows


Mixing public and private lives

• Duke of Windsor resigned as King of England in 1936 to marry American commoner Wallis Simpson. The British press and royalty kept this affair silent for eighteen months.

• Compare this with how the press and the public handled President Clinton’s dalliance with Monica Lewinsky.


Student Evaluation of TeachingCourse: ISP 5660

Instructor: David Bowen

3 credits:• Section 001• Call Number 16905

° Dawn Chinn° Erika Martin° Sherlene McDonald° Carmelita Williams° Latisha Williams

4 credits:• Section 002• Call Number 16906

° Deborah Dorsey° Ebani Holbrook-Lowery° David Lazarus° Jennifer Levine° Shirley Miller° Kay Russell° Kelly Schilk° Mary Smith° Keesa Tippett° Sharon Whitty


Importance of Creativity

• Innovation: change in material culture, example is technology.

• Creativity: change in the symbolic culture, example is science.

• Prior to 20th century, technology and science developed independently

• After second half of 20th century, science started driving technology.



• Examples of science driving technology (all were theoretically predicted at least ten years earlier:° Laser° Nuclear chain reaction° Transistor° Electronic chip° Computer



• Now our economy increasingly values theoretical knowledge and intellectual content° Design products on computer first° Importance of copyright° Intellectual property

• Creativity is replacing innovation as the key driver of social progress


Importance of Creativity“9/11 Bill”

• Before 9/11, not a functioning intelligence field

• Poor communications from lower levels and between agencies

• Many early clues were available before 9/11

• Czar could fix this

• Creativity in imagining attacks was lacking

• “Who could imagine this?”

• Previous plots known• Czar could enforce

orthodoxy, inhibit creativity

PRO CON


Updates on Gardner’s Seven• General

° Gardner’s seven were among the founders of “modernism.”

° “Postmodernism” followed – an extreme denial of universals, progress and significance. Everything is power of one group over another. (Michel Foucault, for example)

° Postmodernism seems to have waned recently, leading to new interest in Modernism and Gardner’s seven as part of that.


Updates on Gardner’s Seven

• Freud° After being abandoned, Freudian therapy

(finding childhood experiences) is now recognized as a mode of treatment that works for some people.

° The unconscious is still a lively concept – is it simple and sterile (perception) or dark and powerful (conflict and repression)?



• Einstein° Special Relativity (1904) is routine. I was using

it on a daily basis within five years after it dropped my jaw as an undergraduate

° General Relativity (1914) is still controversial, still at the heart of our understanding of the Universe.



• Graham° Much of modern dance still derives from her

(Pina Bausch, Twyla Tharp, etc.)° Control over her dances was settled in the

courts two years ago – her family or her dance troupe? The dance troupe won, for a living legacy.

° Primitive themes, other cultures



• Picasso° Still continues as controversial.° Large artworks – installations like Guernica

more common° Some of his work was playful (Femme) - that

continues among artists of all types° Primitive themes, other cultures



• Stravinsky° Importance of rhythm° Many works still controversial° Raw emotion instead of rationality° Primitive themes, other cultures


Special contributions (DB):

• Gandhi: Merging of protest and publicity using non-violence to apply moral pressure to bring down a repressive regime. (We now tend to think that the protesters are right.)




• Gandhi° In many ways the closest to failure in Creating

Minds. He believed his methods would have failed if applied to the Nazis, for example. Moral high ground No response to provocation Aggressively confronting the government to show it

as oppressive Creating dramatic events for the media (even though

Gandhi didn’t realize he was doing this)


Updates on Gardner’s Seven• Gandhi

° Martin Luther King and the US civil rights movement.

° But extended in new directions, is now often applied to repressive regimes

° Repressive occupation by a foreign country Local population withholds cooperation Must be a loose association, else leaders taken out Occupation cannot operate Poland, Bosnia


Updates on Gardner’s Seven• Gandhi

° Repressive, unpopular national government Mass demonstrations, tie up normal operations Will be accused of criminality, forceful overthrow,

terrorism, so be happy, peaceful Ukraine

° Modern applications involve a trained core, good logistics, understanding of and even infiltration of the media (New York Times story)



• Gandhi° Rather than being a failure, Gandhi has in many

ways generated the most continuing changes


Personal Conclusions

• Me° Personal – improve quality of life

Flow – live in the moment Creativity – find what you love

° Parents° Administrators

• Anyone?


Creativity

• Questions, comments?

• Done!

12/11/04creativity, fourth class1 creativity fourth class, december 11

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