Bonnie Cramond, Ph.D.The University of Georgia

1909 “Children, please take your slate home and show your parents what you learned. If they have questions, I’ll speak to them about it at services Sunday. Now, fifth year children, take out your science books and turn to page 141 so we can read about the eight planets.”

 1959 “Kids, please have your mother sign the graded papers and

send them back as soon as possible so you don’t get a demerit. Now, take out your science books and turn to page 141 so we can read about the nine planets.”

 2009 “OK, quick texting each other and put the iphones away.

Please remember to get your parent or guardian to log in to the class home page so that I know that someone has seen your posted assignments. Now, take out your science books and turn to page 141 so we can read about the eight planets.”

Time Travel• Many things have changed in the last 100

years…• Now, we have smaller class sizes, more

diversity, less order and respect for teachers, more technology

• Content reflects recent events and understandings, there is more technology, and the reading level of the textbooks is easier

Has Curriculum Changed?Then• Reading• Writing• Arithmetic• Gym• History and

Geography• Science

Now• Language Arts• Mathematics• P.E.• Social Studies• Science

Has it really changed? No, not in 100 years.

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

We are moving from industrial societies to knowledge societies

We must realize that it is time to move past the 3 Rs of Reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

In 1993, Doll Proposed the 4 Rs1. Richness of curriculum - deep & multi-layered

2. Relations - making of connections

3. Rigor - high standards

4. Recursion - reflective interaction with the environment, others, culture, and with one’s own knowledge

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

5th R: Reverse the Role of the Learner

• Passive---> Active• Consumer---> Producer• Dependent--> Independent

A partnership between the American Psychological Association, Montgomery County Public Schools, and Vanderbilt University

The Other 3 Rs: • Reasoning

• focusing on effective problem solving particularly in regard to academic challenges.

• Resilience   • recognizing challenges as part of life, viewing obstacles

as challenges, and developing persistence.

• Responsibility   • Being accountable for one's own actions and inactions• Academic• Personal• Social http://www.apa.org/ed/cpse/threershome.html

In Great Britain…• The National Advisory Committee on Creative

and Cultural Education (1999) warned that the curriculum not only did not nurture creativity, it actually stymied it.

• Watch the Ken Robinson video on YouTube Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

In the U.S.• The groundbreaking 2006 report, Tough

Choices or Tough Times (National Center on Education and the Economy, 2006), advised a systematic change in the curriculum.

“Strong skills in English, mathematics, technology, and science, as well as literature, history, and the arts, will be essential for many; beyond this, candidates will have to be comfortable with ideas and abstractions, good at both analysis and synthesis, creative and innovative, self-disciplined and well organized, able to learn very quickly and work well as a member of a team and have the flexibility to adapt quickly to frequent changes in the labor market as the shifts in the economy become ever faster and more dramatic.” (p. 8, Executive Summary).

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

Richard Florida, Economist

The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (2002)

There is a new social class, the creative class, who generate new ideas, new technology, and new creative content that profoundly influence work and lifestyle issues.

The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent

(2005)

Nations are in competition to nurture and retain their most creative talent because they are linked to a nation’s prosperity.

Top Ten Countries for Creativity According to Prof. Florida’s Index*:

1. Sweden, 2. Japan, 3. Finland, 4. the US, 5. Switzerlan

d,

6.Denmark, 7. Iceland, 8. the

Netherlands, 9.Norway and 10.Germany

*Talent, technology, and tolerance

Another Measure of Creativity, Patents

Number of Nobel Prizes Awarded By Country--All Categories

Nobel Prizes Awarded by Country

19

203

29

12

0

0

13

1

16

11

88

4

1

2

8

Russia

U.S.

Sweden

Japan

Finland

Switzerland

Denmark

Iceland

Netherlands

Norway

Germany

China

Taiwan

Korea

Australia

PhysicsChemistryMedicineLiteraturePeaceEconomics

Other Indicators of Creative Energy:Creative Enclaves or Constellations

• Greek Mathematicians• Florence at the beginning of the 15th

century• Paris in the mid-to-late 18th century• The Royal Society• Tang Dynasty (constellation of poets) 7th C • Vienna at the end of the 19th century:• Harlem Renaissance/New York

Creative Enclaves-- gregclinton.com

Where are some Creative Enclaves Now?

• India--film industry• Silicon Valley, CA--technology• Milan, Paris, New York, Tokyo--fashion

How much of what you learned in school is no longer true? • There may have been only 48 states in the U.S. • Man had not walked on the moon; even

airplane trips were reserved for the wealthy, but travel was easy.

• Our food was not zapped, and our files were not zipped.

• The idea of a Black man or a woman running for president was unthinkable. (In 1960, the idea of a Catholic running for president was controversial.)

How much of what you learned in school is no longer true? (cont’d)

• YouTube, iPods, cell phones, Skype, Blue Tooth, email, eBay, and Facebook had no meaning.

• Amazon, chats, Second Life, and MySpace had different meanings.

• “Text” was not a verb.• People, not machines, got viruses.• Going to school in your pajamas was a

nightmare, not a fashion statement.

Hoffer, 1973 “In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned find themselves equipped to live only in a world that no longer exists”

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

Failure to Recognize That Creativity…

1…Can Be Expressed in Many Ways

• Association only with the Arts

Types of Creativity

• Inventive• addresses a worthwhile problem • novel and appropriate solution

• Expressive• Illustrates the creator’s emotions and

aesthetics• original and valuable

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

Inventive Creativity• Exhibited in

mathematics, science, and social arenas

• Recognizes and identifies problems that may or may not be apparent to others,

• When solved result in an improvement in the domain

B.Cramond, University of GeorgiaDean Kamen, Inventor

Dean Kamen• Inventor-multimillionaire

“inventrepreneur”• Didn’t graduate from

college• Holds more than 150 U.S.

and foreign patents, many of them for innovative medical devices

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

Segway

Mohandas Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

• May produce an intangible product--such as a social movement

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

Expressive Creativity

• The impetus for the arts

• Results not from the recognition of a problem,

• But from the need to communicate with others.

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Not real dichotomy inventive expressive

• Aesthetic experience in the realization of an elegant solution to a problem

• There are many problems to be solved in the completion any artistic expression

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

Root-Bernstein & Root-Bernstein, 1999• Interviewed scientists and artists at the

highest levels of accomplishment, many of whom were Nobel Prize winners, who noted the similarity in their work.

• French physician Armand Trousseau, “All science touches on art; all art has its scientific side. The worst scientist is he who is not an artist; the worst artist is he who is no scientist.” (p. 11).

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

2. Can Be Expressed at Different Levels: C or c

• Association only with the highest levels of creativity

• Maslow, “A good soup is more creative than a bad poem.”

3…is Needed to Solve World Problems

• Inventive• Novel solutions to unsolved problems • Early recognition & product creation• Market response

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

4…Maximizes Human Abilities“The intuitive mind is

the gift, the rational mind is the faithful servant. We have honored the servant and ignored the gift.”

Einstein

5…Provides the passion that leads to achievement

• "We are not born with unlimited choices... Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal that we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”Pressfield, S. (2002). The war of art: Break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles. New York: Warner Books.

Dean Kamen

Ben Carson

In some cases the very qualities that

cause creative individuals to have

problems are the same ones that may

facilitate their creative

accomplishments.

even when it is hard to do so.

9…is something that we all have, like intelligence

• When a person has no learned or practiced solution to a problem, some degree of creativity is required”

According to Torrance,

“When a person has no learned or practiced solution to a problem, some degree of creativity is required”

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

What Can We Do About It?• Cherish our most valuable resource

EducationMust recognize and develop• Inventive Creativity – to solve problems

• Expressive creativity – to help us understand and express our feeling about our changing world

B.Cramond, University of Georgia

Remember the Past• R. Buckminster

Fuller, writer, mathematician, architect, etc. recalled that during his childhood, at the turn of the century,

• only about 1% of the world was literate,

• fewer still thought of humanity in world terms

Look at the Present…• people tried to predict the future and could

not begin to conceive of automobiles, electrons, travel to the moon, or even air wars as reality.

Prepare for the Future!

• We, too, are poised on the brink of change in this new millennium

• Prediction is still true: successful adaptation to world change and enrichment of our world depend on creative endeavors.