Matthew Worwood:
Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood:
This is the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast.

Cyndi Burnett:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the field of education.

Matthew Worwood:
We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity.

Cyndi Burnett:
All with a goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

Matthew Worwood:
So let’s begin. Hello and welcome to our final debrief episode of season 10 of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. And in fact, I shouldn’t say it’s our final debrief because we do have one more different type of debrief next week where we bring on our emerging scholar, Jimmy Wilson, who talks about what he got from all of season 10, reflecting on all of our episodes. But this final debrief is. Is just for our final three episodes where Cindy and I take the lead. And Cindy, why don’t you tell us who we interviewed as part of our final three episodes of the podcast.

Cyndi Burnett:
So this has to be. I know I say this almost every time, but this has to be my favorite three as a grouping. So first we had Billy Allman, who is an astrobio futurist, and he talked about biomimicry and creativity, followed by Dr. Leo Bird, who works at the MIT Media Lab, which I also got to visit before the interview. And finally, we had the legendary Dr. Teresa Amabile, who did a double espresso with us on her journey in her own research in creativity, motivation and childhood creativity. So those were our three big guests.

Matthew Worwood:
They were. I mean, there were three. Well, I think why I like them because before we get into debriefing them, just to build on what you said, it’s difficult to compare all of the amazing conversations that we’ve had and incredible guests that we’ve had on the show because, of course, they all bring different things. But I agree with you. Kind of three really prominent, interesting topics with so much experience. It really did make for a great end to season 10. So I’m with you, Cindy. Totally agree.

Cyndi Burnett:
So, Matt, what’s your first key takeaway?

Matthew Worwood:
Well, I’m going to go with Billy Almond, who was talking about biomimicry, and shout out to some of my colleagues at advance skills 21, particularly Kerry McFarland, because she was the first person to retell me, teach me a little bit about biomimicry and how we can sometimes integrate the concept of biomimicry into project based learning environments at the school. So I’ve kind of done some of this work at the high school level. But I’m sure everyone knows biomimicry is this basic concept that you’re looking towards nature to help solve your problems, to be inspired. And I’m going to say that when Billy Alleman, he was kind of taking us through a story, a vignette, an example of how we might observe and study the scorpion and the scorpion strike to try and solve a problem in, in the world. And he’s talking about this thing where he says, well, the scorpion has this quick strike because they’ve only get this one quick strike. And you might think about that, right, like the need to just be very kind of like wait for that single moment because you’ve only got one strike to which you could take. And thinking about how you might apply that to different situations, I suddenly found myself thinking about that concept. I was, I was saying, well, as he was taking me through the scorpion and thinking about all the different attributes of the scorpion and he starts speaking about this quick strike and how the scorpion stays incredibly still and comes in with this incredible blow, delivering that, that venom, you know, making sure that that is, you know, has the optimal impact.

Matthew Worwood:
I suddenly said to myself, wow, what, how might we apply that in the classroom? That exact concept in the classroom. And I was thinking about during the academic year, if we imagine that we’re a scorpion and we’ve got that one strike that we could suddenly make in that classroom to bestow knowledge, to engage, you know, curiosity, to suddenly ask that amazing question that we think is going to go, to go in. So we have to wait just like that scorpion, very still and then that optimum moment comes along about we strike. And even though we’re funny, I found myself thinking a little bit about that. I genuinely found myself like the need as educators sometimes to have our, what’s it called, our scorpion tower in our background in our back pocket, ready to strike when we see the moment. And obviously we’re not looking to, what’s the word? Like you don’t inject anyone with venom. We’re looking to inject people with learning, with creativity, with inspiration. But like we should have a few different stingers in, in our back pockets.

Matthew Worwood:
And that was my takeaway. Biomimicry is great, it’s wonderful. But I, all of our listeners, as you go over the summer and you’re looking around, I’m thinking, let’s all have a go at practicing some biomimicry, think about some problems in our classroom environment and then keep those problems with us. And then as we interact with nature, let’s ask ourselves, how might we be inspired by nature, Inspired by an insect or inspired by an animal that we visit during the zoo or when we’re walking on a farm. And think about how might we apply an attribute from that animal, from that plant in our classroom environment during the next academic year? I got a little bit passionate there. I’m sorry.

Cyndi Burnett:
No, Matt, I love the passion and I think I would have said the same thing, but probably not as well as you just did. So I love the pass that you brought to it. I think my only build is that, you know, being in the creative field, being in creative problem solving, I think that looking at nature is underutilized. And I don’t think it’s something that’s really on teachers radars in terms of how might we, you know, bring nature into the classroom, not even having to go on a field trip. And I remember Billy Ullman saying, that is, you don’t even have to take them on a field trip. Bring nature into the classroom and think about how that nature and the systems that are natural can inform our ideas, our problem solving abilities, and just our lives. And I don’t think we do that enough in education. And I think as we shift more into this world of generative AI, I think it’s going to become increasingly more important to bring in the natural world into the classroom.

Matthew Worwood:
I love it. And I told the funny story, but what you’re reminding me is I was in, I don’t know what it would be the equivalent, maybe fifth, sixth grade. And we had a nature reserve. You know, it was, it was small. It was probably about the size of, of, you know, someone’s backyard. It wasn’t very big, but it had a pond in it. And I remember when the frogs were spawning, we would, we would go out and look at the frog spawn and we were just going there for maybe 20, 30 minutes. But I loved it.

Matthew Worwood:
I mean, I had allergies, I was sneezing all that all of the time. And I was really worried about getting stung by the stinging nettles. But that was just, that was something that primary schools in England had. And I have no doubt that that was the same for many schools in the US as well. These kind of like small nature reserves or whether or not it’s a, it’s a flower bed. And it does, it does kind of like get you thinking, why aren’t we doing more of that. And it’s weird you brought up AI because then you’re making me think more about the screens. And one of the big things about screen time is that, you know, it’s what is it taking away.

Matthew Worwood:
And while I recognize that there is value of technology and different applications that can assist us in learning, let’s not be looking at a picture of a bug on a screen. Let’s have it bring the bugs into the classroom or go outside and look out under some rocks. And my gut feeling is that’s why I mentioned the nature reserve. If you don’t have an area of nature in your school, I don’t think it’s going to be that difficult to put one together, particularly when it comes to drawing bugs, because those things seem to get everywhere. You can always get bugs somewhere. Yes. Do you want to bring more creative and critical thinking into your school? Look no further than our podcast sponsor, Curiosity to Create.

Cyndi Burnett:
Curiosity to Create is a nonprofit organization dedicated to engaging professional development for school districts and empowering educators through online courses and personal coaching.

Matthew Worwood:
And if you’re craving a community of creative educators who love new ideas, don’t miss out on their creative thinking network. Get access to monthly webinars, creative lesson plans, and a supportive community, all focused on fostering creativity in the classroom.

Cyndi Burnett:
To learn more, check out curiositytocreate.org or check out the links in the show notes for this episode.

Matthew Worwood:
So, Cindy, tell us what was your takeaway from either Leo Bird or Teresa and Marbly?

Cyndi Burnett:
So I’m going to start with Leo, but I think my conversation about Leo will lead into the conversation we had with Teresa. So I don’t know if you remember, Matt, but Leo talked about this framework they use on creative learning, and it was the 4Ps framework. And I’m sure we actually did an episode on the 4PS model designed by Mel Rhodes, which is person, process, product and press. But this creative learning model, which was originally designed and developed by Mitch Resnick out of the MIT Lab, but Leo referenced it is here’s Passion Project and Play. And he said when he went to do work in Brazil, he realized, and the group realized that purpose was missing. And I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose and listening to Teresa Mobley’s episodes as well, around intrinsic motivation and thinking a lot about purpose for our students. Because here’s what I’m seeing in general. I’m seeing a lot of parents who are talking that I’m talking to.

Cyndi Burnett:
These are friends of my children’s parents, also parents that I work with in the schools. And what I’m finding is students are lacking a purpose, a strong foundational purpose. Now, I’m from Gen X. I know you’re a millennial. And I think for myself, if I look back at myself at, you know, 16, 17, I had a very strong purpose at that age. I really wanted to be a musical theater actress. It was a driving force. I really, I had a very strong purpose and passion for it and I was very intrinsically motivated.

Cyndi Burnett:
Even though I knew it was sort of a. It was a far out dream back then. People thought I was crazy for wanting to do this. But what I’m finding now is there’s just this lack of that passion. And it could just be the people that I associate with. So maybe in my network of friends and the educators that I work with, maybe it’s working with them. So I’m really curious to hear this from you. But when it comes to that purpose, I feel as if many of the students and when I look at, particularly at the middle high school students, are lacking that passion and purpose that maybe we had in our generations.

Cyndi Burnett:
And I wonder if that has to do with the pandemic and what the pandemic did, coupled with maybe how much we spend on our screens, our students. And I really would like to dig deep, deep into the research. It makes me really curious about the research around this. So maybe we go off mat and find the research around this. But did the pandemic sort of squelch that passion and purpose? And did we as parents who. And I can tell you for myself, we always said we would never get a dog. And there we were during the pandemic and we got a dog because my daughter was really feeling like she needed companionship beyond our little family. And I wonder how much we try to make things easier for our kids so, you know, accommodating them.

Cyndi Burnett:
So accommodation along with the pandemic, accommodation during the pandemic and maybe even after. And then screen time is that squelching purpose and passion and therefore intrinsic motivation. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.

Matthew Worwood:
Well, I mean, first of all, I think this is a fantastic topic that you’ve brought up and it’s a topic that has excited me. And so I’m actually starting to feel quite passionate about this mission that I think you’re setting. Not just you and I on, but I think one, if you’ve already already got a thought on this, perhaps you can reach out to Cindy and I and share your thoughts or go on your own journey. I think my first initial thinking is that you’re. You’re clearly making a connection between purpose and passion. The way you were speaking there, you were kind of using the two words interchangeably, and that got me curious a little bit. Can’t answer it. But that relationship between passion and purpose, if you.

Matthew Worwood:
If you feel you’ve got a purpose to something, does that ignite passion? And likewise, if you can find passion in your purpose, maybe that’s a wonderful combination as well. I know when Leo was talking initially about those four P’s, it’s about, you know, when you’re working with the technology, it’s finding, you know, the passion, how the technology or what you’re doing within the learning experience relates to you. I agree with you. You know, I remember my mum always used to say to me when I was young, I’m so. I’m so passionate for acting. And what’s. What’s interesting is that even when I shifted away from acting, I never lost that passion. And Michael Mino, who, as you know, was one of my first mentors when I came to the United States, he’s been a guest on the show.

Matthew Worwood:
I remember he talking about passion. And I remember he was feeling a little bit kind of like, underwhelmed at the moment with some of the challenges that we were facing with education. And he was talking about the same thing that you were talking about. So this was before the pandemic that he was. I was kind of like, throwing everything at him. But what. I do this and I do this. And he kept saying, but you’re passionate, you have passion.

Matthew Worwood:
And I remember I couldn’t answer that question because I was like, he’s right. I do have passion. And I know you and I have said that sometimes we get off from our interviews and we’re like, that was an incredible conversation. And then we’ll say they were passionate. So this idea of passion, I think I would be curious to learn a little bit more from where does it come from, its relationship to purpose, and whether or not it actually perhaps is. Or at least we feel we’re observing a decrease in it. And I think I’m gonna. I think I’m gonna stop there.

Matthew Worwood:
I don’t. I don’t want to kind of, like, speculate beyond that, but I think you’ve. You’ve opened up a really good conversation, and maybe there’s an opportunity for us to come back to this in another.

Cyndi Burnett:
Another. And I will also say, Matt, maybe we could have a conversation in our LinkedIn group, because for those of you who are listening or watching. We do have a LinkedIn group, a closed LinkedIn group, if you’d like to join it. And maybe we can have that conversation because we’d love to hear your thoughts. Is this generation less passionate and do they lack in purpose?

Matthew Worwood:
Cindy, is it really bad because you and I said to you we’re going to be posting on LinkedIn and you asked me what my posting about. I said, I don’t know yet. Aim to post it afterwards. But I was thinking I could post on a passion project. I’m describing as something I have on a passion project. And I think that raises a really good question. What is the value of passion projects in adult life? Are they always connected to work? And is there opportunities for students to have passion projects? Because I suppose for you, dancing was your passion project, and for me, acting was my passion project. Before that it was soccer.

Matthew Worwood:
And maybe we’re struggling to have passion projects, but. But likewise, Cindy, maybe it’s a case of we’re struggling to make connections between our passions. So, you know, when I’m in the classroom, I know it sounds weird, and even with this show, if you think about it, like, think about how often we make references to our passion of dancing, theater, acting, it’s still there. We’re still making these connections. And so maybe there’s also a lack of connections being made within our current student population. They’re not seeing the relationship and how everything ties together.

Cyndi Burnett:
That’s really interesting, Matt. It also reminds me that this podcast, I think, for both of us, is a passion project because we have a similar purpose in helping educators bring creativity into the classroom. So I think our passions and purpose have remained consistent in terms of our energy toward projects, even though they might have changed.

Matthew Worwood:
Do you know what? Be really nice if the people listening right now, it might be nice for you to go and ask your colleagues, what are you passionate about? And do you have a sense of purpose when you go into the classroom? And likewise, Wouldn’t it be interesting to ask the students, what’s your purpose? Why are you here? And likewise, can you tell me a little bit about what passion means to you at this age? I feel like it’d be a fascinating conversation to have with our students as well.

Cyndi Burnett:
Even just asking the question, like, what matters to you when you look around the world? What are the things that you want to problem solve? Because those are the conversations I think can lead us to the passion and purpose.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah, I feel like we could keep talking about this because now you’re making me think overbearing parents, that concept. If we are always answering every question and telling our students what they should be doing and leading them to their interests, they actually might not have an opportunity to identify the things that they’re passionate about. In essence, they’re doing the things that the parents are passionate about. That’s a scary thought.

Cyndi Burnett:
Well, and not only that, and we should probably wrap this part of the conversation up, because I think you and I could go on and on about it. But are we trying to fill the gaps for our students and our children? Because they might not know what it is yet, so. Oh, what about this? What about that? Why don’t you try this? You know what I mean? Instead of saying it’s okay to not know yet, but I want you to give yourself the time and space to really think about it.

Matthew Worwood:
Wow, Cindy, big smile on my face. Because, you know, I’m also passionate about learning in these conversations. So thank you for setting us up on that. Listen, let’s keep with the flow. I don’t want to build anymore on Leo, because I think that’s one wonderful. And I was going to talk a little bit about the 4/5ps as well. So let’s. Let’s segue straight into Teresa, Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that, because I think we’re gonna find there is a.

Matthew Worwood:
Dr. Remable was talking a little bit about, you know, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, which was, you know, obviously a big chunk of her work, as well as talking a little bit about the progress principle as well. So what was your takeaway from that conversation?

Cyndi Burnett:
I’m actually gonna go second on this one, and there’s a reason why. So I would like you to talk about Theresa Moble first.

Matthew Worwood:
Well, first of all, it was an honor to have her on the show. I mean, when we started this and we wrote that Dream guest, yes. Howard Gardner was there and Robert Sternberg was there, and there’s been some other people that we’ve had on the list as well, but Teresa and Marbella was certainly on that list as well. If I was to try and nail it down to one, because we did technically have a double espresso, I think it’s probably the progress principle, the small wins, which, as you know, is. Is been part of our show. It’s. It’s ref. I think it’s likely to be referenced in.

Matthew Worwood:
In the book that we’re currently writing, and hopefully we’ll. We’ll have out in the next nine. Nine months or so. But I think for me What I found is that Dr. Amarblay’s recent work around that progress principle, which is that, you know, when you, when you can identify those small wins or feel like you’ve had those small wins, then it can assist you with motivation and obviously moving forward and progressing in your creative endeavors. And I suddenly found myself a little bit trying to translate that into a classroom environment, because sometimes we don’t feel we can’t see any wins being made anywhere. And then I asked myself, is it a little bit to do with the perspective to which we’re taking? You know, are we just looking at the small wins from one single perspective, whether that’s meaning a learning objective, trying to get someone to sit on the, on the table or sit on the chair for longer than they should. And maybe if we just change our perspective in another way, we might realize that our actions were actually gaining some small wins that went unnoticed.

Matthew Worwood:
And so if we can widen our perspective when it comes to our impact in the classroom, what we’re bringing to that student and their growth beyond sometimes just the mastery of content, we might be in a better position to identify those small wins. And obviously I’m looking at it from a teacher perspective now, but therefore find ourselves more motivated to come in the next day and feel that sense of progress that we’re making sometimes when the semester is trying. But I think for me that the main takeaways, both from a student and teacher perspective, is how we can try and be more sensitive, mindful in identifying the progress that’s being made in the classroom and looking about how we can utilize that sense of progress to kind of spearhead our efforts, whether it’s the next day or next month or for the rest of the year. So that was my takeaway. I love that progress principle conversation.

Cyndi Burnett:
I love that, Matt. And again, you just articulated it beautifully. And I think that, you know, this episode will premiere at the end of the school year for teachers and for so many of them, they’ll be celebrating. Yes, I got this group of students to the next place, and that’s wonderful. But I do think stopping to celebrate those small wins and figuring out ways to assess, you know, those, those micro learning moments that Ron Bighetto talks about and saying this, this was a great insight. And they’ve come a lot. They’ve even come a small way, or they’ve taken one step and let’s celebrate those small wins. So I think the progress principle is something that I reference frequently, especially with educators, because we often lose sight of the smaller things because we’re focused on the bigger picture, but we do need to focus on both.

Cyndi Burnett:
So now my imabole takeaway is a bit different now, Matt, you know that I’m very close to a very big birthday and I’m not quite comfortable with this big birthday. And I think imable talking about retirement now I’m still, you know, a bit.

Matthew Worwood:
Away from thinking you’re quite a far away from that.

Cyndi Burnett:
I’m not quite that far. But you know, it’s something that I think about once, you know, once in a while and I think about, you know, how she talked about creativity and retirement, which wasn’t something that I was like, ooh, I can’t wait to talk with her. There’s so many things I couldn’t wait to talk with her about. And I wouldn’t say that was the one that I was most excited about, but the one that I left thinking about the most. Because what she talked about is we spend so much time, especially like on this podcast, obviously we’re focused on fueling creativity and education, but it goes beyond just, you know, Our K through 12 education or college education or teaching. It goes through our whole life. That creativity, when you have creativity in your life, even when you’re in retirement age, that it’s going to make you happier. And I don’t know that it was sort of like breathing fresh air because it’s not that I was worried that at some point when I retire I was going to stop being creative, but it made me feel like, yeah, I’m going to be creative.

Cyndi Burnett:
And because I’m going to be creative, I’m also going to be happier. And I think there’s a little, a lot of power in that. Especially for if you think about teachers who’ve been in their fields for decades and they think about leaving, it’s like, well, how can you find creativity? And it might not be creativity in the same way it looks like in your classroom, but creativity for you and how much that can impact your well being and your happiness in life as you continue on your little life, on your big life journey. I won’t say little. It’s your big life journey. And so that’s just something that I’ve been thinking a lot about since that episode is wonderful.

Matthew Worwood:
And I would say something that Dr. Sally Rees had also spoken to us about a few years ago because she had been involved in some work around, not necessarily retirement, but particularly the work of women and I think in the latter part of their careers. I think that this is something, I mean what, what I would say is I’ve got a colleague at UConn and he’s, you know, I don’t know his age. I wouldn’t, I’d be surprised if he is over 60. But I know we keep talking about this 30 over 30 principle and in fact, I feel like I’m drifting away. But the key point is, I think the connection is being made is that there’s opportunities for us continue to not just be creative, but also for us to continue to make contributions for as long as we want to make. And creativity is a big part of, of that. And so this 20 over 20 list, the 30 over 30 list, it, it should continue.

Matthew Worwood:
The 60 over 60 list, the 70 over 70 list, you know, like we, we live in this incredible world now, but we can continue to make contributions to our family, to our community. And I think in, in some ways what I’m hearing you say is that perhaps we’ll have a little bit more freedom to choose and a little bit more time. We certainly talk a lot about time on the show. A little bit more time and it probably sets us up for happiness if we can suddenly find ourselves doing things that we feel is special and bring meaning, purpose and passion to our lives, wherever we are in that life, life’s journey.

Cyndi Burnett:
What a great way to wrap it up, Matt.

Matthew Worwood:
All right, so as a reminder, we have another kind of informal debrief with our resident scholar Jimmy Wilson next week. He’s going to be kind of like just providing his takeaways of the show and connecting it research in his doctoral program. Then we’ve got a couple of special episodes coming up after Jimmy Wilson’s, so stay tuned for those before we transition into our summer program. We won’t talk too much about those summer program, but as a reminder, we, we do try and produce a different type of miniseries over the summer with super short episodes to try and just support some light professional learning during the summer months before we come back for the new academic year. But hey, that feels world too far away right now. So without further ado, we encourage you to Visit our website fuelingcreativitypodcast.com and reach out if you’ve got any questions or ideas on how we can either improve the show or guests that you think should be included in our next upcoming season. My name is Dr. Matthew Werwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett. You’ve been listening to the Fueling Creativity and Education podcast hosted by Matthew Warwood and Cindy Burnett. Our creative producer is Catherine Fu. And this episode was made possible thanks to our sponsor, curiosity to create.