So what does it really take to fuel creativity in education? Sometimes it starts with being deliberate about the opportunities we create, which is one of the things that we will be talking about in this episode and connecting it to being deliberate around teaching creativity within the science of reading. Now, other times it might also mean keeping open to ideas, particularly when teachers come with new suggestions for school leaders. This is another topic of today’s episode because today’s episode is a debrief where Cindy and I revisit our conversations with Victoria Abbott, Greg McClure, and Dan Moult. Very practice-orientated, and we’ll be connecting their insights to several of the 10 actions from our new book, The Future Creative:, which is available now from Amazon and other book-selling retailers.  Hello everyone. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood. And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett. This is the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the field of education. We’ll be talking with scholars, educators, and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and exploring new perspectives of creativity. All with the goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers, administrators, and emerging scholars with the information they need to infuse creativity into teaching and learning. So let’s begin Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast, and this is our second debrief of Season 13. We are now fully underway in fall 2026. The leaves are turning here in Connecticut. I’m sure the leaves are turning in Buffalo as well, right, Cindy? Oh, it’s spectacular here right now. Yes So why don’t you tell us who we’re debriefing? I won’t elaborate too much today So we have three episodes we are debriefing. And Matt, what I found really interesting about this set of episodes is they are all in schools. So we had the science of reading meets creativity with educator Greg McClure. Then we had making history matter with educator Valencia Abbott. And then we had, the high school principal, Dan Moult, talking about school leadership and creative problem-solving. So where do you wanna start? You’re first. Ooh, where do I wanna start? I think we’ll start with Greg McClure. Uh, I, I don’t know if you know, you know, I, I, uh… What was great with Greg’s episode is we recorded, I think, back in the summer, didn’t we? Yes encouraging us, you and I, to create that short video. It was the first time I did a short video immediately after the episode, which I don’t know if we, if we successfully got out or not to promote the episode, but I did. And in that short video, one of the things that I threw out there was how it connected to our action Be Deliberate, which is our first action of our 10 Actions for Fueling Creativity in Education. And this isn’t about promoting the book. I think it was wonderful to have a conversation about the science of reading, which you and I know with our work with schools recently, we can go into schools, there can be an interest around creativity, particularly in response maybe to generative AI, but at the same time, there seems to be a lot of work around the science of reading. there’s Greg McClure talking a little bit about the science reading, subtle changes to his practice in the classroom as a consequence of, this new framework, but he’s still actively being deliberate in how he’s weaving into his lessons. And to give you an example of, of not necessarily the takeaway, but, but, uh, something that I sort of thought was a pinnacle an example was this idea of talking about the characters in the book and then inviting the students to say, “Imagine if this character walked in right now. Who would they get on with the most and why?” Mm-hmm. really love that idea of engaging a little bit of divergent thinking. Obviously, you’re bringing in some critical thinking as well. So that was my, my takeaway. I don’t know if you’ve got anything to build on that or you wanna share your takeaway, but I, I loved that episode. Well, Matt, what I think is funny, and, and for those of you listening, you know that Matt and I don’t always agree on things. We don’t see things always the same way, which is a benefit to our partnership. But what I think is really funny is I wrote in my notes, “Be deliberate, explicitly naming creativity.” So the same exact thing that you did, because I really think that the one thing that he really brought home was that idea of saying, “This is creativity, and let’s think about it in a creative way.” Which is sort of a throwback to Adam Green, who we had at the start of season 13, who said, “You know, sometimes you just need to say, ‘Be creative. I want creative ideas.'” And in this way, it’s like, okay, that’s a really creative idea, or let’s think about this in a creative way. So I think it’s also connecting for me to that Adam Green episode we had I love that. And, and just to quickly build on that, you know, Ron Beghetto’s, uh, 20-2017 article around teaching for creativity, teaching about creativity, and, and being a creative teacher, three very distinct buckets. And I feel that within that, even though there’s young children, potentially reflecting back on that episode now, uh, Greg is doing a little bit of both. He’s teaching a little bit about what creativity is with these young kids, but then also teaching for creativity as well as he’s Yeah facilitating those responses to the literature Yes, and there’s another bucket I would say, which is teaching with creativity. So getting them to ask questions and see things in different perspectives really gets a throwback to sort of the weaving work that I’ve done and the Torrance incubation model. So all of those are interconnected Yeah, absolutely. why don’t you go on our, uh, second takeaway? You Okay, so let’s talk about Valencia. Yes. So what I loved about, there were so many things I loved about Valencia’s, uh, conversation, but what I loved in particular was the connection to community. Um, but, but what I wanna talk about today is how she didn’t see herself as creative. So you reached out to Valencia, you found her online, you reached out to her, and her first reaction was, “Why me?” And then as she started to dig deeper into what the work that we do around creative and education, she said, “Oh, now I understand, because everything that they’re talking about is the stuff I do in my classroom.” So it always goes back to this disconnect for me and why people don’t see creativity as valuable. When, when people don’t see creativity as valuable, and when teachers don’t see themselves as creative, is it that they just don’t see themself as artistic, and therefore their restrictions around creativity are around art and creativity? You know, that art is creativity. Or is it something else? Are we not doing a good enough job in getting the word out to teachers of good teaching is creative teaching? What do you think? Well, I, I think first of all, building on what we just des- spoke about with Greg, there’s, there’s teaching about creativity, and I would say that, that many educators within their, uh, teacher training programs may not have actually have interacted with, with what creativity is, particularly from that scholarly perspective, talking a little bit about the stereotypes. I’m gonna throw out our book a- again, um just because we do a little bit of a creativity 101 in our first chapter. But, but we, you know, you, you wrote that section around the different stereotypes, and there are stereotypes. So if you haven’t had a, a lesson, a lecture, um, or a course that teaches you about creativity to challenge those stereotypes, those stereotypes are very prominent in society, and they’re probably gonna continue to, to exist in your profession. So I think that, that’s number one, um, in terms of the challenges. And if you look at someone like Valencia, a humanities teacher, know, it– we know the value of creativity, but under a traditional lens of learning the content and then learning the pedagogy on how, uh, to approach the teaching of the content, kind of have to acknowledge that it is possible and likely that she would not have come into contact with what is creativity. Right think there’s, there’s systematic challenges as to why that is. Uh, but I, I also just think that that’s a really great takeaway, which I’d totally forgotten about, is, is this idea of, um, there’s Valencia saying why me, and it was happening over the summer. We was, we was having this back and forth, and then the simple answer was, well, because, you know, you’ve, you’ve won all of these awards, and you’re doing all of this amazing work. You know, you referenced the, the community project that she did, you know, taking the students through a community project to basically get them to practice being historians while learning about their own history within, within their local community. Um, that’s not my takeaway, but, but it was one of the reasons why I said we’ve got to have you on the show because it, it was just like so expressive of incredible creativity. Um, but she didn’t know that. She didn’t, she didn’t make the connection. But it was great when she listened to a couple of episodes, and if, if… You know, I don’t know if we captured all of it ’cause a lot of the conversation happened before we hit record. Mm. But there she is, and she’s hitting up all these examples. I suddenly realized that I am being creative every day, and I am having to engage my students, and then I am recognizing that, you know, something’s not working. I’m having to modify and adjust it. And, and I would say in addition to that, and maybe I transition to my, my takeaway, the, the commitment and effort she showed Mm-hmm. Right? To, Yes a better instructor for her students. And, and there’s a recognition in those conversations that, like, she’s con- that’s a journey. I mean, from one year to the next year, sh- y- you know, she’ll respond to one particular student in that moment that will then get her to reflect and say, “Hmm, maybe I’m falling a little bit short here,” and then go away and really work hard to make the connection. And, you know, professional growth is also representative of, of being creative, right? Right. Well, and it also reminds me of something that we talk about, going back to the myths of creativity, that we look at, we can look at creativity from two different perspectives. One is the perspective of expression, and the other one is improving on things. And for me, you know, she really hit home this improving on things, not only as her work as an educator to say like, “How might I, like, connect with the students in different ways, and how might I understand the students’ experience so that I can bring in the relevant work to e- to my classroom?” So I really think she brings in that improving upon perspective of creativity, and I think you, you really shed light on that, Matt, so thanks for doing that No worries. And listen, my, my initial takeaway is, um, and this is something that might carry a little bit over to our next, uh, speaker potentially as well, Угу. At the very end of the interview or towards the end of the interview, she suggests that when they had access to things like books, and kinda like those more Well, feels very timely to some of the conversations we’ve started to have with our guests, and I was just wondering if you wanted to pick up on that comment as well. not only do I pick up on that comment, but I see it with our third guest as well, Dan Malt, who we’re gonna transition into that. Dan was talking about technology, and he was a technology specialist in his school before he became principal. But talking about his, uh, elementary school and how they got rid of all devices. So they got rid of Chromebooks, they got rid of iPads. And I think back just 10 years ago when my kids were in elementary school, not even 10 years ago. Eight years ago, my kids were in elementary school, and they all had an iPad, and the, the school boasted, “Every child has an iPad, and we’re gonna bring it out, and we’re gonna use this technology.” And now, you know, I think especially with the onset of AI and all this technology, it’s like, actually, what we really need to develop, and I think the pandemic also had impact on that, but what we really need to develop is communication skills, humanity skills, being able to connect one, with one another, being able to communicate with one another, um, being able to understand our emotions. And, and so there’s so much more that that human flourishing aspect of education, I think there’s gonna be a huge shift toward that, and we’re already seeing that, and Dan mentioned that. And I think the thing that scared me the most that Dan mentioned was those students that are coming in at the age of four to test for the school That were holding devices and were having fits because people were taking away devices. And that just really makes me so sad, because there’s so many ways to connect, especially when they’re little. And Matt, I have to tell you, I was in New York City this weekend, on a dinner date with my husband, and there were two families there next to us, and they both had maybe 10, 11-year-olds with them, two, two children each, and the two parents. And they– one family had the two children, and they both had headphones on and iPads. And the whole dinner, everything from the start of the dinner, ’cause all three of us, all three groups sat down at the same time. From the start of the dinner to the end of the dinner, the kids had their headphones on, and they were playing on their iPads. And you know, Matt, I really try not to be a judgmental parent because I think it’s one of the hardest things about being a parent, so I really try not to judge. But when I look at the other side, there’s a, almost identical family, same ages of kids, and they’re engrossed in this wonderful, delightful conversation back and forth of would you rather together, and I was overhearing it. And I was like, “I wish that the other table could really take a look at what this family is doing,” because they’re building those communication skills. They’re building those relationships with their kids. They’re, helping their kids, pick up on cues and stories and how to just be in the present moment and not have to be on the device all the time. So it was just fascinating. I think this, new age of 2026 and devices and AI and everything that’s been changing in, in technology, I think we’re going to see a bigger shift, especially in education, around bringing in that human element and flourishing and all the delightful things that we want education to be. I love that. And I know we’ve kind of like,, blended over, to Dan Moult a little bit, and I still think we should have a separate takeaway in a moment. the reality is, is that I’d mentioned Valencia saying that at the very end because that was my takeaway, and I know Dan Moult then spoke about it, uh, later, and I think we interviewed Dan Moult before or after Valencia’s. But the reality is if, if we bring it back to Valencia and some of the core part of, of what I think is her philosophy in the teaching is this idea of self and one’s relationship of self to their community, to their peers. And you see that with the work that she was doing with history. In order for us to really understand health– self, we have to know where we came from, and then that can hopefully inform where we, where we might go to. And the only way for us to kind of, I think, ex-explore that relationship between self and peers and the community is by going out and doing exactly what you said, having conversations, asking questions, conducting research, and research that perhaps exists outside of the screens. So it, it makes sense why Valencia was kind of pointing out the, the challenges with technology. , And it also makes sense to, to what you said with what Dan Moult as well. So fingers crossed. I do think that we might be moving in this era. I’m not gonna do a temptation to, to digress now ’cause time is tight, but I, I do think that there are– Something I’m discussing with my students at the moment is the capacity to, hold one’s attention, right? Угу. that family on the right of you, just take the iPads away once you’ve established that and if those kids struggle to be bored and have nothing to do, it might now be quite a significant challenge to get them to hold attention for a meal. Whereas the family on the left of you, we may surmise that those, those children have had the opportunity to develop all of the skills that you’re speaking of, Mm. and therefore, may have an advantage at their time of lives, to actually engage in conversation absent of devices. But definitely we are seeing two different buckets, and there’s probably a, a scale between those two extremes. Угу. I can’t help but hope and think that we can getting a little bit more of, the, the latter, if we can reduce technology, particularly at the younger ages. Totally agree.   📍 ​  So Matt, tell me what your takeaway was with Dan Malt I think you’re gonna love my takeaway. So in fact, Okay gonna talk too much about my takeaway. I’m gonna throw it over to you OK just talk a little bit about… I, I, I’ll provide you the context. So we’re talking a little bit about, you know, we shifted into leadership, right? It was great, great having a conversation around the Odyssey of Mind and, and the different ways you can kind of interact with these challenges, Mm-hmm. the differences between, extracurricular activities that require a level of expertise with- within the community, parent volunteers versus, extracurricular activities where maybe, it’s more about creative problem-solving and less about a specific domain, or less about a specific area that requires domain expertise. we then start to talk a little bit about being a leader in the school and helping facilitate a creative culture that also supports the creativity of your teaching community. And so ultimately, dan seems to be expressing the idea of keep open, right? Because every time a teacher comes to him, I’d said there’s always gonna be logistical challenges. Hey, I think one of the examples we spoke about, “Hey, I wanna bring musicals back to the school.” Right challenges in the calendar and access to the hall and access to rehearsal time and all these different things. And you can’t help but imagine a really overwhelmed educational leader is like, “Ah, I can’t take anymore right now.” But not Dan. Dan stays open. I don’t know if you wanna pick up a little bit on that and the importance of staying open, particularly during an academic year, ’cause that must be really hard, not just administrators, all of us when we’re busy to stay open to new ideas. I agree, Matt. And I think one of the things that I loved about Dan building on that was that cognitive flexibility, and being able to shift to say, “Okay, we haven’t had a musical before, you know, we’ll figure it out.” And that was a phrase that he continuously used with his teachers was, “We’ll figure it out.” And I think having that openness to try new things and work through the complexity and ambiguity of things that we don’t know, and those challenges that we don’t know, is really, really valuable, and really challenging to do. I know when you and I go and work with teachers, one of the first things we always talk about is keeping open, and how do we keep open, and how do we manage our judgment. And I think Dan actually did an amazing job in sharing some clear examples of how to keep open with the, some of the language that he used, which goes , right back to Greg McClure and being deliberate. And, making sure that his teachers knew that they could come to him and share new ideas, and I think that’s such a, an important skill to have for leaders in schools Yeah. Am I, am I making this up? Did he have a sign on the door that, that says Yes, “We’ll, we’ll he did. Yep, we’ll figure it out. It was It- figure it we’ll figure it out. Mm-hmm And isn’t that so comforting as a teacher when you’re going to your leader and the administrative team, and you just know that you’re going in there and they’re, they’re willing to figure it out, you know, in collaboration with you? You know, as opposed to that possibility of, of either of them saying no or pointing out all of the ways you went wrong, all of the reasons why you can’t mor- move forward in the way you wanna move forward. The, the very phrase, “We’ll figure it out,” and having it at, the door speaks to, “I’m open to, to working with you to see if we can figure it out.” Whether we do or not, of course, is a different story. But, um, I think that’s just a wonderful thing that an administrator listening to right now could, could think about creating something like that for their wall. But Matt, I think overall this was a great, segment of episodes all being related directly to education and educators being inside the classroom, and then Dan being a school administrator. So I think we had a great set, and I’m looking forward to our next three episodes So am I. But listen, before we go, ’cause we do have a few minutes, I thought this would be a fun exercise. Are you ready Okay. one? All right, I’m ready we’ve said two of them. I need you to s- to come up. We’ve got our, uh, The Future Creative: 10 Actions for Fueling Creativity in Education. We’re gonna continue to promote our book, so we’re so proud of it. Um, and what I’m tasking you, we’ve got be deliberate, keep open. We’ve al- already referenced those two. I’m wondering what’s the third action that we can throw out with our third guest. I’ve got one, but I’m curious to know what your third action is Enjoy the ride. Valencia really brought home, I think, enjoy the ride, which is like enjoy the process. Like, it’s gonna be hard, but when you love it, it all works out. Because she talks so much about her journey and, starting as an educator at 40, which I thought was amazing, and then all the work that she did and that intellectual curiosity that she had. So I would say ask questions. There’s a lot of ask questions in there, but there’s also a lot of enjoy the ride with all three of them Yeah, I love that as well. I was gonna say build relationships because Valencia also is determined to build relationships between our students and the community. She’s also determined to build relationships between herself and the students. But to your point, one of the strategies she uses is, is asking questions. And if she didn’t get answers to some of the questions that she asked, would find it hard to, to build relationships. In, in fact, what, what’s she doing? Is it, is it K-pop dramas? She’s trying to, like, Yes. dra- Yes Yeah, which I thought was wild. I didn’t even know that existed N- nor did I, and I’m gonna tell you right now, I still don’t, if I’m honest with you. What’s a K-pop drama? It was like a soap opera, Korean soap operas Okay. All right. ‘Cause I, I’ve become aware of, of just K-pop in general through some of the students in my class over the years as they, they explore that within some of their work. Okay, so K-pop dramas. But yeah, so, so she sound like that was new for her as well, but she was aware that all of her students were interested in it, and then she wanted to go and better understand those interests so she could form the connection needed to build relationships with her students, which was wonderful. it, you know, I, I can’t help but say it. It, it– we’re doing a good job with these, with these actions. It seems like they keep coming up again and again, which Yes  Well, if you liked this episode or you didn’t get to hear, uh, the three episodes we just referenced, I would recommend you go and listen to them because they each have their own beauty and gems and nuggets of information that I think you’ll find valuable. And very practitioner orientated as well, right? Yes, Matt, they were practitioner-oriented, and I think that teachers will find these really valuable. And if you haven’t seen them, we do have collections of teachers that we have interviewed on the podcast, so we’ll link that below, as well as administrator collection that we will link below. So if you are an administrator or a teacher, you can go check out those collections in the show notes below. My name is Dr. Cindy Burnett And my name is Dr. Matthew Worwood