Matthew Worwood:
You know, in the interest of privacy, I won’t share her name, but, but a teacher I worked with, I want to say about 18 months ago now, one of the things that she had said to me was that we never get time as teachers to think about our own creativity. But it was such a powerful statement. We as teachers never get the time to focus on our creativity. And I remember when she said it, she was passionate. She was like, our creativity. I remember her hands came over and she said, our creativity, my creativity. It was a desire. I need to focus on my creativity just as much as I need to focus on facilitating the creativity of my students.

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

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

Matthew Worwood:
This is the fuelling creativity in Education podcast.

Cyndi Burnett:
On this podcast, we’ll be talking about various creativity topics and how they relate to the fields 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 to infuse creativity into teaching and learning.

Matthew Worwood:
So let’s begin. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Fueling Creativity in Education podcast. And this is our first debrief episode of season eight.

Cyndi Burnett:
That’s right. Today we are going to debrief three amazing episodes, the first with Dr. Janet Raffner, the second with Dr. Maureen Carroll, and the third with Todd Henry. So let’s talk about Dr. Janet Raffner, who is from Denmark and works for the center for Hybrid Intelligence as a researcher in creativity and artificial intelligence. So what was your biggest insight with.

Matthew Worwood:
That, Matt well, I was, first of all, really excited to have Janet on the show because Janet has published a few articles around creativity and AI and creativity and generative AI, specifically over the last twelve months. But she’s so knowledgeable. Her background is in human computer interaction and creativity assistant tools. And I thought she did a really good job of distinguishing the difference between this idea of computational creativity and co creativity, and if, I hope I’m doing a good job of summarizing it. But computational creativity, in Janet’s word, resides very much in the field of computer science. And of course, it’s about how we as computer scientists, programmers, are developing a tool and thinking about how that tool is interacting with people. Right? And so that’s not necessarily always generative AI. But the point is we’re creating a tool that is going to assist people in their creative endeavors, and then co creativity is really just about that.

Matthew Worwood:
Collaborative creativity. Typically, we’d think about co creativity as working with groups. But more recently, we started to think about co creativity with generative AI. And as you know, you and I started to talk about this idea of cobots, I want to say back in 2021. So, in terms of my summary, computational creativity and co creativity, what I suddenly thought about is how in the future, and we didn’t really cover this on the show, but how in the future we might actually start seeing these things starting to come together. Because we know that with tools like Chat GPT, and there’s a specific tool with Copilot, which is in GitHub, specifically for developers, we know that developers, computer programmers, are starting to utilize tools like Chat GPT to assist them in programming. And so I suddenly started to wonder if everyday creatives, maybe I’ll refer to you and I as everyday creatives, might we get to a point where we can actually engage in computational creativity with the support of generative AI? And so perhaps these two different things might actually start coming together. And that would be kind of exciting if you and I could suddenly start generating our own apps.

Matthew Worwood:
I mean, we certainly have played around with some really fun ideas for apps for the fueling creativity and education podcast, and so maybe we might be able to do that.

Cyndi Burnett:
It’s funny that you say that, Matt, because I was just talking to my husband about this conversation around computational creativity, and he also does programming on the computer. And he said, I feel like it’s like an apprentice. And I said, you feel like you have an apprentice with generative AI helping you through things? And he’s like, no, I feel like I’m the apprentice learning things from generative AI, because he’s asking it how to do certain things, and it’s churning back exactly what he needs to do. So I just thought that was an interesting twist, that he might actually be an apprentice to learning something new around computers and how computers work. So I think it’s a really interesting insight around the computational creativity. And I want to also talk about my insight, which was co creativity and using generative AI to actually generate new ideas, to generate new books, articles, all sorts of thinking, because it’s just helped me so much. The other day, I was trying to design a lesson plan for fifth and 6th graders, and I asked Chat GPT if it could give me ten different idea generators for fifth and 6th graders that would be appropriate. And they came out with things that I had never even considered before.

Cyndi Burnett:
Being in the field for 25 years, and it just got this big smile on my face because all I could think was, wow, that was so easy. Instead of spending days trying to think through what are some things I could do with students, it gave me some really good examples.

Matthew Worwood:
All right, so I’ve got a follow up question for you. Sure. I want to put it out there because I’m very sensitive to our audience. We value divergent thinking. We value opportunities to engage in divergent thinking. Do you think that creativity practitioners that spend so much of their time trying to teach creativity by helping people think more divergently, do you think that’s going to become less important with generative AI? And maybe we might have to start focusing on other aspects of creativity given the fact that maybe we might potentially offload aspects of divergent thinking. Not talking about convergent, I’m not talking about judgment, but aspects of just generating ideas to generative AI. I thought about that the last couple of weeks.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yeah, Matt, that was something on my mind. Last summer I went through a phase of will I be needed anymore to teach divergent thinking and generating new ideas? And I think the answer is yes. It’s just a journey, as Janet had mentioned during our interview with her, that we are going on this journey. And sometimes I remember in that episode we had with Dr. Zarana Pringle from Yale and the emotional intelligence, the center for Emotional Intelligence, and her talking about our emotional state and our emotional state impacting our ability to generate ideas. And I think sometimes we’re just not. Even though I’m trained and I’ve been doing this for decades, I’m still not in the mood to generate lots of ideas, or I can’t really come up with anything creative because I’m blocked by something. And we can still use our own abilities with generative AI to help us through those times.

Cyndi Burnett:
So I think of it as like an assistant who’s just sort of there assisting you in coming up with new ideas because I didn’t actually use any of the ideas it generated for me for this lesson, but it sparked some additional thinking for me that led me to a new idea. So I still think it’s very important. And I think the principles of creativity, the underlying principles, specifically around curiosity and keeping open minded, I think those things will never go away. We’re still going to need to teach students how to be more open minded, because if we don’t, then it could generate the most creative idea for us. But if we’re not open to it, then it’s not going to be used or worthwhile.

Matthew Worwood:
Some of the research that I’ve dabbled into, and when I say dabbled into, I’m talking about, in essence, reading other people’s research, that originality and randomness, it still seems to be something that we as humans are doing. So, yes, there’s generating lots of ideas, but then it’s okay, I’ve got these 10, 15, 20 ideas, whatever it might be that I’ve been presented with through using this tool. But now it’s up to me to kind of like tweak them, modify them, maybe bring two together to create one that wasn’t presented on the page, that originality, those making those connections, the human randomness. My initial thinking is, yes, we still need to try and continue to facilitate that. And I think teaching divergent thinking does a really good job of that.

Cyndi Burnett:
So now, Matt, let’s transition into our next interview with Dr. Maureen Carroll. And she’s a consultant who works on professional development with educators. Do you remember that?

Matthew Worwood:
Do I do? Yep.

Cyndi Burnett:
Now, the one thing that struck me about that conversation, and actually the reason why I wanted to bring her on the show was because she hosts creative residencies for teachers to come and go into a space of quiet, into reflection, into creating, painting, dancing, improv, and how restorative that is for teachers. And that’s just something that I really relate to as a creative human, that I need that time and space to just make or create because it is healing for me. As James Kaufman had mentioned to us, that there’s a restorative piece to it. And when teachers are really burned out, that having these practices, these expressive practices that they can touch on and utilize, that that will restore their energy levels and their motivation levels to be better in the classroom.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah, I remember that episode. And it’s one of these things that I keep reflecting on because I find myself sometimes saying, okay, I certainly value promoting and engaging open, random creativity for teachers that might not always be connected to the classroom environment. And I think some of the activities that Maureen was doing, I was kind of saying to myself, all right, is there a connection here to the teaching and learning space? And I wasn’t always sure whether or not there was a connection. And if I’m honest with you, I sit there and I’m saying, okay, well, I’m an administrator in that moment. Am I realistically going to prioritize time to that? But then I started to think a little bit more along your lines, and I started to think about burnout. And sometimes you actually just need to be disconnected. And maybe we should actually prioritize more time in the year for teachers to just go and interact together as a community, maybe it can assist them in their communities of practice, which we know becoming a big part of professional growth at schools. But it doesn’t have to be connected to the teaching and learning environment, because it’s about them.

Matthew Worwood:
It’s about restoring their energy. It’s about helping them connect to their creativity in any way they need to or can do. And then hopefully through that, by coming back with our batteries recharged, coming back with our creative juices refueled, then we’re more likely to bring creativity back into our classroom environments. And so when I looked at it from that perspective, I said, you know what? I think these creative residencies are really exciting, and maybe we should be doing a lot more of them.

Cyndi Burnett:
I also think it gives teachers sort of the understanding of the benefits of spending that time and space to sort of disconnect and reflect and create and express themselves, that they understand the benefits of just doing that, not for the end product, but for the process and relaxation that comes with it and the mental health benefits that come with creating. And so I think it’s an interesting way to introduce teachers into the world of creativity when they really don’t understand what the benefits might be. I’m sure you’ve had a lot of teachers that you’ve worked with who have said, oh, I had this art teacher when I was in high school, and I realized I’m just not creative. And it’s like, okay, that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re not talking about painting something perfectly. What we’re talking about is thinking, and thinking in different ways and being able to express our ideas and have ideas and keep open to new ideas. So I think there is also that benefit as well.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah, I mean, the more you’re talking, the more I’m really kind of getting sold on this creative residency concept. And actually, in the interest of privacy, I won’t share her name, but a teacher I worked with, I want to say about 18 months ago now, one of the things that she had said to me was that we never get time as teachers to think about our own creativity. And they felt that through the resonancy that they had with me, they had that opportunity to have that time. But it was such a powerful statement. We as teachers never get the time to focus on our creativity. And I remember when she said it, she was passionate. She was like, our creativity. I remember her hands came over and she said, our creativity, my creativity.

Matthew Worwood:
It was a desire I need to focus on my creativity just as much as I need to focus on facilitating the creativity of my students. 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. And speaking of our own personal creativity, Matt, do you remember our final of the three episodes was with Todd Henry, who wrote the book the Accidental Creative and the Brave Habit. And he talked to us about bravery. And I thought this was a really interesting concept to think about in relationship to the classroom because I think it’s hard to be creative in the classroom. I think you have to be brave in order to be creative in the classroom because you don’t know necessarily if it’s going to work. You don’t know if your students are going to respond well to it. You don’t know how other teachers are going to look at you. I know recently I spoke with a teacher and she said, I’m doing all these creative things, but I’m so afraid that people are going to walk in and see because I think they’re going to look at me like I’m crazy.

Cyndi Burnett:
And I’m like, you’re not crazy. This is like amazing stuff, but it’s different from what other people are doing. So it leaves them feeling sometimes vulnerable about being creative and doing creative things with their students.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah. And, you know, mean, I’ve got one follow up, but that comment right there gets me thinking about our episode with Laurent McBain and Ron Beguetto when they were talking about my favorite failure and the emotional aspect associated with failure. And in know, we had spoken about this in the debrief, the difference between maybe a mistake and failure and failure being kind of like a social experience where there’s kind of repercussions and you feel like you’ve been exposed and you feel embarrassed. And I think that there is an element of when we try something new in the classroom environment, we are worried about what’s going to happen based on perhaps how I might look, how I might look to my students, how I might look to my colleagues. And that does require a level of bravery. And in addition, another level of bravery is needed when you have experienced that failure, but you want to go back and try it again, right? So you don’t give up. All right? So this crashed and burned. And therefore, if I do this again, a lot of people are going to be asking, why am I doing this again? And a lot of people might be saying, might already actually now have negative views of this experience.

Matthew Worwood:
But if I believe in it enough, then actually we know through things like design thinking, we require some iteration, right? So you might have that, oh, I know how to make this better, but you still need to be brave to go in and make that modification. So I totally agree with you. I think bravery is a big part of teacher innovation in a classroom environment. And I’ll add one more thing to that as well. Cindy. Sorry. The other piece we’d referenced just before we recorded one of the things we liked about that episode is this idea of bravery as a. And, you know, it’s a choice we typically might have to take within a moment.

Matthew Worwood:
And I was almost going to bring this up with creative residencies. When is the best time in the year for this? But likewise, when is it the best time for you to be brave? And I keep working with this because, as you know, within my space, I typically talk a lot about the idea of creativity or innovation despite constraints. And I work with teachers getting to think a lot about constraints and the time, the academic calendar, all of those things represents constraints in the environment. And I certainly know that there are times in the year where I have the capacity, the ability to be brave. You was talking about this idea of having the space to think and be creative. There’s times in the year where I have that, and there’s times of the year where I’d say I don’t have that. So just to throw this concept back at you, what do you think? Are there times of the year? Are there certain moments where it’s better for us to make the choice to be brave? And there may be other times where we’re like, hey, you know what? This isn’t the moment to be brave.

Cyndi Burnett:
That’s a great question. I think we have to think about what’s most important to us as educators and what our goals are. And sometimes we get caught up in things and emotions that aren’t really going to help us move forward, help our students move forward. So I think it’s about making good choices in terms of what are you willing to be brave for and why, and really clarifying that with yourself to say, when do I need to be brave and stand up for this? And when should I not? When is it not really worth it for me and my students? Because I think sometimes we use up all of our energy for the wrong things. And so for our listeners out there, what I would recommend is really looking at those things that you want for your classroom, that takes courage, that takes bravery, and say, is it worth it when that moment comes for you to stand up and say, this is what I need, this is what my students need, or is it not really worth it because of something else happening in the system, that it’s going to cause too much turmoil? So I think it’s sort of a polarity that you have to manage. Right. So you want to make sure that you’re using your energy for the right thing. So that’s what my recommendation would be.

Cyndi Burnett:
What would you say?

Matthew Worwood:
Well, I would say, and I could be wrong, but I know you’ve been reading Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book be useful. And I actually just finished that book this week. And so that sounded very similar to some of the things that he had referenced. Right. But it’s true. Right. What’s our goal? Right. What’s our mission? And does this align with our mission? And I think that the moments when we’ve got a choice to be brave, I think maybe you’re right.

Matthew Worwood:
I think the big piece is energy. You’re exerting energy. Right. And so make sure that where you’re exerting that energy is going in the place that you care about, that kind of meets your goals. And it thinks it’s ultimately kind of moving the needle forward in terms of the teaching and learning that’s happening in your classroom.

Cyndi Burnett:
And, Matt, since you brought it up, so be useful. The seven, I don’t know, seven tools that Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote about, by the way. We can talk about this now because I doubt we’ll be able to get Arnold Schwarzenegger on our podcast. But if you know him and you think he might be interested, please let us know. We’d love to make that connection, because I did finish that book based on a recommendation from a friend, and I absolutely loved it because one of the things he talks about, and this really shifted my thinking much bigger. And I think I’m a pretty big thinker. But what he said is when you have a vision, crumble it up and think bigger. And I think that takes a lot of bravery to do to say, you know what, it’s not good, what’s happening right now.

Cyndi Burnett:
I’m going to crumble this up and I’m going to make it bigger. I’m going to make not the mess bigger, but the vision bigger. And just thinking in that way about your students to say, like, what do I want for my students now I’m going to think even bigger for my students how exciting that feels and how much it motivates people. So, yes, I also recommend that, well.

Matthew Worwood:
Just for the record, it sounds like you kind of, like, need to think bigger, right? Because why can’t we go reach out to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pr folks, right. Seems to be really engaged with the community, ask if we can go down, record a special in the same way we did a special with Howard Gardner. Right. And go through the book and have a conversation about how the book might apply to teachers in the classroom environment.

Cyndi Burnett:
Let’s do it.

Matthew Worwood:
I’m a big talker. I don’t think I’m going to do that. But you know what?

Cyndi Burnett:
I will do it. I think you’re right. Crumble the vision of, like, we don’t know, but. And we’re going to turn it into something bigger and say, what have we got to lose? And he seems like a very generous in his kindness. I loved the book so much in terms of how much he wanted to help others. And so maybe he’s willing to come and talk to us because so much of what he talked about in that book was about creativity, even though I don’t think he ever said the word creativity. He talked about creativity through the whole book.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah, it was. And actually, just to maybe finish off this episode and how we’ve kind of now started to find ourselves talking about, I mean, it does connect very much to Todd Henry’s episode and some of the other episodes that we’ve had. I think what I would say to teachers is this idea of go bigger. It’s not necessarily go bigger in your classroom with the idea. Sometimes. Sometimes it’s a case of, all right, you’ve got to share it with colleagues. But why not go and put in a proposal for a conference, right. Why not go and build a website around what it is you’re doing in the classroom environment? Why not go and establish a podcast? Why not reach out to Cindy and I, right.

Matthew Worwood:
Using the email questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com and say, hey, I want to come on your show, and I want to talk about this awesome thing that I’ve developed for my classroom that I think facilitates and promotes creativity in students. So I think every single one of us in teaching and learning have the capacity to go bigger. It’s not necessarily about going bigger with the idea. Sometimes it might be going bigger in terms of sharing the awesome creativity that we’re doing in our classroom environments and being brave because we may say no. Yeah, maybe a conference proposal is not accepted. I don’t think you and I would say no, but be brave.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes. And to give you a little teaser, not only did we do the brave habit this past three episodes, but the next three episodes, you’re going to hear about the fun habit. So stay tuned to next week when we talk with Mike Rucker, who wrote. Dr. Mike Rucker, who wrote the book the fun habit.

Matthew Worwood:
Wait, no, before we go, we got to keep doing this, right? Because remember, we set the goal we got to go bigger. We set the goal that we wanted to double the number of subscribers. Yeah, we want to double the number of subscribers before the end of 2024. So if you are watching us on YouTube, this is great. We are still learning in YouTube. We got the green screen growing. I’m sitting here, I’m like, oh, my God, this might not even work. So we’re totally experimenting with the green screen today.

Matthew Worwood:
If you’re listening to the episode, go subscribe. If you haven’t already, please help us promote this podcast. Get it out to your friends and colleagues, because I do think we interview some great people who have got some great ideas on how we can help creativity in education. All right, so now, Cindy, we can end.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Dr. Burnett.

Matthew Worwood:
And my name is Dr. Matthew Warwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
This episode was produced by Matthew Worwood and Cindy Burnett. Our podcast sponsor is curiosity to create, and our editor is Sam Atkinson.