Matthew Worwood:
If you’re an affluent parent and you find out that your child is really good in music, for example, then you probably have the means to go and nurture that creative potential. So, you know, you spoke a lot about creative potential, and I know it’s a passion of yours. There’s a point to which it has to then go and become realized. And so do affluent families now have even more of an advantage because now they know where to channel their energy in. And then you get these tough situations where, okay, I’ve got a lot of creative potential in this area, but I don’t have the means to develop it further. 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 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.

Cyndi Burnett:
Hello and welcome to a very special debrief episode where Matt and I get together and we talk about the last three episodes of the fueling creativity and education podcast. And Matt, we have had some incredible guests.

Matthew Worwood:
Yes, I feel like it just keeps getting better and better. I just love this podcast, Cindy. I really love the conversations that we have.

Cyndi Burnett:
I agree, Matt. So let’s recap. Who are our last three episodes? First, we had Dr. Mike Rucker, where we talked about the fun habit. Then we had a double espresso with Todd Lubart, Dr. Tod Lubart. And I have to say, Matt, that has to be one of my favorite episodes we’ve ever done. And then our third guest was Shaufina Vera, who teaches in the UK.

Cyndi Burnett:
And so, Matt, let’s start with you. What was one key learning that you’ve had from those last three episodes?

Matthew Worwood:
All right, so let’s start off with Mike Rucker, because I like this idea of just having fun. And I’m sure everyone likes the idea of having fun. We hear these stories of tech companies like Google and Apple introducing a fun environment to work in. And it makes me think, right, like the kindergarten classroom. At least my kindergarten classroom was a fun environment to learn in. But that fun I think we kind of lose as we progress through the grades. So I just enjoyed having a conversation about introducing fun. And I think one of the takeaways for me was the connection to the unexpected, breaking with the norms that can create a fun experience.

Matthew Worwood:
Going into next year, I’m going to think, right, what might I do that breaks with the habit, breaks with the norms of a traditional academic classroom, and therefore might introduce a fun experience.

Cyndi Burnett:
I love that Matt and I think breaking outside of our paradigms and doing something a little bit, you know, I’ve even found changing my classroom a little bit brings in a little bit of fun. But one of the things I really loved about that episode was how he framed fun and that it’s unique to you. So I think it would be interesting for teachers to go to their students and generate a list of things that are fun that they could do inside of their classroom and then have the teacher pick a few different ideas that they could try out as a surprise. I also love surprises because I think surprise brings in an element of tolerating ambiguity, which is interesting, which is a creative thinking skill that we talk about a lot. So if we could bring in a little bit of surprise through fun, then we have a great opportunity to do something engaging inside of our classroom and really connect with our students in meaningful and effective ways.

Matthew Worwood:
I do want to just follow up on that a little bit because, one, I love the idea of kind of having a fun box and every kind of, even at the beginning of the academic year, for example, another thing we’ve spoken about a lot on the podcast, and we’re writing about in one of our chapters for our book, building relationships, we talk about the need to find out what students are interested in outside the classroom environment so we can make the connections. And I think you’re actually introducing another tool to which we might do that, the beginning of the year. Maybe we have everyone write what they enjoy doing or something that they think might be fun to introduce into the classroom, and then we put it in the fun box, and obviously the teacher might have to kind of sift through it. I think some young kids might say, oh, let’s bring in a tiger for the day. And probably that might not be, it would be super fun, but actually saying that maybe the teacher can get creative and find another way to accommodate that and bring the tiger into the classroom. Right.

Cyndi Burnett:
Well, Matt, I know you are a little bit afraid of coming up with really wild and unusual ideas, and that’s sort of my forte. But I think bringing a tiger, what elements of the tiger could you bring in? So maybe you bring in a big stuffed tiger, and that represents the fun day of the year, and that means that everyone can do something that they enjoy doing. So if we look at fun as unique to each individual, you might even have fun days where you bring in that tiger, right? And you say, okay, you get to do an hour of something that’s fun for you. So maybe it’s board games, maybe it’s reading in the corner, maybe it’s building blocks, maybe it’s painting, and it’s sort of fun time with the tiger.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah, no, I really like that. And actually just building on that, I think really what we’re doing is we’re building a divergent thinking activity. And you referenced something that we discussed outside the classroom. And I would say that this, or rather outside the pod, and I would say that this constitutes a time where you actually could welcome wild and wacky ideas. I was talking about sometimes the value of wild and wacky ideas when you kind of like got a short period of time, you know, the budget, you know, the constraints, how much value is there welcoming wild and wacky ideas outside of those constraints. But what I like about what you’re referencing here is this idea, particularly in elementary classroom, why not go wild and really just invite really fun ideas to get into that box? And maybe you can even invite your students to help work out. All right, how do we actually make this a reality in the classroom environment? So I really like this activity. And the other thing that you referenced is surprise.

Matthew Worwood:
And I think that was a takeaway as well. Going back to what I referenced, this idea of just introducing novelty, that connection, that novel experiences quite often can be fun experiences as well. And so I think that’s another thing for teachers to think about is what new experiences can they bring about? Because just the introduction of novelty might also provide some type of fun experience in the classroom. So, yeah, it was a great episode.

Cyndi Burnett:
All right, let’s talk about Todd Lubart so much. So much to talk start.

Matthew Worwood:
I mean, I’ve got a lot to talk about Tod Loubart, but you should start. I went first.

Cyndi Burnett:
So I think with Tod Loubart, what really sort of took me, I mean, it’s something I know, right? I know that we can look at creative potential and look for creative potential. And it’s an area actually that very, very passionate about is being able to identify creative potential in students when oftentimes some students just get dismissed because they might be highly creative and it comes across as disruptive. So I think the thing that sort of expanded my mind in that episode when we did two episodes with Talubart, but was this idea of evaluating creative potential in students at a young age, at five or six. So I’ve been thinking so much about this, Matt. I would love to know what you think, especially in relationship to your three boys, but when you look at a five and six year old, if we could identify their creative potential, say it’s in writing, and then we can craft out a pathway for them to really, really move forward and excel in writing, how would that be beneficial to them in the long run? So my opinion would be amazing. Right? Like, if we could identify that young, these potentials in students at an early age, I think that could be just amazing. And would it stop them from expanding in other ways? Because they sort of see themselves pocketed in one particular area. So that’s why I only watch out with that.

Cyndi Burnett:
So I think, oh my gosh, that would be amazing to have my son at an early age be able to identify as he’s got a gift for math, and then we really push that through as he goes through his schooling. But is there a limitation in that that all of a sudden he’s the math guy and he doesn’t need other things? So I’d love to know what your thoughts are on that.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah, I think you did a really good job of summarizing some of the things that we spoke about in the interview. And I think let’s start off with the first part is that, wow, here’s this kind of system to which we actually could. That was my big takeaway with Tod Lubart. We are working toward different types of tests to measure creative thinking. Quite often they center on divergent thinking. But within Tod Lubart’s work, he’s also thinking about convergent thinking as well, which I found really fascinating, this idea of divergent and convergent thinking. And the other thing is, we know is that Tod Lubart, sometimes these divergent thinking tests can be a little bit domain general, whereas Todd Lubart was really focusing, to your point, on specific domains. So let’s measure math, for example.

Matthew Worwood:
And I think currently the work is looking at measuring music. And I agree with you. I think there’s a lot of value in being able to identify what children are good at. And I think here’s some pluses to that, is we’re in this situation where maybe outside the classroom environment, the child just in that environment hasn’t had an opportunity to really explore or express that type of creativity. But maybe the test is able to pick that up. Right. I don’t know if that is totally possible, but there’s a lot of value to that. I think, obviously, to your point, what happens if they just become the math guy? Well, Tod Lubite kind of addressed that, which I found fascinating because he mentioned that you could look at what they’re creative in, but then also look at what they’re interested in.

Matthew Worwood:
And ideally they align, but perhaps they don’t align. And there was something that Todd Lubart said, and we didn’t necessarily talk about what age this would be, and maybe that’s a different conversation to have. But there might be a point where you say, I’m really interested in this. This is my passion. But actually it looks like I’m not naturally gifted or not as creative in that space. And so then Tod Lubart says, really, the individual has an opportunity at that point to either go and engage in the experiences they need, the learning experiences they need to kind of increase their creativity in that space, or maybe they kind of like transition toward just working within their creative field and identifying interests that relate to their creativity. I love that. I think that might actually assist some students sometimes picking majors, because you want to have that balance between where you think you can really have an impact versus what you’re really interested in.

Matthew Worwood:
So I really like that. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll now follow the negative aspect, because I agree. I think there are some concerns, not concerns, shall we say, but some things for us to consider. The first thing is, do we have the capacity, the means, at least in the short to medium term, to go and identify all the different types of creative potential out there? And if you don’t, the concern is, all right, it’s great. Some people may identify their creative potential, but there still could be a whole bunch of kids, to your point, Cindy, whose creative potential continues to be missed just because they’re not measured on these tests. So I think there needs to be. If we were to really go down this road, we would have to probably put a lot of funding in a lot of effort to try and do everything we can to kind of COVID as much ground as we could. The other thing that I began to think about, and it kind of worried me a little bit, is that if you’re an affluent parent and you find out that your child is really good in music, for example, then you probably have the means to go and nurture that creative potential.

Matthew Worwood:
So you spoke a lot about creative potential, and I know it’s a passion of yours. There’s a point to which it has to then become realized. And so do affluent families now have even more of an advantage because now they know where to channel their energy in. And then you get these tough situations where, okay, I’ve got a lot of creative potential in this area, but I don’t have the means to develop it further. And so that concerns me a little bit more because it might actually widen the achievement gap. And what’s worse is we kind of might be in a situation to actually see a lot of creative potential that doesn’t get realized simply because of a number of societal factors. So that concern, I think, is genuine to consider as well. Cindy?

Cyndi Burnett:
Okay, Matt, I’m going to push back on you just a bit, because I think if we could identify students at five or six, especially those in the disadvantaged, financially disadvantaged families, that we could say, let’s find sponsorships from great organizations. And I know of a lot of great organizations, for example, jazz house music, which is located in New Jersey, they sponsor a lot of kids in New York City who come from financially disadvantaged areas to help flourish their musical careers. So if we had these students and we could identify them at five or six, we could say, let’s get them into these music programs and let’s help fund those programs so that these students have those same opportunities as the affluent families, that they can continue to flourish. Because we could identify it at an early age, I think, so often, especially in poor schools, in environments where they don’t have money to support, especially the arts, where they say, well, arts is not really as important, then we can find those students and put them into programs that will really help them thrive in those areas where they showcase their creative potential. So I think there’s so much potential there. So whereas you see it as a, watch out. I see it as, wow, look at how we could really take our money and put it to good use.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah, I will go away and think about that. I think you’ve raised a couple of good points. One, I think we probably already see this a little bit in sports, for example, when we identify someone that doesn’t necessarily have the means, usually within the community, if someone’s really talented in an area, we’re able to provide some funding. And in some ways, what I think you’re highlighting is opportunities to do more targeted funding.

Cyndi Burnett:
Right.

Matthew Worwood:
Which I find really fascinating. And then the other piece of it, realistically is that there probably, I say this very delicately, but there probably is certain areas that seem to be most popular areas of where we’re seeing creative potential. And therefore, maybe the government could look at finding ways to integrate, supporting that type of creative potential in school environments as well. And I think there’s obviously economic benefit to this as well. So yeah, I’ll go away and think about that. But I think it’s a really good point. As long as we don’t get into that scenario. Have you seen that movie divergent series where they kind of like, go up? There’s a divergent series.

Matthew Worwood:
Some people might be nodding their head now, but they basically take a test and they have to choose what kind of like, faction. I think it’s called faction. What faction they want to be part of. Are they going to be in the political faction? Are they going to be in the security faction? Are they going to be in the kind of agricultural faction? And there’s kind of like, I think a connection toward their talents and interests that dictate what faction they go into. And that’s then set for life. They actually leave their family and enter that faction. So we probably need to be careful we don’t end up in like a divergent series type situation. Yeah.

Matthew Worwood:
You’re only scored high for math. You can’t do science. You can’t do the arts. What are you talking about? But I don’t think we would get there.

Cyndi Burnett:
This also brings up principal L’s episode. I don’t know if you remember him talking about chess and how he brought together a group of students and they didn’t show any creative potential, but he just brought a group of students together and he really taught them chess and he really pushed them beyond their boundaries and they all were very successful. And it makes me think, is it about the teacher? Is it about the curriculum? Is it about that dedication and passion that the teachers bring to the table that can really help anyone flourish in their creativity? Or is it about having that special potential that we might identify? So you could argue either one, and I have to go away and think about this. And for those of you listening, we would love for you to join on this conversation on our LinkedIn profiles because this is something that we’re pondering. We’d love to know what you think.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah, please do. This was a fun one and we knew this was going to be a fun debrief because of Todd Lubart. If you have not checked out that episode, please check it out because, yes, two of them. There was also some great comments. Todd shared about his thoughts about generative AI and how it’s impacting divergent and convergent thinking, but we won’t relive that. In the interest of time, 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:
All right, Cindy, what’s our third takeaway?

Cyndi Burnett:
So Shafina Vora talked about her work with Lego and how she teaches using Lego. And Matt, I don’t know about you, but I thought this was just fun and a little bit obvious in some ways. Like, just bring in Lego, you could teach anything through Lego. And I was like, oh, yeah, you could teach anything through Lego. And what a fun idea that she has utilized in her classrooms. And it also made me think, could you do that with anything? So oftentimes on social media platforms, I see teachers posting like, I have 200 plates that someone just gifted to me. What could I do with them? Well, you could take those 200 plates and you could teach any concept through plates. So how could you force fit sort of 200 plates with learning about fractions or learning about some sort of history concept or some sort of science concept? So what if you could take really any materials, recyclable materials, or any sort of objects that you might have on hand and turn them into something that’s a learning experience for your students through what you’re teaching? So I was like, yes, I love the idea of Lego and what other things might we utilize inside the classroom to help teach any sort of concept that you want to get across to students in an engaging way?

Matthew Worwood:
Wow. Listen, I don’t think I’m going to follow up too much on that one because I’m going to throw in another one. But what I would say is a, I think you’re once again highlighting and to a certain extent, celebrating the tremendous creativity of the teaching profession. Hey, I got 100 free plates donated. Guess what I did with them? And you’re looking there like, wow, how do people come up with these ideas? Right? And we see that from teachers all the time. And then I also liked what you just referenced at the end is the idea of teachers looking around their classroom environment and maybe challenging themselves to perceive objects in their environment in different ways and then coming up with ideas on how they might utilize them differently. So if you’ve got. We see those tubs with, I don’t know, what, like 100, 200, 300 pencils, all different colors.

Matthew Worwood:
There’s probably a whole bunch of activities that actually someone could do with those pencils other than just using them as pencils. So I think that’s a really. Yeah. You want to build on that?

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes. I just have to tell you, this is a funny story, Matt. So I’m always looking for interesting objects to bring into my classroom or to bring into my professional development with teachers. And at Halloween time, they have that string that it’s like a web that you can expand, and it starts off as a ball, and you can just expand it like this, and it turns into this humongous web. And I was fascinated. I bought one of these for my daughter’s Halloween party, and as I started playing with it, I was like, every teacher needs one of these. So I actually went back the day after Halloween, and I bought 100 packs of this web that you can spread inside of your classroom. So for those of you listening, if any of you can email us and tell us why you would use a web like that, I will send you a bag, because I have a lot of those bags in my bin.

Matthew Worwood:
Are they the webs from Halloween, like the webs you see? Oh, that is. I like that. I mean, listen. No, God, no. Because I was going to share a story.

Cyndi Burnett:
No, God, tell us.

Matthew Worwood:
Well, no, I just remember being in your class at Buffalo State, and you bought in the. I mean, here we do. It’s kind of fun because we started off the show talking about fun, but I still remember you bringing those big balls of wool in, and you said, right, what we want, because it was the end of the course. And you said, right. What I want you to do is I want everyone to go and connect your wall to everyone and everything that has, I think, delivered a learning experience or you’ve connected with in some way. And of course, before you know it, you’re wrapping around the teachers and you’re wrapping around your fellow colleagues, and you’re trying to tape it to the wall. And when you was talking about web, I just remember this huge web. And, of course, the wall was all different colors, so we had all these different colors.

Matthew Worwood:
And I’ve stolen that activity and done it with my students as well. And it was just so much fun. And, of course, I know you’re making the creative thinking skill, making connections, but it was a fun activity. So I know I cut you off, but I had to throw that out because I’m listening to you. And I’m like, that is Cindy Burnett, right? Cindy Burnett just comes up and introduces these fun things. And quite often fun things are objects. So I think that ties really nicely with Mike Rucker’s episode as well. And it’s simple.

Matthew Worwood:
I think the activity was five minutes, and I still remember your course because of amazing.

Cyndi Burnett:
And Matt, that actually, that activity is what inspired those balls of web, because when you stretch them out, you think you can’t go any further, and you go further and you push them out and you think, that’s it. And they go, no, I can go even further. So again, for those of you listening, if you want one of these balls of yarn, message us at questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com. And send me your mailing address, and I will send you one of those bags of web.

Matthew Worwood:
All right, I like that. Yeah, I bet you some people got excited about you can go further. There’s a lot of learning from there. All right, I’m just going to throw out one more thing from Shafina’s episode, because you can’t help but recognize the incredible love and passion Shafina had, not just for the classroom environment, but for her work, for her focus. Right. And that love and passion took her outside the classroom, and she’s been taking her ideas, which is what got her recognized by Lego and has got her actually recognized by people outside the United kingdom. And it just really got me thinking about as educators, and obviously, timing, I want to emphasize, not every educator can do this. There’s timing in our lives.

Matthew Worwood:
If you’ve got young children, for example, you may be limited because, of course, this does require extra work outside the classroom. And that was something that I was very mindful of. But that love and passion went and fueled and motivated Shafina to take her work outside the classroom, and that’s really what has gone on to make a bigger difference. Right. Her ideas gone on to have an impact on other people. And I went away thinking about how much impact can we really have when we find opportunities to bring our ideas outside the classroom environment? It’s something I advocate for a lot in my work.

Cyndi Burnett:
Love it, Matt. Well, I think we need to wrap up, even though we probably could talk about this for another couple of hours.

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah, well, listen, we did say we’ve had some amazing guests, and I think we’ve got some three even more. Well, no, I want to say even more, but three just as equally amazing guests coming up on the show. So season eight is turning out to be, I think, one of my favorite episodes of the fueling creativity and education podcast. I don’t know about you.

Cyndi Burnett:
I totally agree, Matt. Now, before we go, Matt, we should tell them about our upcoming appearances because maybe they want to come visit us both virtually or in person. So first, Matt and I will be presenting in person at the learning and the brain conference, which is in New York City at the end of April. We will leave a link to that conference in our show notes, and you will find a lot of the people that we have spoken to on this podcast that will be at this conference. So come and meet us. Come and meet all of the scholars that we’ve been talking to and practitioners. So that’s the first one and the second one.

Matthew Worwood:
And I’ll tell you what, Cindy, let’s just throw something out. If you come over, we’ll bring some mugs. And if you come over and say, hey, Matt and Cindy, fueling creativity and education podcast. We’ll give you a mug.

Cyndi Burnett:
We’ll give you a mug. You got it. That sounds great. And the second place you can find us is virtually at the Torrance Festival of Ideas Conference, which again hosts another great group of creative and wonderful presenters, both on the research side and the practitioner side. It’s all about creative teaching and learning, and that’s held through the Torrant center of creativity. And Anna Abraham, who was a double espresso presenter on our podcast, she is leading that charge. And so we will be presenting at that conference as well. And that’s all virtual and free.

Cyndi Burnett:
So we will leave a link to both of those conferences in our show notes for today.

Matthew Worwood:
Excellent. All right, Cindy, I think that’s it. So let’s wrap it up. My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood.

Cyndi Burnett:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett. This episode was produced by Matthew Warwood and Cindy Burnett. Our podcast sponsor is curiosity to create, and our editor is Sam at.