Miriam Scott:
We want our students to feel heard and we want them to feel like they actually have agency. So when we work with the Creative Change Makers, the core program, we never tell them what issues they have to focus on. We never say this project is going to be about climate change or this project is going to be about feeding the hungry. But rather, we always start with allowing them to look at their communities and to decide what resonates most with them.

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 teach 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. We’re making our way now through season 10, but I’m going to get you to cast your mind back to season nine because we had the privilege of speaking with world renowned psychologist Dr. Robert Sternberg about transformational creativity, the kind of creativity that drives meaningful change and improves the world for not only the Creator, but also other people as well. So today we’re thrilled to kind of pick up that conversation again with a special guest who exemplifies this concept through their incredible work at Creative Visions.

Cyndi Burnett:
So today we welcome to the show Miriam Scott, who is the Director of Youth and Educator Engagement at Creative Visions in Malibu, California. She was born in Germany and moved to the United States during her teenage years. And while completing her MFA in Creative writing, Miriam stumbled upon teaching and what began as a means to pay the bills became a lifelong passion. In the last 20 years, she has taught a variety of English classes, including AP Literature and Creative writing, in both middle and high school classrooms. While teaching, she realized the importance of incorporating both visual and performing arts into the academic classrooms, which is a topic we have had numerous episodes on, as well as teaching students how to find their voices and their places in their communities and in the world at large. And I just want to share share with our listeners that one of the big reasons I met Miriam a few months ago, one of the reasons I wanted to bring her on the show today, is because her organization is providing lots of ways for teachers and students to get involved with creative activism. So, Miriam, I would like to Start there and welcome to the show. What is creative activism?

Miriam Scott:
So creative activism, or also we call it Creative Change making, is the idea that you can use creative expression, whether it is visual arts, performing arts, media, film, and even stem, to make a profound change in the world. We believe that through storytelling, you can change your community, you can change people’s minds, you can change people’s behaviors, and you can have an impact for the better in the world around you. We were founded on that principle by Kathy Eldon.

Cyndi Burnett:
So let’s talk about the Creative Change Makers program. How do we help our students become Creative Change Makers?

Miriam Scott:
So one of the things that was that’s really important to me and to everybody in our department is that we want our students to feel heard and we want them to feel like they actually have agency. So when we work with the Creative Change Makers, the core program, we never tell them what issues they have to focus on. We never say this project is going to be about climate change or this project is going to be about feeding the hungry. But rather, we always start with allowing them to look at their communities and to decide what resonates most with them. Most students are aware of what’s happening in the world around them. They know their communities. I live in la. I know the students I work with.

Miriam Scott:
They are very much aware of the biggest plights that our city is facing. So in order for them to feel like they matter, it is really important to us that they know that they get to pick the issues that resonate most with them. We don’t want to be prescriptive. If they feel passionate about something, then their projects that ensue from working with us will also have much more authenticity and they will have a larger impact on the world around them. And the other thing that we tell them too, in our core programming is that they get to pick their own form of creative expression. So if they are painters, then they will paint. If they are filmmakers, they will make a film. If they’re poets, then they write the poetry.

Miriam Scott:
And this is, again, really important to us that they feel that their mode of storytelling is being supported and that they get to tell the stories that matter to them most in the way that works best for them. And the combination, I strongly feel, of letting them choose their own issues, their own way of telling those stories is ultimately what creates a really impactful and authentic end product for them.

Matthew Worwood::
Now, Miriam, before we get too much in the weeds, I do want to get a better understanding. Tell us a little bit, because you’re talking about program, you’re Talking about working with students. So how does your program interact with schools and students? What does that look like in terms of a framework?

Miriam Scott:
Sure, absolutely. So I want to also make it very clear that our interaction with the students is limited to local schools. And we work with a handful of schools every single year. We’re a small but mighty team. What we try to do is have a variety of different age groups from different parts of the city. With each of them, the core framework is the same. We go in, we work with the students, usually once a week for nine weeks, and we introduce them to things like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we talk about the Sustainable Development Goals, and then we ask them to make a connection between the issues that matter to them. And then we walk them through the process of creating what we call a creative change makers project.

Miriam Scott:
With the goal at the end being that then they present these projects to the community at large in an ideal setting. We have had been able to bring classes to the Creative Visions office and invite network members from the Creative Visions network, as well as their family members to then present their projects. And that way the students get to feel like they’re being heard. And also what happens is that the network members and the family members can usually commit to support their projects. Right. So if they’re fundraising for something, they actually get to see the process of what fundraising looks like. Or if they’re asking someone to engage in a campaign, like a letter writing campaign, they then get to see those letters actually be written as they are there.

Matthew Worwood::
It sounds like there’s a lot of freedom of what projects you could select. But I’m just wondering, does the project itself dictate what artifact you create? It might be, I want to create a film, but actually it might be more effective to create a social media campaign that we’re really going to deliver systematic change. We also have to think a little bit about what is the best artifact to create in order to secure buy in for that that change. So does the project kind of encompass all of that strategy?

Miriam Scott:
So I’m going to use a fifth grade class I worked with last semester. What was really fascinating is that they at one point figured out the power of QR codes so we would have them. You know, there was a student who created this enormous painting of an eyeball in order to draw attention to food insecurity in parts of Africa. And then he had a QR code. And then the QR code actually then took his audience to a mini website he built. And that then allowed people to see organizations they could donate to in order to actually make a significant change in their lives. So he had figured out how to create that trail and his classmates more or less followed, not all of them, but quite a few. So it was interesting how to see the shift from traditional media to maybe more social media, but also using the Internet and so on.

Miriam Scott:
What we really strive for them to walk away with is this shouldn’t be a done and dusted thing. This shouldn’t be a. Well, I wrote my essay about the educational inequality of Belize. Someone actually wrote this essay last year. It should be a feeling of my issue continues to be an issue. So I want to keep working within that space. But also I now know what it means to have a voice and to make a difference. And Whether you raise $5 or you raise $5,000, you made a difference.

Miriam Scott:
You have the power to make the difference. So please continue. Like use that empowerment you just gain from this, from Creative Change Makers and Creative Visions, and please walk out into the world with it for the rest of your life knowing that you and your art expressions make a discernible difference in someone’s life.

Cyndi Burnett:
So Creative Change Makers, it’s been around for how many years?

Miriam Scott:
It’s been around for a good 15 years or so. So Creative Visions has been around for a little over 20. We were founded on the idea that creative expression can make a change. And initially, and it still is, we have a large portion of our program that supports the work of creative change makers. Grown ups, for lack of a better word of saying it right. So documentary filmmakers and writers and sculptors, dancers. We have over 300 fiscally sponsored projects that we support in all the arts from all around the world. It became evident to our founders at one point that this philosophy that creativity can make a change in the world needs to be brought to students as well.

Miriam Scott:
That this is something that just happens when you become an adult. All of a sudden the light comes on and that you know, you need to do this. So originally it was called Rocky World and Rocky world was about 15 years ago brought to classrooms. And it exists in classrooms on a limited basis, but it’s online, it’s available to any educator who wants to use it. And it is now called CV Changemakers because we felt that name aligned more with Creative Visions.

Matthew Worwood::
Well, what I really, really like about this work is that of course there’s probably many of our listeners that implement some type of project based learning environment. And this is why I was asking a little bit about the artifact, because it might be that you’ve got a class that’s focused on producing documentary film. It could be, you know, middle school perhaps is less relevant for social media, but it might be you’ve got a business class that’s focused on social media in high school. However, going back to our interview with Dr. Robert Sternberg and this idea of transformational creativity, what I really like about it is that through your work, you’re providing an opportunity, an avenue for students to hit the pause button and not necessarily say, all right, I’m really talented at making film. How am I going to make money? How am I going to, you know, get huge and famous from this talent, this passion that I have? And you’re actually saying, okay, you’re talented, you’re passionate, but why don’t you look within your community? How can that passion and talent that you have serve your community? And I think that in itself, I think, can lay such a wonderful foundation, not just for a future individual, but for a community itself, for a country, if we suddenly found ourselves focusing our passions and interests on how it can help other people and not so much about helping ourselves. And of course, I’m pretty much saying what Dr. Robert Sternberg says within transformational creativity.

Matthew Worwood::
So I can’t take credit for it, but I love it.

Miriam Scott:
And it seems like such an obvious idea, right? But you know, I live in L. A. There is creativity all around me, but there’s also a huge industry that’s a profit making industry around that. So being able to show the students that this can be channeled in another direction and it doesn’t have to be exclusively that, Right? You can still go on to be the next, you know, Chris Nolan, if you want to. But what if you also take what you have to do something really impactful on the side with it? Right? It’s really great to see the light go off for them. And I want to also say that I am not a filmmaker, right? I’m a writer, I’m not a sculptor, I don’t have. My talents don’t lie in those areas. So when we do work with the students, I can’t show them how to make a film.

Miriam Scott:
I can only show them, how do you use your passion and then do something with the talent you already have? We do bring in speakers. So sometimes or quite often, we will ask one of our filmmakers from our network to come in and work with the students, or we will ask a writer or a visual artist to give them some guidance. But our program is not an art program. It’s not arts education in that sense. It really is creative change, making we do at times. We’ve had classrooms before where we’ve had art teachers say, okay, can we kind of, you know, massage this a bit? I’m a film teacher. My students are just going to use film. And so, you know, we’ve been able to do that as well.

Miriam Scott:
And then we have the art, the film teaching expertise on, and then we still bring them our creative change making.

Cyndi Burnett:
Miriam. This is so exciting for me because I think back to my high school days, which was a long time ago, and I think, oh, it would just be amazing to be able to use expression to do something good for the world. So I love this work that you’re doing. I love the example of the student painting, and I would love to hear a few more examples from you about some projects that students have done.

Miriam Scott:
I just actually finished a session with an LAUSD school and it was 11th and 12th graders and it was an urban development class, in fact. And for that one, the teacher again asked me to hone it in a little bit. Those kids, students, they don’t like to be called kids anymore. I always tell the students were still allowed to use whatever form of expression they wanted to use, but because it’s an urban development class, they wanted to stick with the Sustainable Development Goals and identify parts within their own city where those SDGs hadn’t been met. So every single project actually was LA focused. And then they had to create something that would then shine a light on an issue they felt needed to be remedied within the city of la. So actually, I can show you guys a painting if you want. This was an 11th grader and she painted this, this.

Miriam Scott:
So she just.

Matthew Worwood::
Oh, wow.

Miriam Scott:
Yeah. So her idea was that she said, we don’t have enough plants in the city of LA and it’s contributing to our pollution. But she also said, I know where I live and there isn’t a lot of greenery, but every single one of us has the power within us to actually have plants in one way or another. And if you don’t have a backyard, you can still have plants in your home and you can still advocate for trees being planted on the sidewalks. And her thing was like, look how much nicer this is in comparison to the starkness over here. And so her presentation was all about, there’s aesthetic value in this, but there’s also it’s air quality. That even the smallest act of buying a plant and nurturing a plant can make a difference in our home.

Matthew Worwood::
And knowing that we’ve got some folks who are just listening to this podcast I’ll try and do my best to describe the painting. It was a painting where it had a road in the middle and then two identical buildings that look like apartment blocks either side. On one side, you can see that the student who created the picture has demonstrated how plants can be put on the outside of windows, how trees can be planted on the sidewalk, and how we can also have some greenery in the roof of the apartment building as well. And then on the other side, probably a little bit more of a typical apartment block, there is no green, there is. There is no plant outside. And so there we’ve got that expression of this is what we could be like versus this is what we are like. And to your point, that artifact then can initiate a conversation, and it could initiate further questions of, you know, like you just said, how might this improve air quality if suddenly all of the apartment blocks had these plants? So connecting that to what you said earlier about QR codes, someone could then put a QR code in that. I could go there and then perhaps learn more about plants, or I could go there and perhaps join a campaign or donate to, I don’t know, people being given a plant for their apartment building, you know, or maybe brackets that allow me to hang a plant outside my window.

Matthew Worwood::
But in that latter part, that seems what is what ties it all together, that actually you’re getting some kind of actionable item in order to make that change.

Miriam Scott:
Yeah, it’s really important that these projects, I don’t want them to exist in a bubble. I don’t want this to be the. You know, I had to fulfill the requirements for the class in order so I can get the grade that I want. These are living entities that continue to have impact even after that. We at Creative Visions really, really want the students to understand that you have a voice, what you say is heard, your stories matter, and you are having a tangible impact. And it is as important to change one person’s mind about an issue as it is to change the mind of a thousand people. Right? Because every single time you. You convince someone of your point of view, you’re making a difference.

Miriam Scott:
Right? So it’s important to us that they start to, if they haven’t yet, when they come to us, that they understand, their voices matter. It’s not just something pretty we talk about. Like, I was a teacher for a long time, and I remember talking to my students about creative writing and all this stuff. And art. Art is relevant, right. I think I was a writer. I remember being told, oh, you. My poetry isn’t that sweet.

Miriam Scott:
When I was in high school, right? And when I studied creative writing college and my family kind of went, don’t you want to think about law school? You know, that’s tangible, that could profit. You could actually make a good living. And art is not just fancy. Art actually has impact in the world. We remember the great artists for a reason, right? Everybody knows who Shakespeare was. Nobody knows who his accountant was, right? And there’s a reason for that, because art impacts people. It changes the way we feel, it changes the way we think, and it changes our behavior. There’s a reason we all know the words to Martin Luther King’s famous speech, because those words resonate.

Miriam Scott:
And to dismiss art as something that’s nice or fanciful or, you know, a hobby, I think is doing a huge disservice to the arts, but also the artist’s sense of humanity as a whole, because I think that’s where we rest, that is our humanity.

Matthew Worwood::
There’s something interesting here within creativity, though, because the way you describe that. Let’s just take the image that you shared, the painting, if it is just a standalone painting that’s exhibited without the context of what we’ve just discussed, without the go here to make a difference, does it potentially lose something? Does it not necessarily meet its potential to bringing about the change that you’ve set out to bring about?

Miriam Scott:
Here’s one of the important things about this when we work with the educators, because let’s put the educators into this equation as well, because obviously I’m not just walking into a classroom and there are no teachers there. So the educator buy in is fundamentally important in this. There’s a noticeable difference if I have the full support of the educator in the classroom, and if I don’t, and it has to be presented as an educationally valuable process as well, Right? So another big component of actually completing this project successfully is that the students are required to do the research, Right? So there is also the. Okay, so now you know your issue. You know what art you want to make. What are you trying to accomplish? Exactly. But you hear about climate change, okay, that’s big. What are you hoping to achieve? Like, which aspect of climate change do you want to address? You can’t just say, I care about, I want to stop pollution.

Miriam Scott:
Well, that’s not feasible. But you can convince someone to go to the beach on a Saturday and do a beach cleanup, right? So helping them narrow their scope, helping them learn how to research, and they. And they learn how to research, but again, making sure that they know how to do that, that they understand, that they know how to find the facts that support what they’re trying to do. So as with building any change making campaign, whether it’s creative or not, you have to have a foundation of knowledge. There’s. You have to understand what it is you’re trying to do. Are you trying to raise funds? Are you trying to galvanize a movement? Are you trying to just raise awareness? Which in and of itself is really important. We walk them through all of those kind of, you know, little details as well, the less fun parts, but are just as important.

Miriam Scott:
And then with each art project, there has to be a final reflection of some kind that also shows, this is what I did, this is what I think I accomplished, and this is what I’m still hoping to accomplish in the future. Something like a visual arts piece by itself, it is difficult to maybe understand what its purpose is, right? In a film or in a written piece, if you’re writing an essay that can stand by itself, probably if you do it well. But with a lot of the arts, we do have to also show them. Okay, as you’re presenting this now, in addition to the art, you have to present the data that supports your point of view. You have to explain what’s happening, you have to learn how to articulate your argument in addition to presenting. And you know, I have the painting, but I heard the presentation that went with it in class the other day. So I have more insights into what is meant by painting than you guys do at this moment.

Matthew Worwood:
I don’t know about you, Cindy, but there’s so many different creative thinking skills you’re having to engage. Miriam, you referenced the amount of research and knowledge that you’re generating just from a learning experience. And then the big thing that I love so much is, is that you are teaching the students that through this process, increasing their agency, that you are empowering them, that through their work they can make a difference in their community.

Miriam Scott:
That’s the goal. And you know, it’s really important because of course, most of them love creating the art. That’s the fun part. But also explaining to them, listen, all of this has to be supported by facts. You have to know that what you’re telling people is true. You have to do the research, because the minute you present anything in your art that’s not factually accurate, you lose your audience. If you have one inaccuracy in your presentation, in your film, in your poem, whatever it is, you lose the trust of your audience immediately. So we very much research and citing and all that stuff.

Cyndi Burnett:
Miriam, I had a chance to go through your websites that you sent me earlier. I would love for you to share just a little bit about what teachers might find on your website because you have some great resources that the teachers can download and are readily available for them to use on your website that are free.

Miriam Scott:
Absolutely. Thank you. So we have several websites because we have several programs and campaigns happening right now, and I haven’t touched upon all of it at this point. At the core is our CV Changemakers, which is what we’ve been talking about today. And on our website, when you go to the lessons, you will see three learning modules that pretty much walk you through the process of identifying causes. The Sustainable Development Goals, the Universal Declaration, Human Rights sample, change makers, filmmakers, writers, and so on who are working in that space. We have a lesson about our founder’s son, Dan Eldon, and whose legacy Creative Visions was actually established. And then also things like writing a mission statement and all that stuff, and fact finding.

Miriam Scott:
It’s all there. The lessons in and of themselves are not dependent on each other, so they can be pulled as needed. We also, in addition to that, have a program right now called Students Rebuild. We received a grant from the Bezos Family Foundation. Students Rebuild is a global campaign and it asks students of all ages to create art in response to a topic that we chose, which is peace. So our topic this year is Peace Within, Peace With Others and Peace in the World. And students are submitting art pieces in all genres. And with every piece of art that we are receiving, $5 is being donated to a partner organization around the world that supports the idea of peace.

Miriam Scott:
So that’s Students Rebuild. There are tons of learning activities there. And please do reach out to us if you’re interested in learning more about that. And then the third campaign we’re currently running is called Create Connect Care. And we are getting ready to launch our spring campaign, which will be our second iteration of the campaign. It is a youth mental health campaign. And I know that earlier I said that typically we don’t target one topic. For this one we did because we felt it was really, really important to address this issue.

Miriam Scott:
We have a mental health crisis in this country and actually abroad as well. And our students, our children are suffering. And the statistics support that. I believe it is. Four out of 10 students in the US has reported having suffered with mental health illnesses or issues on a personal level. And I shared this story and I shared this story with full permission from my son. I have a son who suffers from mental health illnesses and I know what it’s like to have someone you love, a child who is in need of help. And so that particular topic became really important to us.

Miriam Scott:
So we created Create Connect Care. And we asked students from around the US to submit pieces of art. They can pick their genre. And again, we went from digital art to visual to media arts to address the idea of mental health and well being. And we asked them to actually narrow their scope and either talk about the importance of connection care, reducing the stigma, or just raising awareness about what it means to have mental health illnesses or to know somebody or even just awareness of what they see within the community around them. And we launched the campaign last fall. We got submissions from all across the US we hit every state. We got two from Canada, one from India.

Miriam Scott:
So we can say we’re global, which is exciting. We received over 750 submissions in our first go around. And I can say that we received art pieces that were extraordinary in skill and talent that blew our minds. But we also received stick figure drawings, but every single one of them, or most of them, the accompanying reflections were so candid and so open. And these students shared their stories. And they shared their stories about how someone they loved maybe was suffering or they shared their own stories. They shared stories about how they’re being affected by social media or how, you know, body dysmorphia was one that was covered a lot across the board. The submissions we got were just, I’m not exaggerating, I would say there were days when I had, when I was crying when I was reading these things.

Miriam Scott:
So we realized that providing the connection for these students, ages 11 through 18, to just talk about this issue was really important. And Create Connect Care to me is just this incredible example of how even just the act of creation can be so important. I believe it was somewhere around 92% of the students I need to check to make sure that’s the right number. They all said that while they were doing it, the emotions they were feeling were positive ones. They felt relief or they felt, you know, joy, or they felt comfort or warmth. So the act itself actually was therapeutic to them, which I thought was so significant.

Matthew Worwood::
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 non profit 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. So, Miriam, I think I could listen to these projects stories all day long because they just warm my heart and make me grateful for people like you who are doing work like this because I think it’s so important. Now, before we leave, I do want to ask you our final question, which is a new final question in season 10. And the question is, can you share with us your most creative educational experience? It could be formal or informal. It could be something you were a student or something that you might have taught. But could you share your most creative educational experience with us?

Miriam Scott:
So I was raised by a single mom who had very little resources. We were financially insecure for most of my childhood. My mother, as much as she struggled, she loved the arts. And my entire childhood, I remember being exposed to music, to literature, and to art, and that was fundamentally important to her. She always encouraged that. So, you know, I remember being in her kitchen, the radio was always playing. I mean, she literally would dance in the kitchen and sing along. And she instilled that love for music in my sister.

Miriam Scott:
And when she was able to, she took us to the theater. It meant so much to her. And when she was able to, she was like, no, we’re going to the museum this weekend. So those are some of my fondest memories of my mother. And I realized that it was just. She never said, really, you know, art matters, but it was just the exposure of it and the existence of it in our lives from an early time that made my sister and me realize that art mattered. And that art was. It’s significant, right? It lifted us at times when we felt overwhelmed.

Miriam Scott:
And I know she felt. I know my mother felt overwhelmed a lot. She must have, like, looking back on this now, she was struggling to raise daughters on her own in a, you know, literally a one bedroom apartment. But subconsciously, she filtered art into our lives. And creative expression and art instruction is important, but exposure, exposure is also really important. Just letting kids live within the creative realm so they can feel it and live it, I think that that made all the difference for me. Did I answer the question?

Matthew Worwood::
You did. You did. And, you know, bringing in family, particularly mothers, is not actually something we probably would have thought about when we was asking this question. But what you’re reminding us, of course, is that the informal learning environment, that home environment, is such an important part of the growth and development of any child. Unfortunately, time is a little bit tight, so we do have to stop here. But we will absolutely connect to a number of the resources that you referenced, and we wish you all the best on your endeavors to continue to facilitate transformational creativity at an early age. If you’re an educator listening and you do some project based learning, or you know, another educator who does project based learning, perhaps interested in the SDG standards, this might be an episode to consider sharing with them. Because hopefully this episode could inspire them in the way that Cindy and I have been inspired.

Matthew Worwood::
My name is Dr. Matthew Worwood.

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