Matthew Worwood:
Hello and welcome to our official listen and learn 2024 series. This is episode one, and as a reminder, episodes in this series are designed to be super short and to support professional learning for educators and emerging scholars over the summer months.

Cyndi Burnett:
In this listen and learn series, we are focused on classic literature from the field of creativity research, which we hope will not offer you just a historical perspective on the field, but also help you bridge some connections between this research and creative teaching and learning environments.

Matthew Worwood:
Now, if you are listening to our introductory episode, you will know that we have partnered with a resident scholar in Jimmy Wilson, who is an emerging scholar at the University of Connecticut. And Jimmy is going to be providing some additional commentary about this listen and learn series and sharing that commentary on our website, fuelingcreativitypodcast.com dot.

Cyndi Burnett:
And to make this extra fun, which Matt and I are all for, at the end of each episode, we will share a single letter which is part of a code word that you, our listeners, must guess before the end of August.

Matthew Worwood:
Now, we should also remind our listeners that we did share two letters in our introductory episode. So if you’re just joining us now, you will have to go back and listen to that introductory episode. And of course, if you guessed the code letter correctly, you need to email us with that code word and include a connection you’ve made with one of the classical articles we’ve discussed and your upcoming plans for the new school year. And we will select one winner who will receive a special fueling creativity in education podcast prize pack.

Cyndi Burnett:
So, Matt, let’s begin.

Matthew Worwood:
So in this episode, we bring you creativity by Joy Paul Guilford, and Cindy, I’ll let you to provide some a little bit more context about this article.

Cyndi Burnett:
So Matt, let’s set the stage. It’s 1950, nearly 75 years ago, and JP Guilford is the head of the American Psychological association. Now, Guilford is well known for his study of intelligence, having created the structure of the intellect model and also outlined the differences between convergent and divergent production. So he gets up in his inaugural address, and he states that the neglect of the subject of creativity by psychologists is appalling. And guess what happens as a result?

Matthew Worwood:
Well, we established the field of creativity. And I will also add that it was a very kind of interesting time for the United States because they just, they were kind of dealing with that Sputnik moment. And I’m sure everyone who’s most people listening to the podcast are familiar with Sputnik. But from an american perspective, after World War Two, there was kind of like this feeling that the US is in a great place, somewhat kind of superiority in terms of its economic and education standards. And suddenly there you are in the situation where, in essence, your nemesis has beaten you in terms of conquering the ability or capacity to get a rocket into space and put something into orbit. And there was a lot of focus towards education. How did this happen? How did we allow it to happen? So we’re going to be talking about the field of creativity, but I think it’s helpful to recognize that around this time, we started to see the emergence of the National Science foundation. We started to see some national education policy pass in the no defense, National Defense Education Act, I think it was called.

Matthew Worwood:
And within that, we started to see greater focus in science, technology and engineering, all with a gear, in essence, of trying to produce more creative engineers and scientists to kind of maintain and catch up with that space race. So a super duper interesting time. Now, Cindy, this was an article that I took the lead on, and I know you’ve got some quotes as well, but I think what’s really fascinating is that given the fact that it’s an address to kind of establish this in essence, kind of like, say we need to study creativity. There’s some really kind of interesting points to be said here. And to point out, first of all, within this article, there’s clearly an indication that we need to stop looking at creative potential within the idea of intelligence and IQ, and that positioning creativity or creative behavior is something that’s different. And there’s references to the fact that eminent creativity isn’t always correlated with high IQ or high intelligence. And I think that’s something that we continue to talk about today. In addition to that, what I saw within this article is at that time, this idea of creativity was primarily focused on this idea of eminent creativity.

Matthew Worwood:
But within this article, there’s also this suggestion that we should start thinking a little less around eminent, well, not less of eminent creativity, but basically providing more attention to kind of, you know, smaller levels of creativity, whether it becomes, I don’t want to kind of even use definitions of how we refer to it today, but basically anything that’s not eminent creative, maybe we should kind of, like, look at less eminent creativity. And also, of course, looking at education. And there’s a big part in this article that starts talking about education. Now, you’ve pulled some specific quotes from that as well. And within this article as well, there’s also a recognition they’re psychologists, so they’re obviously focused very much on the creative behavior of the individual. But I thought it was fascinating with a recognition of asking questions around the process that we have to identify what is the creative behaviors associated with the creative process. And then we also have a reference that even if you are able to identify creative behaviors in this article, there’s a reference that environmental conditions may also influence what behaviors emerge as well. And, of course, on the podcast, we’ve spoken a lot about environmental factors that can influence creativity as well.

Matthew Worwood:
And as the article kind of goes on, and I think this is really important, we start getting into some of the challenges with the state of education at the time. A lot of focus on the acquisition of knowledge, which might not necessarily always be conducive for creative environments. And there’s references to tests which I know you might talk about a little bit more in a moment. But in addition to that, Joy, Paul Guilford does say, listen, we need knowledge to be creative. So he’s not completely dismissing the need to go and acquire knowledge because he says that, you know, we don’t create in a vacuum. But I think the real big piece that I think will resonate with a lot of our listeners, and a big piece to what we talk about on this show is the idea of looking at creativity within the individual as their capacity to invent something. And so some of the classroom conditions doesn’t always set up students to go and engage in a process or an experience of inventing things. And so he talks a lot about different environments, I wouldn’t say talks a lot, but he talks a little bit about environments and, of course, starts moving into things like the art class.

Matthew Worwood:
And the art class potentially is a place where we have an expectation that people are meant to invent things. And just making some connections to this article and some of the conversations we have, I think there’s a lot around this idea of project based learning when you think about inventing things. And I think about Frank Lebuncker’s episode, because, of course, given what we’ve just shared, there was a focus on inventing things within the sciences as well, that inquiry based learning, engaging these kind of scientific inquiries to go and create something, whether it’s new knowledge or create a new invention. And I think today we celebrate a lot of student creativity by having these invention conventions or these kind of innovation fairs, all these science fairs. And so you really kind of see that coming through within this article. So that’s kind of like a summary that I took from it. There’s a lot of other kind of, like, I get in the weeds of some specific things, but I know you’ve also identified some specific quotes that you want to talk about.

Cyndi Burnett:
Well, first, Matt, let me just respond to a few things that you mentioned. You really covered some of the different P’s which we’re going to be covering in our next article, which is from Melrose. And I won’t mention what those P’s represent, but you did just mention them and they will be talked about in the next episode. So stay tuned. I think the interesting aspect that he talked about, Guilford talked about was around the behaviors and the inventiveness and thinking about those relationships between creative behaviors and inventing. And I think when we are creating, we are inventing. We’re inventing something new. We are creating something new.

Cyndi Burnett:
And it made me reflect upon the words invention and creativity. And I know we’ve had lots of conversations around the difference between creativity and entrepreneurship. I recall a conversation we had with Monica Kang that was really brilliant around the differentiation, but we haven’t really talked that much about the difference between creativity and inventing, because if you think about scientists, they are inventing new ideas, and when you think about artists, they are inventing new art even though they’re inventing something visual. So is there a difference between creativity and inventing? And that’s not something I’ve really reflected on as much creativity and innovation. So what are your thoughts on that?

Matthew Worwood:
Well, I mean, it’s a tough one, right? Because I deliberately kind of set up the four P’s because I know we’re going to cover that next. I think it is interesting, the fact that you’re seeing a suggestion of these four P’s, a recognition that it’s not just about identifying creative behaviors per se. And I think the reason why that is, of course, this is a psychologist, right? And they are focused on individual people. But I think it’s relevant to say that the invention piece begins to obviously start talking about creating something that’s tangible, a product. I think in essence, we’re going to get into that with Melrose. So I’m trying to hold back and I’m sharing too much, but I think that bringing it back to this article, there’s a lot of conversation around ideas as well, like how we come up with ideas. But I think going back to, I’m bouncing all over the place because I literally, I find myself wanting to go and start talking about the four P’s, which comes out afterwards. But what I would say is going back to the personality aspect in today’s current research, for me, the best connection I see a little bit with that personality and behaviors, of course, is that five factor analysis, which is those kind of like big five personality traits.

Matthew Worwood:
And we know that we’ve kind of, like, began to explore whether or not people who score might higher for one type of personality, they might be more likely to express creativity or be creative. But I think what’s important is even though you’ve got things like openness to experience and extroversion, for example, which has been correlated with creative ability and things like agreeableness. Right. And perhaps negative correlated. I’m not overly familiar with the science, but I do know that within this research, going back to something that you had also shared about domains and the sciences versus the arts, we know that some of these different personality factors can produce different results depending on the type of creativity and the domain to which they’re studying. So I think that is something to highlight that, yes, there’s this generic perspective of creativity, but then even within the different domains, people with different types of creative behavior perhaps might be more likely to feel more comfortable engaging in certain types of creativity when they’re in one domain over another.

Cyndi Burnett:
Nice. Now, I want to share some of the quotes that I found. Just made me smile. So the first quote that I found was, the child is under pressure to conform for the sake of the economy and for the sake of satisfying prescribed standards, which he said, you know, that’s why there is less creativity in students, because they have to conform to satisfying these prescribed standards. And, Matt, all I could think of was 75 years later, and we are not that far from that same spot where there’s all these standards that students have to meet so they don’t get to really nurture and develop their creativity because they’re trying to meet all of these standards. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Matthew Worwood:
Yeah. Well, first of all, I think you with pulling out the article and obviously how we’ve premised the period in time, there is a focus on the economy. And I think to this day, we continue to focus on the economy. We have lots of people who use the words, oh, we’re educating students for jobs that don’t exist yet. As soon as you’re talking about jobs and you’re talking about connecting the education space to preparing people to go and serve the economy and the economic needs, then I think to a certain extent, that does, dare I say it, suggests some type of talent pipeline. If there’s a talent pipeline, I think it naturally leads to what skills do our future workforce need? We need to be teaching those. Okay? If we’ve identified what skills they need, therefore, we need to be making sure and testing to make sure that they are meeting those standards. So to a certain extent, I think it’s natural, if we’re taking that perspective, that we’re going to kind of produce an education system like that.

Matthew Worwood:
Again, it always comes down to implementation. Just to kind of, like, throw something out there is that I think we’ve evolved, and I think we’ve definitely continued to be highly creative, and I think we’ve continued to produce highly creative people from the education system. And I think the education system continues to provide people with skills. But I think going to something Joseph Renzuli has said to us, what are all the people who don’t necessarily meet their creative potential? What might they be offering? And I think that when we think about a system not necessarily accommodating the creativity of everyone because it focuses too much on these standardized tests and perhaps places too much emphasis on particular subjects, then there might be a lot of different types of creativity that aren’t expressed simply because they’re not firmly connected to the economy.

Cyndi Burnett:
Yes. And I think when we look at education and we look at these standardized, I mean, we have to have something, things do have to be standardized, right? We have to have some sort of measurement of how students are doing. But I think oftentimes, especially, like, I look at my kids in school and high school and all of these standards that they have to meet, and I think, are we focusing on the wrong thing or are we focusing on the right thing? And it goes back to the conversation we’ve had over and over again about do we need an evolution or a revolution? And in some ways, I just keep going to revolution because I feel like we have these standards across the board in our math, science, writing, that students need to be excellent at all these different things. What is it that their strengths and how can we exploit their creative potential and maximize on that in whatever domain they choose? So that’s what I’ve been thinking about since I read the article. There’s one more I want to share, and I think it’s, it’s one we should close on. Matt, this one made me actually laugh out loud. So he writes, he talks about the remarkable new thinking machines that can take over men’s thinking. This was in 1950.

Cyndi Burnett:
I’m going to repeat that one more time. Remarkable new thinking machines that can take over men’s thinking, which obviously he was talking about computers. That was very, very early on, even before we were alive, obviously. And now we’re talking about these new machines taking over men’s thinking. But it’s, it’s not just computers. It’s generative AI. So it’s just interesting, the cyclical nature of it all and how we’re sort of in the same place once again. Thinking, is generative AI going to take over all people’s thinking, not just men’s? Just going to point that out?

Matthew Worwood:
No, no, no. We should actually point out, you know, is the 1950s. So I shared some of these kind of phrases around men in this article, and I know it’s in some of the other work that we’ve read as well. And I think it’s a really interesting point about computers because I never actually made that connection with the generative AI when I was reviewing it. But he certainly was talking about the fact that the education environment isn’t always conducive to thinking. But you’re right, there is during this period. We’ve got that happening as well. You know, after World War two, we really start seeing that emergence of digital technology.

Matthew Worwood:
I never made that connection to this article. There’s so many articles written in the 1950s that I’ve typically referenced when it comes to the disruption being caused by these digital technologies. But there it is, these information machines that they were also sometimes referenced to during this period. Yeah, great connection. Interesting.

Cyndi Burnett:
Well, Matt, I think that concludes our first listen and learn series, but we can’t go until we share this episode’s special letter. Are you ready?

Matthew Worwood:
We are. So let’s do our drum roll. R, for Romeo.

Cyndi Burnett:
Hmm. Red.

Matthew Worwood:
Reliable.

Cyndi Burnett:
Rest.

Matthew Worwood:
Relevant.

Cyndi Burnett:
Reckless. Oh, they’ve done it.

Matthew Worwood:
I was gonna say no, reckless is good. I was gonna say wrong, which I’m very aware that it begins with a w. It’s just how I roll. Let’s end it there. Let’s sign off. My name’s Doctor Matthew Worwood, and my.

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