Carrington Faulk [00:00:00]:
A lot of what creative leadership I know is for me or where I’m coming from is the thinking before the execution and when the execution is going on, like asking the right questions, asking the right follow up questions, and bringing people along in on the journey.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:16]:
Hello everyone. My name is Dr. Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:19]:
And my name is Dr. Matthew Werwood.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:21]:
This is the fueling creativity and education.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:24]:
Podcast left on this show. We’ll be talking about creativity topics and how they apply to the field of education.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:30]:
We’ll be speaking with scholars, educators and resident experts about their work, challenges they face, and digging deeper into new and varying perspectives of creativity.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:40]:
All with the goal to help fuel a more rich and informed discussion that provides teachers and parents with knowledge they can use at home or in the classroom.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:49]:
So let’s begin today. We welcome to the show Carrington FoC Carrington is a high school marketing teacher and Google for Education certified trainer who enjoys educating learners of all ages on how to master subjects in the realm of creativity, technology, leadership, marketing and innovation. He is the founder of Skill Tivity, an online education platform that seeks to advance creative skills. Carrington is a musician and we’ll provide the link below because he’s fabulous. He’s the owner of Micah Three, a video branding agency, and he’s the husband and father to his wife and four children. And a new addition that just came along, a wonderful daughter. So welcome to the show, Carrington.

Carrington Faulk [00:01:35]:
Thank you. Thank you. Great to be here.

Cyndi Burnett [00:01:38]:
So let’s start with your work in the classroom. So tell us about some of the things that you have your students in your course. Creating, publishing, designing within your classroom.

Carrington Faulk [00:01:48]:
One of the big things I want them to do is be able to create. I give them the space to create a lot of things we’re doing. I know in my classroom we use a lot of Adobe products, Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe audition, illustrator. And so a lot of that is just creating things that they’ll need, like for example, a resume or creating projects or like for a lot of them, I taught them how to edit videos and just be able to communicate on that level. So we’re really doing a lot around that. I’m telling you, they’re creating some really.

Matthew Worwood [00:02:26]:
Great things just to follow up to this video piece. I think certainly on the show we’ve spoken a lot about project based learning environments and just the act of creating and making. And of course, there’s certain courses or classrooms that are more fitting to creating and making than others. What I’m interested is because of your background and your reference, just then to video. What is it about video that makes it so popular in technology classrooms?

Carrington Faulk [00:02:54]:
Well, the thing about video is that they’re able to capture what they’re feeling, what they’re saying, and then able to broadcast it to the world. I know, like my students in general, they can’t go a minute without YouTube. That’s just the way they communicate with each other. And so for them to be able to create a video that they created, that they’re able to put their content, their ideas into, for people to be able to like and share their content and comment on it, that, to me, is their connection with the outside world. I think really just them being older and being more mature, maybe even being an adult, for people to just listen to them. A lot of my students, they just came from a pandemic where they were literally in their houses by themselves, and then now they are able to edit video and have a platform to share their ideas and how they’re feeling. It’s really kind of sometimes with some students, it helps with their social emotional health because they may not have a lot of people listening to them per se in their homes or even at school, but online, they’re able to build communities and have conversations with people.

Matthew Worwood [00:04:08]:
And there was something else you said in there as well, this idea of it, in essence, being their medium. And some of us now could kind of slightly fall into the YouTube generation, but it’s difficult now to think of life before YouTube. YouTube has changed how we consume information. It’s not primarily through the textbook anymore. And so there are classes where we learn to read and we learn to write and we learn to express ourselves on the page. But I think you’re right. I think the idea of creating video is a new medium for us as individuals to express ourselves. However, because using your words, it’s their medium, their kind of, like, connection with how they interact and engage with information.

Matthew Worwood [00:04:51]:
In the real world, perhaps the barriers are a little bit lower, right. Because they’ve got the mobile devices, they’ve got the kind of visual vocabulary. And YouTube has said, hey, you don’t have to produce a video that’s 100 million dollar blockbuster hit quality.

Carrington Faulk [00:05:05]:
Right, right. The barrier for entry is lower. It’s also lower in order to create the videos as well. It used to be that you had to, even though I teach them how to edit on Adobe Premiere Pro, which is you can edit Hollywood movies on that. They’re also creating videos on TikTok and things such as that, where to you or I or other people, it may be throwaway content to them. They’re getting noticed all across the world with either dances or anything that they’re doing on that video. It’s something that really not only connects them to the world, but I hate to say it kind of for some people, it digs deep into their self worth, which I don’t agree with, but people do think that they’re worth more if more people are liking it and engaging in their content. But I just think it’s definitely a tool that they can use when they go out into the workforce for sure.

Cyndi Burnett [00:06:02]:
So what do you consider the benefits of creating these sorts of videos, and what are the watchouts, especially for parents? I know Matt and I are both parents as well, and we’re worried about our children and our students creating content, putting content out there that might be inappropriate. So what are some of the benefits and what are some of the watch outs?

Carrington Faulk [00:06:21]:
One of the big watch outs is definitely, I don’t know if it’s still a saying, but people used to say when someone takes a picture of you, it’s like taking a piece of your soul. Well, video is like thousands upon thousands of pictures of yourself. And you’re literally not only putting a video of yourself online where everybody can see it, but it’s also a lot of other metadata, a lot of other location based things that when you do post that, one thing to watch out for is people will, if they want to reach out and meet you, try to touch you, they can actually kind of find you. That’s happened to some of my students. Now, of course, the good things about this is some people are getting noticed that would never have got noticed. I actually have a guy who’s a football player. He’s actually got more vision one and division two scholarship offers because he has posted content of his highlights online. And not only his highlights, just video of him expressing himself, of who he is as a player, as a person.

Carrington Faulk [00:07:29]:
And it’s really gotten more coaches to come and see him. So it’s kind of like everything. Look at going to the gym. You can overdo that, right? So there’s a good and a bad side of almost everything.

Matthew Worwood [00:07:42]:
You know what’s interesting? To connect this back to creativity, there’s a few things to pick up on this one. Agents, sports agents, sometimes when they’re looking at taking on certain clients, will kind of look at how active their client is. This athlete is on social media, because if they’ve got a lot of followers on social media, then obviously there’s probably opportunities to go and secure contracts with brands and therefore make some money if they become super successful, number one. But two, there’s also this idea of advocating for yourself as well. I think in Jonathan Plucker’s episode back in season two, we spoke a little bit or touched on this idea of having a mentor or somebody that’s in a position to kind of advocate for you, your creative work, your creative endeavors. But on social media, to a certain extent, we are having to learn how to promote our own content. We’re all learning how to produce content. We’re in a culture where we’re encouraged to create content, to share content, but there’s almost like that extra level where you’re actually able to successfully market your content as well.

Matthew Worwood [00:08:48]:
And so you’ve said some students seem to do relatively well with their videos, whereas others don’t. Do you think there’s that ability to, or maybe comfort in marketing yourself that is playing into this a little bit?

Carrington Faulk [00:09:03]:
Yes. I kind of look at it almost like I know that we were talking about parenting and talking about our kids. There’s some parents that will post everything about their kids online, and then there’s some that won’t post anything. There’s some students are the same way. Some will post everything and some won’t. And of course there’s everybody in between. But I do think you actually don’t have to post everything. I would say the difference between the students that are really successful and the ones that may not try or aren’t is the strategy, right? Because to be honest with you, a lot of my students actually delete a lot of their posts and they curate their content.

Carrington Faulk [00:09:45]:
That’s one of the biggest things that I’ve seen from students is it’s not just content, just releasing it. It’s let’s curate the best pictures, the best video, the best post that really say who I am. And then some students are just in, I would say, higher attention areas such as sports, or they may be in other things such that you get more eyeballs on them. And of course, we don’t have to get into the cool kids and jocks and whoever in the schools and things like that, but a lot of that stuff is not really real, as you know. But I do think the strategy is real and the students with the best strategy online and the best positioning win.

Matthew Worwood [00:10:35]:
And I think teachers listening to this, the reason why this is important is that more and more of our students already have YouTube channels or TikTok channels that they are managing or curating for, and they actually have a career aspiration of being a content producer by themselves as opposed to going and working at NBC Sports or ESPN. And so I think it’s really, really important for K through twelve educators to realize that this is a real thing now, right? It’s their medium. There are people making money from it. There are people who can go and pursue careers with it. And so facilitating creativity in this space is something that I think is really important and actually something that does belong and should be part of a K through twelve education system.

Carrington Faulk [00:11:21]:
It’s extremely important. It’s definitely extremely important. And it’s funny because I’ve never seen this many students want to be youtubers in my life than they do right now. But the big thing I try to tell them is it’s not what’s the popular platform now. I tell them to think about what’s going to be popular later and what’s up and coming because that’s something to where it’s kind of like when you think about Justin Bieber, right? He became big on YouTube. He was like one of the first, I want to say the first, but he became really big through YouTube. But I would say now it’s way tougher because it’s just so many people on YouTube now. If there’s another platform that comes up that they just attach to and really start creating content, I think that’s the better way to go.

Cyndi Burnett [00:12:10]:
I love the futuristic thinking around that Carrington, that we have to start thinking not just about what’s popular now, but what’s popular in the future. So Carrington, can you tell us what your thoughts are on creative leadership in education?

Carrington Faulk [00:12:26]:
Creative leadership is something I’m really keen on, especially just kind of relating it to. I know another podcast you guys have about asking questions. I really believe that that’s a lot of what creativity, creative exploration is, is really asking questions. I personally believe we don’t ask enough questions. And when you’re thinking about creativity, I think a lot of people want to start thinking about execution all the time or first, right? So we think of these platforms such as Photoshop or illustrator or even creating a video. And people want to, we need a video, they want to create a video. But we haven’t even thought about what we’re going to create yet. We haven’t asked enough questions about what should we create.

Carrington Faulk [00:13:13]:
And so a lot of what creative leadership I know is for me or where I’m coming from is the thinking before the execution and when the execution is going on, like asking the right questions, asking the right follow up questions and bringing people along in on the journey. And so that’s really what creative leadership is for me, because it really leads us to a strategic execution that we know that’s going to hit the target we want later.

Cyndi Burnett [00:13:40]:
So do you see the students being creative leaders? Do you see the teacher being the creative leader? Do you see everyone as a creative leader?

Carrington Faulk [00:13:48]:
I see creative leadership as positionless. Students are creative leaders, for sure. I’ve seen a lot of creative leaders in the classroom, the students. But I do believe that teachers need to have creative leadership elements or be creative leaders, because all the students I have now were born with a smartphone out the womb. They had a smartphone literally in their hands. Not literally, but a lot of the stuff is like, I remember I had a teacher saying, I don’t even know how to do a TikTok, right? But the students are, like, literally doing it every day. Right. And that’s just one example.

Carrington Faulk [00:14:29]:
If we aren’t being creative leaders in the classroom, then even we will get left behind as educators.

Matthew Worwood [00:14:38]:
First of all, that’s a really powerful statement at the end there with this idea of we have to be creative leaders as well, otherwise we’re going to get left behind. And I think just going back to what you had said earlier on in the show about this idea of kind of like changing platforms, merging platforms, making sure that we are, to a certain extent, we don’t have to know everything about it, but we need to be a little bit sensitive to the fact that the most popular platforms that exist outside our classroom or the most popular way of doing something when it comes to creating and making. For example, video, might be emerging and modifying and changing and a little different outside the classroom to how we did it. And we need to kind of keep up with it as well. But I want to come back to something you said that I think is really relevant. You’ve used the word strategy a couple of times, and from what I’m picking up is you’re making a connection to the fact that asking questions, asking the right questions, is part of the strategy that goes up front. And it kind of makes me think about this constant battle that many of us experience in education. Is the technology the tool per se, that is driving change, or is it the educator that’s driving the change, for example? And what I’m kind of really thinking is that whenever we go and embark on a journey of creating and making something with technology, I think if we have those questions up front or making sure those questions are at least part of that process, there’s an element of creative leadership we’re leading the creativity as opposed to the technology driving all of the decisions that we’re making.

Carrington Faulk [00:16:12]:
Well, I will say this. I’ll hear this with people I work with or in my district, they’ll be like, let’s make a TikTok. But why are we making a TikTok? What are the questions? We need to ask more questions around that, because maybe we need to not make a TikTok. Maybe it’s something else that we need to make. Right. And I think also, people don’t break down just the term of what technology means. Right. And so technology is literally about creating something new.

Carrington Faulk [00:16:43]:
Right. But what people don’t think about is it’s not just a digital thing that you’re creating with technology or something digital or platform you’re using. It could be a way of thinking that’s a new technology. Right. It could be a way of a process that someone just creates and is being really innovative with. And so working with educators, being a Google for education certified trainer and just kind of doing a lot of speaking and professional development is, I believe that that’s the main thing they want to leave with apps or something that they can use later. Right. But as you say, what’s the use of creating something on that platform if you haven’t went through the thought process of it and seeing, do you even really need to use this? So I think that that’s something not just educators do, but I think since we all do it, we want to use the shining new thing.

Carrington Faulk [00:17:42]:
But is it good for us? You don’t know until you ask the question.

Cyndi Burnett [00:17:46]:
I think that also builds on the conversation we had with David Cropley last season around ethics. So not only why are we creating this, but what are the implications of us creating this? So if you look at something like TikTok and why are we creating this? What’s going to happen when this goes out to the world? How are people going to react with it? How are people going to interact with it? And is that a good thing? And is there anything that we’re missing around actually creating it?

Carrington Faulk [00:18:15]:
Exactly.

Matthew Worwood [00:18:17]:
And also it connects back to what you said about the data. The kids are making these videos, right? So let’s go and teach them how to ask these questions, and let’s teach them how to be safe and more sensitive to the content that they’re putting out there. But then also what that content is saying about them, what data are they putting out there about themselves? I mean, all of it goes hand in hand, but it also is why we need an educator in the classroom, facilitating this experience, encouraging them to ask the questions that you’re talking about Carrington right.

Carrington Faulk [00:18:48]:
And that’s exactly right.

Cyndi Burnett [00:18:50]:
And I think that also builds on not only the creativity skills, but the critical thinking skills, which I don’t think we talk enough about on the show. Actually, Matt, I was thinking about that today, that we are obviously huge advocates for creative thinking, but there is that balance between creative and critical thinking. And we have to have students not only when they’re creating things, that’s wonderful, but also reflecting on the implications of what they’ve created.

Carrington Faulk [00:19:15]:
Right. And that’s just big. I do notice that with everybody creating things and posting things online, there’s not a lot of reflection on what this is doing, and not only the other people, but also there may be some students thinking about this, but I don’t think they do think a lot about what are people thinking about what they posted, what are people actually not only taking from it, but how they’re being perceived beyond just getting a like from their friends or some other people in their social circles, but maybe even just people online, how are they being perceived? And the fact that it’s not going to go away. It’s going to be there forever.

Matthew Worwood [00:20:02]:
Pretty Carrington. Cindy and I have done an episode where we kind of reflected on all of our past guests running from kind of like season one to halfway through season three. And we identified a few different themes that emerged. And one of them is the creative educator. And one of the items or attributes that we identified within the creative educator, which multiple people spoke about, was the importance and need for us, teachers, instructors, professors, faculty, to make sure we’re engaging in our own creativity outside of the classroom environment. And there’s lots of different examples where we’ve spoken about that. But we can’t let you leave the show without talking about your work as a musician for the same reason. Right.

Matthew Worwood [00:20:48]:
So if you could talk a little bit about your work as a musician, but more importantly, how is it influencing your work as an educator? How’s that outside creativity, your personal creativity finding its way and infusing itself into the curriculum?

Carrington Faulk [00:21:03]:
The first thing is that it connects with my students. I have musicians in my class or people that want to be musicians. They really connect with it. They’ll find my stuff online and they’ll use it as a connection piece with me. It’s really helped. I know me in the classroom and with students because it’s that common bond. The other thing, too is I play the piano, doing like, improv in the classroom, and so kind of like on the piano, you do have to pull out that muscle a lot of the times. And then also in regards to music as a producer, a lot of times I’m using more so systems to really bring everything together in creating an album or creating a song, a lot of times that’s what I do.

Carrington Faulk [00:21:59]:
In regards to instruction, you’re creating systems for students, for learning. And so those are just different things that kind of help in the classroom. Plus, just to be honest with you, I’ve trained my ears throughout the years. And so a lot of that is just taken in. And we talk about student engagement, but a lot of times we don’t talk about teacher engagement because a lot of times I’m being engaged by what’s happening in the classroom and just being able to hear and see. And so those are just a few that kind of connect. And I’m actually working on a new album right now. It’s called restoration power.

Carrington Faulk [00:22:37]:
Hopefully I’m going to put it on my website along with my other music when I release it soon.

Cyndi Burnett [00:22:44]:
Fantastic. Thank you so much. Well, Carrington, we’re running out of time, but we end every interview with this question. What three tips would you give to educators who want to bring creative thinking into the classroom?

Carrington Faulk [00:22:57]:
Well, the first one I’ll say is I kind of talked about it earlier. We just need to all ask more questions. It’s usually those things that we’ve kind of just let go to the wayside and say it’s always been that way that we’re not asking questions about it. Does need creativity, needs innovation, because creativity leads to innovation. The second thing I want to talk about is the fourth industrial revolution. I know it’s a little bit different than what we’ve been talking about, but my students and even all of us here today, we’re in this workforce that AI automation is literally changing the landscape of how we work every day. And so students need to realize this and know that the jobs we see today may not be the jobs we have tomorrow or even the opportunities tomorrow. We might get automated by robots.

Carrington Faulk [00:23:49]:
I know it sounds like Doomsday, but it’s true. It really is true. The third thing I want to talk about is I really believe that each district that I guess has the funding should have a chief creative officer. It should be someone that really looks to inject creativity into the district as a whole and really seek to ask these questions, disrupting some things that need to be disrupted and seeking innovation in the district. And I definitely believe each district that can, should have a chief creative officer.

Matthew Worwood [00:24:22]:
All right, well, Carrington, this has been a great episode, and I think it’s probably our first episode on this just idea of kind of content production, whatever that content might be. So thank you so much for sharing your experience in the classroom. So that kind of concludes this episode of the fueling creativity and education podcast. If you’ve got any questions about this episode, past episodes, or ideas for future episodes, remember, you can reach out to us using the email address. Questions@fuelingcreativitypodcast.com my name is Dr. Matthew Werwood.

Cyndi Burnett [00:24:53]:
And my name is Dr. Cindy Burnett. This podcast was produced by creativity and education and in partnership shipwithadsforcreativity.com. Our editor is Sina Isa Sade.