Alfredo Bautista [00:00:00]:
They would acknowledge, yes, we are making progress. Schools are slowly learning. Teachers are slowly improving and getting more and more pedagogical ideas, but there’s still a lot of work to do.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:11]:
Hello, everyone. My name is Doctor Cindy Burnett.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:14]:
And my name is Doctor Matthew Werwood.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:16]:
This is the fueling Creativity in Education podcast.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:20]:
On this show, we’ll be talking about creativity topics and how they apply to the field of education.

Cyndi Burnett [00:00:25]:
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 or with the.

Matthew Worwood [00:00:36]:
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 [00:00:44]:
So let’s begin today. We welcome to the show Alfredo Bautista, who is an associate professor and associate head of the department of Early Childhood Education at the Education University of Hong Kong. He is also co director for the center for educational and developmental sciences. Alfredo leads early childhood education projects focusing on curriculum, pedagogy, teacher education and professional development, and teaches courses for pre and in service kindergarten teachers around music and arts education, curriculum design, and one of our favorite things, play. So welcome to the show, Alfredo.

Alfredo Bautista [00:01:23]:
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

Cyndi Burnett [00:01:25]:
So we would love to begin by asking you to share with us what you think of the current state of education in Hong Kong and how is creativity currently perceived in your educational system?

Alfredo Bautista [00:01:37]:
That’s a really good question to start. Difficult question, I suppose so. I think Hong Kong is well known as other societies here in Asia for having a very, a pretty competitive and academically oriented kind of education system, right. So society here really values education very much because education is really, you know, having a good education is the way really to have a good life in the future and make good salary and, you know, make progress in the socioeconomic ladder. And this is why society gives a lot of importance to education in the more academic, academically, in the more academic sense of the understanding of education, which sometimes goes a little bit to the detriment of creativity in the sense that I would say in general, at least in the Hong Kong society and in other asian societies, non academic areas like the arts, physical education, music, and these kind of things that normally are quite associated to creativity are not really valued sometimes. I would say that probably, I mean, creativity is one of the main priorities in the education system here, although it is part of the curriculum, but it is not considered or regard it as one of the main priorities, I would.

Matthew Worwood [00:03:12]:
Say, and could I assume that the main priorities are similar to what we would see in some of the western curriculum, which is science, technology, engineering and math. The kind of skills that we associate with the workforce and maintaining that economic growth.

Alfredo Bautista [00:03:29]:
Exactly. Math, language, science, the traditional academic areas that are seen as important in the west is exactly what is seen as important here as well. I would say probably more in the sense that here, I mean, these systems are actually well known for performing actually very, very well in academic domains. One of the reasons is like schools are really good, teachers are really good. But also another reason is that pretty much everybody sends their children to tuition centers after school. They send children to private classes. I mean, here is known as the shadow education system. There’s a lot of shadow education in the sense of after school.

Alfredo Bautista [00:04:12]:
There is a lot going on, and pretty much every child has a tutor or several tutors supporting in those areas. So, yes, to answer your question, Matthew is exactly the same.

Matthew Worwood [00:04:23]:
I’m also curious here, at least in the United States, you are seeing growing calls within industry. And I’m not sure, actually, Cindy, if I would say that they’re growing. They’ve always been there for students to come out of college with skills such as creativity and problem solving and the capacity to collaborate in teams to design new solutions to problems. So there’s like this interesting paradox, because you do hear that conversation, that industry wants that, but it doesn’t seem to be prioritized within the education system. Is that the same in Hong Kong as well? Do you have this discussion going on in industry where they’re saying we need more problem solvers, we need more people that can think critical creatively?

Alfredo Bautista [00:05:07]:
I would say it’s part of the educational discourse. You do find the idea of creativity in the curriculum, the official curriculum frameworks that are written by, in this case, by the, you know, the Hong Kong Education Bureau, sort of the educational administrations do talk about creativity, problem solving, how important it is for children to collaborate, etcetera. You do see those ideas there. I’m not really sure to what extent that is being implemented in the classroom. I am more familiar with the early childhood education system, in particular with kindergartens, and I can talk a little bit more about that later if you guys want. I’m not so familiar with the mainstream education system, primary, secondary, etcetera. But I am sure that the idea of creativity, problem solving, collaboration, etcetera, all of those ideas are part in the curriculum. But then how those ideas are implemented in class, that’s a different story, right? So, I mean, at least it’s a first step that it is included as part of the formal written curriculum.

Alfredo Bautista [00:06:13]:
And I guess it’s a matter of changing and adjusting and developing strategies for educators and society, also changing and valuing more and more those skills. Right. My impression, at least based on in the early childhood system, is that it is actually not quite being implemented in the classroom very strongly, at least across Hong Kong.

Cyndi Burnett [00:06:36]:
So you mentioned your early childhood work with creativity in Hong Kong kindergarteners. Can you tell us a bit more about that research and what you discovered?

Alfredo Bautista [00:06:46]:
Yes, of course. I have been in Hong Kong about four years now. And I mean, part of my interest is in the arts, right? So I’m interested in music education, arts education, and I also teach courses for teachers, for pre service, especially for pre service teachers in the area. So one of the things that when I, when I arrived here and started my job here, I felt the need to really try to understand how educators and stakeholders in preschool education, how they do understand, how they understand the notion of creativity themselves. Because based on many conversations in my own classroom with my students, I always got the impression that the way I understand creativity as a western person, I’m originally from Spain, so the way I understand creativity based on the western literature is really quite different compared to the way they understand creativity here. So the basic core ideas of the notion of creativity that I had in mind when I came here then in my interaction with my students is like, but that’s when, when they were talking with me, right? So it was like, but that’s not quite what I understand. Right. So I was noticing there’s some misunderstandings in what we understand by creativity, right.

Alfredo Bautista [00:08:06]:
So part of my work, to answer your question has been precisely to try to define how is creativity understood here based on preschool teachers, principals, teacher educators, we have been also talking and analyzing some documents written in this case by sort of official assessors of the quality of preschool education. So we have been trying to bring together to understand how the notion of creativity is understood here. Of course, I have been in classrooms a lot, and I have been for different projects and observing, doing more observational work of the kind of work that teachers do. But my main first project here has been the goal has been to try to understand the understanding of creativity and then comparing similarities and differences with the western understanding, right. So we are still in the process, right. Of analyzing and analyzing data. We have done a lot of interviews. We are in the process of also doing quite a bit of survey work, also documentary analysis.

Alfredo Bautista [00:09:14]:
So I can share a few of the findings, right. This relates also to the doctoral dissertation of one of my students. But one interesting finding that we have is that stakeholders here are able to value the importance of many sort of key core notions of creativity. The idea of exploration, the idea of having freedom. We are talking about. I’m talking all the time, by the way, about creativity in the arts, by the way, because interestingly, the curriculum here in Hong Kong for kindergartens, they mix creativity in the art and the arts. Actually, the learning area is called arts and creativity. So they put it together, which in my view, is already quite interesting already, right.

Alfredo Bautista [00:09:58]:
Because they are associating only creativity with the arts, whereas in my view, creativity can be applied to absolutely everything. Right. But the curriculum associates creativity and the arts and lump it together in the same area. So one of the findings is stakeholders here value notions like having freedom, having times for exploration, choice, the opportunity to explore activities, to complete activities in multiple ways. They value all of those, let’s call western characteristics and pedagogical features of creativity. They say, yes, these things are important, but later, when you ask them, is it viable in kindergartens in Hong Kong for many of the things they would say is actually not quite viable. So they do value the importance of these western sort of core notions. They don’t think that is quite possible in practice for multiple reasons.

Alfredo Bautista [00:10:57]:
Right. So, but then when you ask them, well, and how do you define the notion of creativity? One of the interesting things that they find it very challenging to articulate a definition. Right. So is what creativity is one of these notions, like others, like play or some other notions, that is really difficult for people to define. It’s difficult to put it in words. What exactly is. And sometimes there is this assumption that when children are, you know, doing visual arts or singing a song or these kinds of things, they are necessarily already being creative. And so, yeah, so we found that mismatch between what is important and what is viable.

Alfredo Bautista [00:11:37]:
They would say, yes, these things are important, but this is not quite possible in classrooms. Then this difficulty in terms of understanding. Sorry. Defining what creativity means. And then I would say another important finding of the study is stakeholders really saying that Hong Kong really has a lot to improve for now in terms of really fostering children’s creativity in the arts. They would acknowledge, yes, we are making progress. Schools are slowly learning, teachers are slowly improving and getting more and more pedagogical ideas, but there’s still a lot of work to do. But these are some of the things we found, which probably is not so different to what we could find in other western countries.

Alfredo Bautista [00:12:23]:
I would say in other countries, I don’t think it’s so impossible to put these ideas into practice, I guess, here, because of this academic focus that I was referring to in the beginning, the society is very, very, very, extremely academically orientated. Then teachers have a lot of pressure into, in the sense of achieving results, really quickly prove to parents that children are learning academic stuff, academic skills, math, language, writing, etcetera. And also some important things that programs here for kindergartens are very short, is 3 hours a day, most of the programs. So when you send children only 3 hours a day with all of these academic expectations, there’s actually very little time to give them the freedom and the space and the time and the resources to really be creative, right? So these are some of the things that we’ve been learning in these past years, right? So definitely the understanding of creativity here is different compared to the west. There is also this understanding that to be creative, you also need to gain some skills first. These skills will allow you to be creative later on, but you need to develop skills prior to being creative. And also just something else that I would like to share based on some studies, not studies done by myself, but some studies done by other colleagues, actually, when there is too much freedom in classrooms, children, teachers don’t get so comfortable with that high level of freedoms in Asia. Normally, teachers and children would prefer much more structure.

Alfredo Bautista [00:14:01]:
When there’s too much freedom. They kind of. They are not used to so much freedom. Activities that are so open ended and are activities that don’t have, like, a one way to do it. I mean, it’s more challenging for them because they are not so used to that level of openness. So I suppose that schools, kindergartens are in the process of getting used to slowly, very slowly getting used to that feeling more and more comfortable with that, completing things that don’t have a unique solution.

Cyndi Burnett [00:14:37]:
And it seems like it’s very much teacher driven. So a teacher goes in, only has 3 hours, has to meet all of these curriculum standards, and therefore just tries to cover those without the time for play and exploration and something. I love the Reggio Emilia early childhood programs that are inspired by Reggio Emilia because they allow students to sort of at that age, that early childhood age, to explore their surroundings and to create their own learning. And it’s sort of led by their interests. So I think it’s hard when you’re looking at two different systems and you say, okay, which one is right? Obviously, we want to meet standards. And I think especially here in the United States, I know people are very eager for kids to start learning how to read at, in kindergarten so there’s this pressure of like, we need to get kids reading. And really, you know, if we look at other systems, the finnish system, you know, they don’t have to start reading until seven if they don’t want to. You start to say, well, you know, is reading that important? What should we really be focusing on in kindergarten? So I would love to know from you, Alfredo, based on the work that you’ve done and being inside the classrooms and working with teachers, do you think that kindergarten should be more play based, or do you think we should focus more on the academic side? Or do you think it’s a yes? And if you only have 3 hours with five year olds, what do you think? What do you personally think is the most important thing for kids to learn at that age?

Alfredo Bautista [00:16:04]:
One thing I would like to clarify also is that kindergarten education in Hong Kong is actually very diverse, right? So the descriptions I was giving before are mainly based on what we call here, the local kindergartens, which is the majority of kindergartens are basically kindergarten subsidized by the government, right? So the majority of kindergartens here are local kindergartens tend to be more traditional in the, as you said, teacher driven, normally short programs, etcetera. But there’s a huge diversity of kindergartens in Hong Kong. You find kindergartens that are private, international kindergartens region, Montessori. You find all kinds of approaches in the system here. So to be fair, right? So you can find a wide spectrum of practices. Right? So what I was before, I would say, is the more sort of traditionally oriented. What do I think personally about, about that? Right. So I guess that’s a really good question.

Alfredo Bautista [00:17:06]:
I have written a little bit recently about this, and I always would say, and I have thought quite a bit about this, what is best? And I guess the answer is it’s going to be very vague, right? So I guess it depends on your priorities. Of course, there is a lot of research supporting the idea of play. Kindergarten education should be play based. Children should learn through play and enjoy the freedom. And there’s a lot of studies, especially in the west, not so much in Asia, supporting that idea. The idea of children should spend the early years mainly enjoying this freedom, fostering their intrinsic interests, etcetera. There’s quite a lot of studies supporting that. And as a western person, if I had children one day, I would want to send my children to those types of kindergarten.

Alfredo Bautista [00:17:55]:
So probably I answer your question from this point of view, but at this time, at the same time, it really depends very much on where you are and to what extent that education is functional in the place where you live, because it depends on the society where you are, in a way, right? So I would say the view here, I guess in places like Hong Kong, Singapore, is very similar, is, you know, we send our children 3 hours to a kindergarten. We want children to learn in kindergartens because they have plenty of time later on to play. So I don’t want to spend the money for my child to play because my child will be playing at home. So when the values in a society are the way they are here, and you push too much in a certain direction in the way what you find is really a lot of contradictions. I would say the official curriculum framework nowadays here in Hong Kong is really emphasizing very strongly for the ideas of play, creativity, actually free play. Actually the curriculum here talks specifically about free play. And in a way, the government is really going towards those ideas, more western, westernized ideas and education models. But the society is really reluctant.

Alfredo Bautista [00:19:17]:
The kindergarten sector here is, it is subsidized by the government, but is in private hands. So in a way, parents can decide whether they want to take their child to this kindergarten or that kindergarten because they have the choice to take their children to the kindergarten they want. This sounds unrelated, but it is important because in a way, parents are the one deciding. And normally many parents would prefer to take their child to the more traditional kindergarten. What is more academically driven, even though the government is pushing in a certain direction, but they will take their child to the kindergarten they like. So what is best? I guess it depends on your values and I guess it depends on the priorities of parents. If you ask me, as a person, where would I like to take my children if I have children? I tell you, I would like to tell them, take them to a place that they will enjoy more freedom and they really will spend their years learning that way. I wouldn’t care so much if they learn how to read and how to write before primary school because they will have plenty of time later on.

Alfredo Bautista [00:20:23]:
But I am aware that many parents really will think differently in this sector. You really cannot go against the view.

Matthew Worwood [00:20:31]:
Of parents listening to that response. We’re talking about context. And I think that probably the context for different children will be different. You reference shadow education, for example, in the shadow curriculum. And in the US and in the UK, we have programs like Head Start, Shaw Start, where you have preschool programs that are funded by the government to make sure that young children, when they enter reception class, or in the US kindergarten, that first class of formal schooling they’re in a position where they, you know, they’ve got a good base and foundation. And so you need to have certain skills and knowledge and a knowledge base in order to kind of get a good start off in that education system. And I think if you’re probably getting that through extracurricular activities, or if you’re getting that because you’re blessed to have parents that are trained teachers or are reading to you regularly or you’re watching, you’re interacting with quality screen time, then it might be that you actually have the affordance of pursuing more of a Montessori type preschool environment. But if you don’t have those luxuries, I think that’s where the government subsidies coming into play is to try and make sure that those children have a sufficient start in life for when they’re going into education.

Matthew Worwood [00:21:55]:
And so what I’m taking is that the challenge that we have in that we have different levels of children coming into the formal education system, it’s the same challenge that you’re dealing with in Hong Kong, which is why it’s very difficult to say that one model fits.

Cyndi Burnett [00:22:10]:
All to build on that. I think you really hit the nail on the head, too, Alfredo, when you said that it’s about your values as a parent. Because I think when parents come to me and they say, I don’t know, what’s the best school in the area, and I say you have to think about what’s the best school for your child, not just what’s the best school. Because sometimes we get enamored with schools that have really good, that rank higher because they have really good standardized test scores, but that’s not necessarily creative in any capacity. That’s just a school that knows how to teach kids how to answer the right questions. So really thinking about our values as parents, and Matt and I are both parents to really think about our values and what our child needs. So my son really struggled with a Montessori program, but flourished in a Reggio Emilia. My daughter needs a lot of structure, so she would do well in, in a very structured, typical academic setting because that’s where she thrives.

Cyndi Burnett [00:23:07]:
So I think it’s really important that we mention this because sometimes we get so caught up in what we hear other people saying or other parents are saying or what the stats are telling us, but what we really need to do is look at our child and figure out what they need.

Matthew Worwood [00:23:21]:
I love this idea of values of parents because I think about the time I took into identifying what was the best learning environment for my three boys. There is a time in which money becomes a factor, though, as well. And what’s interesting is that some of us do have the capacity to kind of, you know, consider different environments, whereas others don’t have that capacity. And to come back to something that you shared, Alfredo, is that the government actually subsidized preschool, but actually allows you to choose what type of preschool program you pursue. Is that. Is that right?

Alfredo Bautista [00:24:00]:
In Hong Kong, the age goes from three to six, right? So there are three levels of kindergartens. They call it kindergarten, kindergarten, one, two, three going from three to six, and then children after that, they will go to primary school. So there are three years of kindergarten. And this sounds a little bit counterintuitive, right? But in places like Hong Kong and also Singapore, the model is the government subsidizes this education, but then the sector is run by public operating, sorry, by private operators. So there are multiple private operators in the city. And when they meet certain requirements of quality, then the government will subsidize the education and parents can take their children to those kindergartens and they don’t have to pay any money. So it’s free. But that doesn’t mean it’s public.

Alfredo Bautista [00:24:48]:
It’s actually in private hands. Right? So kindergarten, to be part of the, let’s call the sort of the government system, they must meet certain levels of quality, and they have inspections and they have some accreditation procedures, etcetera. So Paris don’t pay for the basic 3 hours of the program. Of course, if there are extra services after school, of course they will pay for those, typically. But, yeah, it’s a different model compared to other western countries. Also in Spain, the model is different. It’s fully public. Right.

Alfredo Bautista [00:25:23]:
But it’s also run by the government. Here, the government is not running the kindergarten, it’s simply subsidizing. Right? Yes, parents have choice, and parents can decide whether they want to take their children and. Yes, but they don’t necessarily need to take them to the one next to their house, maybe. You know, Hong Kong is a very heavily urbanized city, right? So there are these huge towers. Maybe in your tower you can find three or four kindergartens, but you can take your child to the kindergarten in the other part of the city, right? So parents are completely free to take them anywhere they want and to choose really the model that they want. And as I was mentioning before, maybe you have a kindergarten in your same building, level three, which is Radio Emilia kindergarten, and then you go to level seven and you have a super traditional kindergarten. So there’s a lot of choice in that sense.

Alfredo Bautista [00:26:13]:
Right. And I think that some kindergartens here are doing an amazing job in terms of fostering creativity. I have seen that. But sometimes parents may not want to take the children to those kindergartens necessarily because they are not academic enough and they don’t guarantee that then children will be accepted in certain schools later on. Right. So it’s a very different, it’s a very different system. But coming back to the idea you mentioned before also, Matthew, the idea of the sort of the shadow education system, it is true that after school many parents will take children to other kind of activities that may foster more creativity. They may take children to music class, dance classes, all kinds of things.

Alfredo Bautista [00:26:56]:
I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily because they value creativity is because for different reasons, it’s good for the children to go to take those activities. Right. So again, the whole idea of competition is so strong here. Some schools do accept you in a primary school or in a secondary school later on, especially when we are talking about elite schools, the child must show that you have learned certain things and is so competitive that the school will only accept you when you know how to play two musical instruments or when you can prove that you have won so many competitions. So in a way, education here is really driven very much by competition. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that sometimes it’s a little bit problematic to be so competitive and allow your creativity to flourish. I’m generalizing that there’s a wide diversity of practices and wide diversity here of approaches here. Right.

Matthew Worwood [00:27:52]:
We finish all of our shows asking our guests to provide three tips that we can share with educators who might want to bring creativity in their classroom. And obviously your tips will be focused on those preschool teachers.

Alfredo Bautista [00:28:06]:
One of the tips I would give to preschool teachers to foster creativity is creativity emerges when there is some form of framework. It is important to learn how to design activities that really provide that framework. And then within that framework, children have freedom to complete the activity in different ways. Sometimes there is misunderstanding that creativity means that anything goes and you don’t have to guide children in any ways. I disagree with that. I think creativity will allow, will happen when there’s a form of some rules, in a way. Another tip is design activities. Scenarios that require exploration, some form of experimentation and creation is necessary for creativity.

Alfredo Bautista [00:28:56]:
Children must have freedom to complete the activities in multiple ways, and without that freedom, there’s no creativity. You cannot just give every child the same template to do it in the same way to foster creativity. And another tip that I would really give to educators is to really have discussions in their education centers with their colleagues about what they understand creativity is. Sometimes I get the impression that everybody uses terms like creativity without really understanding what we are talking about. And I think it’s good to do the exercise of really trying to express verbally what is exactly what we are looking for and how can we get there. And so, you know, I think it’s important to unpack these big words like creativity also play and some other notions that we have in education. I think it’s very important to make the effort to make explicit what we are talking about and that will allow us to design better activities that are aligned with our understanding. So these are things that I would say are quite important.

Cyndi Burnett [00:30:07]:
Alfredo, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time and your expertise. For those of you who are listening, if you have any questions about this episode or any future episodes, you can contact us@questionsuelingcreativitypodcast.com. We encourage you to follow Matt and I and Alfredo, who I found this morning on LinkedIn, if you’d like to learn more about our work. And this concludes this episode of the fueling Creativity and Education podcast. I’m Doctor Cindy Burnett, and my name.

Matthew Worwood [00:30:37]:
Is Doctor Matthew Werwood.

Cyndi Burnett [00:30:39]:
This podcast was produced by creativity and education and in partnership with dadsforcreativity.com. Our editor is Sina Yousefzode.