So sorry to have left such a big cliff-hanger - hope no one has lost sleep wondering "What is the Bad(ass) technology that Dr. Rex Jung talked about?" Of course, it is imaging technology - that super-power that now sees faster than the blink of an eye, more deeply than the TSA, and is able to track brain activity in any task. Through imaging of people who produced multiple ideas during a creative task, Jung and others have cataloged the anatomy of the creative brain.
So, what are the brain characteristics corresponding to heightened creativity? As you might suppose, there are certain areas of the brain that are thicker, both in grey (active) and white (insulating) matter. But I was surprised to learn that other areas are actually thinner. In particular, the frontal lobes of highly creative people are thinner than average. What's going on here? Well, as high school teachers know, the late-developing frontal lobes are the parts that control judgment, sequencing and the "if. . . then" logic that understands the consequences of our actions - as Dr. Jung says, the "ready, aim, fire" part of the brain.
But, for all the importance of these logical traits in self-control, time management, and task completion, they can be the death of creative ideas. To allow creative ideas to flow, we need to suspend these judgment kinds of activities, put seemingly unrelated ideas out on the table of our mind and play around to see what combinations can happen. Of course, we need to bring these activities back once we have our new idea in order to actually bring it to fruition, meet our deadline, etc. Again, we need both sides of our brain to get it done (back to Eric Jensen & post #3!). So we don't want to permanently turn off our frontal activity, just to temporarily dial it down - hence the name Transient Hypo-Frontality.
I thought of two educational uses for this right away. The first, I'm sure you've all seen - that kid who just can't seem access any ideas because they are already censored before s/he is even conscious of them. Sally Fitt at U of Utah used to call this analysis paralysis. I've seen kids in every school clam up like this, and no amount of shi-shi artsy talk or trust-building activity can penetrate that shell. After all, if my inner critic is in hyper-mode, it is going to scoff at any touchy-feely-artsy-fartsy stuff. So if you see this, you now can offer an appropriately analytical reason to ease up - and because you are talking to an analytical part of the brain, what you say just might get through.
Second, this just reinforces the practice of many arts teachers who strictly disallow put-downs in their class communities. Just this last year at FAIR, I had a conversation with members of a choir that were acting out a disagreement through harsh criticism of one another. I asked who had been proud as Kindergartners to bring artwork home and have it put up on the fridge. They all nodded, smiling at the warm memories. Then I asked whether they still did this - they looked shocked! I asked when it stopped. As is often the case, they said some time around 4th or 5th grade. Why? Because they got teased about it, started thinking about it, and stopped feeling like they were any "good" at art. Try having this conversation with any group of high school or middle school students - unless they are the kids in the advanced Visual Art class, they will be able to trace for you the development of their inner critic. Vis Arts kids will be able to do the same if you ask them about singing outside the privacy of the car or shower. The point is, we educators have to do what we can not to over-build that frontal lobe as it relates to allowing creative, unregulated thought.
A corollary to this is that when schools and teachers emphasize compliance and task management at the expense of creation and elaboration of ideas, they again run the risk of hyping those frontal lobes.
Finally, I'm indebted to a Kindergarten teacher who was seated in the front row for raising a nuts-and-bolts school issue. She raised her hand to tell her sad story and ask advice: apparently, all teachers in her school were now required to post the minute-by-minute daily schedule of class activities. She had been able to comply with this until a recent dictum that they were to forgo the use of the word, play. As an experienced early childhood educator, she knew that play is the work of young children - but she needed some theory to legitimize it. What Dr. Jung had just said seemed to back her up - they need to let their minds wander through unstructured play.
"Do you have any advice for me?" she asked.
"Transient Hypofrontality," responded Dr. Jung in his best James Earl Jones voice-over of God.
In the exchange that followed, Dr. Jung clarified how the brain not only comes up with creative ideas, but consolidates ideas and makes connections during times of play or other unregulated activity - walks in the park, a bubble bath, yoga class, doodling, you name it. The teacher vowed to go back to school and put up her schedule, proudly displaying the activity, Transient Hypofrontality.
Next time - More on how we consolidate learning and why Martha Graham had her neuroscience right when she said that it takes 10 years to make a dancer.
Meanwhile - What else can you think of that we do to potentially overdevelop those frontal lobes?
In a recent study by researchers at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA, they found that creativity has declined between 1990 and 2008. They found that based on a study of 300,000 Americans scores on the Torrence Test of Creativity went down. It was especially striking for kindergartners through sixth graders, so researchers are wondering why creativity is decreasing in the US. They speculate that it may have to do with the increased amount of time kids spend on the computer and watchingTV. Plus, they are wondering whether all the standardized testing and rote learning is crowding out experiences that foster creativity.
ReplyDeleteBased on comments at the Department of Education Back to School Conference for School Superintendents there seems to be a new attitude toward reducing the focus on standardized testing and increasing the focus on educating the whole child. This opens the door for more time and emphasis on cultivating creativity and imagination in the school curriculum. This where the arts can be so powerful. We have much work to do, but it is critical work that will take our creativity and collaboration, which is very exciting.