Think You’re Creative? Think Again.

Edward Clapp, Ed.M.'07, Ed.D.'14, wants education to shift from a traditional, individualistic view of creativity toward a participatory, socially distributed perspective. Clapp, principal investigator at Harvard’s Project Zero and co-author of The Participatory Creativity Guide for Educators doesn’t see creativity as a personal trait some people "possess" or "are," instead he proposes that everyone can "participate" in creativity.

“Young people play a variety of roles when they participate in creativity, each leveraging their own talents, skills, background experiences, and cultural perspectives,” he says. “So, it's this more socially distributed approach to understanding what creativity is that isn't held within the skulls and skin of individuals. It's putting creativity in a social space so that everyone can participate in creativity in the unique ways that they have to do so.”

Clapp talks about the “eight crises of creativity,” in which five challenges stem from individualism, such as the misconception that some kids are inherently more creative. The remaining three crises arise from a "culture of power" that overlooks the social and cultural dynamics of creativity. Clapp argues that an individualistic view limits students by creating exclusive standards of creativity, often alienating those who don’t fit these norms. “Creativity is not socially and culturally neutral — it’s socially, culturally charged,” he says. “I saw the posters growing up as a kid — of Charles Darwin and Vincent van Gogh and Albert Einstein. More contemporarily, we'll have Steve Jobs up there — all the dead white guys who are these icons of creativity. And creativity, literally, from that perspective, doesn't look like the majority of our students. So young people will look at those icons and say, right away, ‘I just don't even look like that person.’" 

To counter these issues, Clapp advocates for participatory creativity in classrooms. For example, teachers can shift focus from "creative icons" to the evolution of ideas, inviting all students to engage.

In this episode, Clapp explains the participatory approach to creativity, and how it can empower students by validating diverse contributions and helping them develop purpose in the world.

Transcript

JILL ANDERSON: I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast. 

Edward Clapp believes it's harmful to label someone as inherently creative or that creativity is a trait some of us have or don't have. He's a principal investigator at Harvard's Project Zero, where he explores creativity and innovation through a different lens. He says we need to shift our focus, especially in education, from teaching individual creativity to fostering environments where all students can engage in the creative process together. I wanted to know more about what an inclusive, participatory approach to the creative process looks like and why it even matters. First, I asked about our limited views on creativity.

EDWARD CLAPP: I do think that many people around the world have limited, and I would say, traditional perspectives on what it means to be creative or what creativity even is. And my colleagues and I try to open that up and move away from an individualist-based perspective on creativity to a more socially distributed-based approach on creativity. So, what we're trying to do is move away from a possessive sense of creativity, something you have, or you are, towards more of a participatory sense of creativity. So, creativity isn't something you have. It's not something you are. It's something that all people have the opportunity to participate in. And to your question, are we limited in how we view creativity? Well, if we view creativity as this individual-based perspective, then we have to say, well, creativity is X. And if creativity is X, then some people have it or some people have it in different measures than others. And some people either have it in lesser measures, or they don't. And my colleagues and I just don't believe that. We throw away that narrative.

And we say creativity is not something you are. It's not something you can be. It's something you can participate in. And if we put creativity in a social space, that's a more democratic approach to creativity, which allows everyone to participate in creativity in a variety of different ways.

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Transcript

JILL ANDERSON: What's the dangers of thinking about creativity in that sort of individualistic way?

EDWARD CLAPP: We've identified what we call the eight crises of creativity. And from an individualist perspective, there's five of those that come from the culture of individualism, and three of them come from what we call a culture of power, which really builds off of the work of Lisa Delpit. I'll just walk you through them quickly.

The first crisis of creativity from an individualist perspective is what we call the "some kids are more creative than others" misconception. So, if there's just one marker of being creative, if creativity is an individualist thing, then that sets us up as educators, or administrators, or people that are in the creative professions-- that sets us up to say that, well, some kids or some people are more creative than others. Or even worse, it sets us up to say that some kids are creative, and some kids aren't. And I think there's a real danger there in having that perspective.

The second crisis is what we call the "I'm just not a creative person" syndrome. So, if creativity is just a thing, you have some people who say, oh, that's just not my thing, and other people who say, oh, that is my thing. And then there's also what we call narrowly defining creativity. It privileges some students while it alienates others. So young people who might engage in creativity or might have a capacity of creativity that's popularly understood. Usually, it's divergent thinking.

This individualist based approach privileges those kind of thought processes, those kind of learning styles, while it alienates others. So, we're interested in breaking that open and seeing how more young people can engage in creativity by not narrowly defining it as one way of meaning making.

Another crisis of creativity, the fourth one, is that if we have this individual-based approach, we're denying young people the opportunity to develop, and invent, and create with others. And we know that that's such a rich part of life today, is creating and developing things with others. We know from our old friend, Lev Vygotsky, that all learning is social. And if all learning is social, then perhaps all creativity is social, too. 
And the fifth crisis of creativity, from the perspective of an individual-based take on creativity, is that we're ill equipping young people for life and work in the decades to come. Because we know life and work today-- and as it's going to be tomorrow, I'm going to harbor a guess-- isn't just an individual-based thing where people sit down and just kind of grind it out by themselves. Life and work is very much-- you would know this, Jill-- about working and collaborating with others. So those are the five crises of creativity. I'm an individual-based perspective. And then the three from a culture of power. The first one is assuming that creativity in education is socially and culturally neutral. So, a lot of us might think, ‘Oh, it's just a creativity class,’ or ‘They're just engaging in a creativity challenge.’ But where does that challenge come from? Where does the structure for those classes come from. And for many, many decades, the work on creativity studies, it wasn't socially and culturally neutral. It might appear to be so, but it was largely developed by white men. And it comes from that perspective. So, we have to understand that creativity is not socially and culturally neutral. It’s socially culturally charged. And the other crisis there is about what we call a misalignment of identity in the representation of creative icons. So, you would have seen the posters, just like I saw the posters growing up as a kid, of Charles Darwin, and Vincent van Gogh, and Albert Einstein. More contemporarily, we'll have Steve Jobs up there-- all the dead white guys who are these icons of creativity. And creativity literally-- it literally, from that perspective, doesn't look like the majority of our students. So young people will look at those icons and say, right away, ‘I just don't even look like that person.’

And then, lastly, the eighth crisis of creativity is that there is an imbalance of opportunity in creative learning experiences. So quite literally, young people that go to independent schools, or private schools, or public schools in higher-income zip codes have more access and opportunity to engage in creative learning experiences than their colleagues in other environments. So those are what we call the eight crises of creativity from our individual-based culture and our cultures of power. So, to address your question, yes, there are real dangers in having these individual-based approaches to creativity that alienate many young people when we can do a better job of inviting more young people into creative learning experiences.

JILL ANDERSON: I know. When you think about creativity-- and I'm sure you've heard this before -- you kind of get a nice, warm, welcoming, it's not supposed to be this thing that cuts people out. And yet, as you've just noted, it seems to do that a lot, especially in the classroom for kids where they just do not feel like they can participate in it or be a part of it.

EDWARD CLAPP: If it's limiting. And from a very traditional-based perspective, then I would say that's absolutely the case. But if we take a more participatory approach to creativity, then I believe there's opportunities to invite all young people into creative learning experiences.

JILL ANDERSON: I wanted to talk a little bit about this idea of big C Creativity versus small C creativity, because I feel like that makes a difference here.

EDWARD CLAPP: Yeah, I'm happy to talk about the difference between big C Creativity and little C creativity. There are many people that will also say there's middle C creativity. There's mini C creativity. I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago where somebody talked about the seven C's of creativity, pun intended. There's many different Cs that are involved in creativity. I'll keep it brief and just talk about big C and little C.

When people talk about big C Creativity, they mean the type of creativity that really moves or shakes a whole field or domain of practice. So, an evolutionary idea, or something that really just rattles up a field and moves it forward-- or moves it into a different direction. Whereas, on the contrary, little C creativity are the little things we do each day-- the quirky things.

Maybe we tied our shoes differently today than we did yesterday. Maybe we made the pasta sauce differently than we did ordinarily because we were missing an ingredient-- just those little tweaks of invention that come about in our day-to-day lives. That's little C creativity.

But either way-- big C, little C, medium C, mini C, all the other C's-- I think if we take a participatory approach to creativity, it really doesn't matter. There's never the case that there are individuals solely participating in creativity in either a big C function, or a little C function, or anywhere in between.

JILL ANDERSON: So, let's get to that. What is participatory creativity?

EDWARD CLAPP: Participatory creativity is the process of engaging a distributed network of individuals in the development of creative ideas. Young people play a variety of roles when they participate in creativity, each leveraging their own talents, skills, background experiences, and cultural perspectives. 
So, it's this more socially distributed approach to understanding what creativity is that isn't held within the skulls and skin of individuals. It's putting creativity in a social space so that everyone can participate in creativity in the unique ways that they have to do so.

JILL ANDERSON: So, what does this actually look like in the classroom?

EDWARD CLAPP: So, it can look like any number of things. I was just working with educators yesterday, and someone proposed the idea of a middle school classroom. We're studying science, looking into the concept of force and motion. And the educators have set up a design challenge where young people are designing a contraption to drop a ball to the ground in a certain amount of time. They're working together in small groups. And there's an observer in the group who is tracking how young people participate in the development of the idea they're developing. They're using a tool to really understand how different people are participating, and contributing, and playing different roles. And then they use a tool that we call a participation tracker tool to identify the different roles that young people played while they engaged in this process, and then to develop what we call a profile of participation for each individual.

So many different layers of tools, all within this middle school science classroom. That's one example. Another tool that we've heard people use, or another application of participatory creativity, comes from a third-grade classroom where young people are charged to develop a short book report about a creative individual. It's sort of a biography project. And one of the really popular aspects of participatory creativity is something we call the biography of an idea. So instead of telling the life story of a supposedly creative individual, instead telling the life story of the ideas that person is most known for.

So, in this third-grade classroom, when the teacher has to do this biography project-- maybe the kids are going to study Henry Ford. Instead of studying Henry Ford, what if they instead studied or told the biography of the concept or the idea of mass production? And if they told the life history of mass production, then they would see that, indeed, Henry Ford participated in the development of that idea, but so too did many other people. And from our individualist culture, Michel Foucault would call that author function. We give Henry Ford author function because we have this approach where we look for heroes, but we also look for scapegoats. We want to know who did it, and then to celebrate that person or to do the opposite of celebrate that person, if it's a less than favorable act. So, we try to look beyond that whole idea of author function. We acknowledge that there are people that make significant contributions to creative ideas, but also understand that they're just one in a cast of actors that contribute to the development of those ideas over time.

JILL ANDERSON: What changes do you see in students who have this participatory experience in the classroom?

EDWARD CLAPP: Empowerment. So where before there might have been disempowerment, or even disillusion, the whole idea that I can participate in creativity in ways that mesh with who I am and the talents, skills, and strengths that I bring to the learning environment really empowers young people to be themselves-- their authentic selves, not to try to be something that they're not because there's a particular mold for creativity that some people fit into very well, and other young people don't fit into at all. But if we break that mold and say that there's any way-- there's multiple ways that you can participate in creativity, then there's this sense of empowerment. There's the sense of I can do that. There's a sense of I can engage in creativity and succeed, as well. It's not just about the kids that have this certain way of thinking and being in the world.

JILL ANDERSON: What are some of the best strategies for fostering creativity in students, especially those who don't identify as creative, or they just find this act of participating with others difficult?

EDWARD CLAPP: That's an excellent question, Jill. I really appreciate it. And I kind of want to play with the question a little bit. I think your question started with something to the effect of, how do we help young people be creative or foster creativity in young people? And my colleagues and I don't actually believe that anyone is creative. I'm not creative. My colleagues are not creative. I don't believe that kids are creative. No one is creative. It's dangerous to think of anyone as being creative-- as being creative. That's the possessive view. Instead, everyone has the opportunity to participate in creativity-- just taking that switch of mindset, and supporting educators, and saying, none of my students are creative, but all of them have the potential to participate in creativity. Because if we think from the perspective of, how can I make my kids creative? Then we have to define what creativity is. And we'll always come down to a narrow conception of what creativity is, and that will privilege some ways of meaning making and alienate others. So instead, we just throw that whole thing out and say that nobody's creative. But instead, we put the locus of creativity in ideas. So that's the social center of gravity. And if ideas are creative, then everyone has the opportunity to participate in the development of those creative ideas in the ways that most leverage their talents, skills, background experiences, and cultural perspectives.

JILL ANDERSON: What is this like when you bring this idea to educators? What is sort of their reaction and response to this?

EDWARD CLAPP: It seriously messes with their heads. I was presenting at a conference yesterday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and with my co-author and really good friend Julie Rains. And Julie and I met at least 10 or 12 years ago at a conference in Atlanta, Georgia. And I was presenting the concept of participatory creativity. My first book on the concept had just come out. Julie, really excited and identifying herself as a creative person, came to this presentation. At the cocktail party afterwards, she came up to me and said, ‘You really pissed me off. I'm really upset with you.’ And I said, ‘What did I do, young woman I'm meeting just now for the first time?’ She said, ‘Well, I strongly identify as a creative person, and you just told me no one can be creative. And you've just shaken my whole identity.’ This is just an example of how people respond to this. But when the concept sinks in, then, all of a sudden, everyone gets it. And they say, ‘Oh, I might not be creative, but I can participate in creativity in multiple ways.’ And if I break this framework of understanding how I used to identify as being a creative person from a traditional perspective, which comes down from white Western male culture-- if I move away from what that identity of creativity is, and instead think of creativity as something I participate in, then I better understand my uniqueness and what makes me special. I'm no longer just fitting into a mold. I'm instead being myself. So, I think there's a transformation. It takes a minute or even longer than that, but there's a transformation amongst educators when they come to think of creativity from this new perspective.

JILL ANDERSON: Yeah, I can imagine that it opens up a whole new world for folks, especially educators, when they meet their students at the beginning of the year.

EDWARD CLAPP: Well, what do you think, Jill? I think we started our conversation, and you said you're someone who's lumped into the pile of folks who see themselves as creative. Having had this conversation for a few minutes, where's your head at around this?

JILL ANDERSON: Well, when you first said that I definitely had a sort of nervous "What do you mean" kind of reaction. But then when I think about it from the perspective of growth mindset, it kind of has-- echoes some of the similarities to that. You just-- as a parent, I think about raising a child. And a child automatically will say, ‘Well, I'm not good at this,’ or ‘I'm bad at this.’ And I have a 9-year-old. So, I hear that often. 
And so, I think it's almost similar, in a way, if a kid thinks I'm just not creative. It echoes similar tones to me. And I don't know if that's something that sounds familiar to you or not, but it has a similar feeling.

EDWARD CLAPP: It's kind of like balancing a deficit-based and an asset-based perspective. So, your 9-year-old might say, I'm not good at this. And that's fine. I have a 4 and 7-year-old, and there's plenty of things that those two young people and your child are not good at, but they're good at other things. So instead of having that one thing be the measure of their creativity, let's look at the broad perspective of what they are good at and how they can contribute those things to the development of creative ideas.

JILL ANDERSON: I can see how, for some folks, especially those who identify as creative, they hold on to that, right? You think about all of the norms that we have around your identity, especially growing up. You get a little bit older, you have your theater kids, and you have your kids in the art room. And they really hold on to that because it's a space where they have comfort, and they feel like they excel.

EDWARD CLAPP: To your example, though, Jill, for every young kid that identifies as creative in the art room or in the theater classroom, for each one of those, there are another 20 kids that don't identify in that way. So instead, we're just breaking that all open and saying there's no one way to be creative. There's multiple ways to be creative. So, we want to create a world where everybody identifies as someone who has the potential to participate in creativity.

And I actually think where the work is going next, if you're interested-- I think the more interesting concept here is participation than it is creativity. Yes, creativity is important. But if we understand how we can participate, what we have to contribute to the world, whether that's creative or not, big C, little C, middle C, I think the participation piece is really rich.

Participation can lead to purpose. And if you identify how you participate in the world and what you have to contribute, you can potentially develop a sense of purpose in the world. If I had to harbor another guess, I think that's something that's really important for students in the decades ahead, is to establish a sense of purpose in the world and to see how they can best participate. And if that participation is creative, great. But participation leading to purpose with an accent of creativity, I think that's really exciting.

JILL ANDERSON: Edward Clapp is a principal investigator at Project Zero, a research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He's also the co-author of “The Participatory Creativity Guide for Educators.” I'm Jill Anderson. This is the Harvard EdCast produced by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Thanks for listening.