Developing the Creative I By Joshua Rosenberg

9/25/2011 Ive written a few more times on Study Designed. Also, I have had three collaborators, and have arranged for three more to write for the website. I am passionate about the website, which has grown from an idea to a project to a real website; the site is part of a dialogue I have with other educators. I love it and would like if you would please check it out, and share with other interested people: www.studydesigned.com. I have been thinking more and more about Creativity: Flow and The Psychology of Discovery and Invention and my two discoveries that accompanied its reading. 1. Close down shop, occasionally, to protect creativity 2. Being high is as dangerous as being low Id like to add a third thought for this week: being balanced is itself the goal and results in maximum creativity. This is where parsing details becomes important. I imagine creativity to be maximized by being maximal. In other words, the opposite of creativity is not its absence but balance. This is not true. Being balanced results in the most creativity. I want to explore this more after I let it digest awhile. 9/22/2011 This week was quixotically the opposite of last week; instead of the trends and characteristics the last carrying over to this weekend, there was a boomerang, and Im back to where I started. This week wasnt creative. Last week was. I was high last week. I am low this one. Last week was busy. This week was calm. Last week was good. This week was not. Putting my finger on good teaching is hard - like quality. Putting my finger on quality is difficult; you finally size quality up and are ready to pinpoint its characteristics, only to squash it out: the quality is all gone. A good teacher is a good person. I dont mean this in a linear way, but that a good person will necessarily achieve the requisites of being a good teacher by way of being that person. Perceiving is the trait of genius for this week. I am working on a Prezi about the levels of organization in Science. Im excited for it to be complete because the medium perfectly matches

the purpose of my project: science is scalable and attempts to understand the worlds small and large. Prezi allows me to create a project that captures this reality in its structure. 9/16/2011 This week was my busiest of the year. It was also my most creative. I would think the opposite would be true, but in this case it is the opposite which is counter-intuitive. I was at school from 7:30 am until 10:00, 7:30, 10:00, and 7:30 pm, due to away soccer games, soccer practices in Shelby, the Young Democrats Club, after-school tutoring, and of course teaching. Today I came home by 4:00 pm, and its been my least creative day of the week. Whats going on here? I also noticed that being high is as dangerous as being down. In other words, being happy and healthy and flying high brings as many risks to a creative person as does being depressed and unhealthy and down in the dumps. Ive often in my life had to protect against the downs. Now as a teacher with a healthy schedule, habits and lifestyle, I have to also protect myself from the other swing of the pendulum: when I am happy and healthy, I want to protect and nurture that and become closed. Its when Im flying high that I take on more projects, talk to more people, and end up eating too much ice cream. Im reminded of a Buddhist saying about a man climbing a ladder, who realizes that the ladder is no different on the top, middle or bottom ring: treating each step the same ensures safety. So while Im flying high I want to remind myself of it, and pat myself on the back - well done. But my next step will now not be to bask in it, but to close down. Back to my busy week. I notified parents of our new website for the soccer team at www.goldenlionsoccer.com.. I updated www.studyrosey.com for my classes. And I blogged and recruited guest bloggers for my project at www.studydesigned.com. Moreover, I had a meeting for the Young Democrats on Tuesday after school, and on Thursday after soccer practice, where members remarked how much we got done. It was wonderful. On Monday and Tuesday I travelled and coached the soccer team at locations an hour from our hometown. Both days were exhausting but rewarding. On Tuesday and Thursday we had soccer practice, and on Thursday I had after school tutoring. I start my day with parking lot duty thirty minutes before school, and I teach four classes with three different subjects. Its a lot of work, but its today, when I had nothing after school, that I accomplished so much less. And thats so strange. Perhaps next week Ill have more insight into the counter-intuitive condition of being busier but getting more done than when more time is available to me. How does this reconcile with being closed? How do I interpret my creativity in this context? To reiterate, my lesson for this week is that being high is as dangerous as being low. The remedy for being high is to close down shop. The remedy for being low is to spice things up a bit. 9/11/2011

We are reading Chapter 14 from Creativity: Flow and The Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Cskszentmihlyi. Instantly creativity is made important, not something for artists or people with abundant freetime. Living creatively links us with the process of evolution. This rings true to me as a Biology teacher, and connects with something Ive come to wonder about the more I teach Science. Why evolution? Its true that Biology as a subject makes sense because of and only in the light of evolution. Without, there is diversity and adaptation but no reason. Why evolution, though? If the reason for diversity and adaptation is evolution by way of natural selection . . . why that? Because life is not improving. Its adapting. By being creative we are adapting. Somehow. Buy why adapt? In other words, why live? Thus why be creative becomes why adapt which becomes why live. Which becomes, why life? How much uncommitted energy do we have to commit to novelty? In other words, how much creative juice is left over, after the dishes and the laundry and the job and the exercise. And sex. We learn in this chapter what depletes creative energy. Worrying. Paranoia. Excessive selfishness. Physical comfort. So, surprise one another. Introduce creativity in spurts. Do things well. Be thorough and steadfast.Set one goal and accomplish it. Eventually, increase the complexity of your goal or life situation to remain creative. These are prescriptions from this chapter. They make sense. They ring true to me like things I already knew. Demand creative space. Demand your maintenance of creativity, like a child demands food. Discover what actually makes you happy. Arrange your day around those things. Avoid neurotic thoughts and feelings for things that dont really make you happy. I know what hes talking about here. To the author, creativity is life force, which is so important. But there are days with our coffee and our sweets when we lost it. I lose it. Im not creative, Im a bulldozer getting by. To the author, this is death, this is terrible, and to some of us (in education) this is life. Its hard.

Shift from openness to closure. This is so important. Creativity isnt a blazing fire. Its a slow burn. Say no. Ill tell myself that again. Say no. Say no. Dont start two new projects when there are three yet finished. Say no. Just say no. Find a problem and then look at it from different perspectives. Solutions are everywhere, but practical solutions are not. Too many people assume most of the world is off limits to them. In other words, if you arent in artist in your minds eye, art is not a part of you. In some ways it isnt part of the world. And of course it is part of me, as is creativity.