“Some of the kids who struggle academically – they can shine in this because it is a totally different arena.” Tricia King, Rose’s teacher.
Join is for a very special minute when we hear about improv from 9-year old Rose.
Music References (modified) shared under Attribution 4.0 International license.
Kai Engel, Great Expectations and Summer Days
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“I think in the next five years we’re going to see a big transition in what’s being taught in school.”
Justus talks about education and opportunities.
Dreamer, Vodovoz Music Productions
Photography and concert recording by Micah Fleming (mfleming@willamete.edu)
Music: Gone, by Sove. www.sove-music.com
Welcome to the first episode of the Creativity in a Minute Podcast!
This post will feel different to my regular readers who know my writing as personal experience accounts of Wonderland Playhouse, the children’s acting improvisation and storytelling theater I founded, and also know that I have returned to college in my fifth decade. While at university I have been researching how improvisation may be used by teachers to reimagine classrooms. This is the first of several blogs that will bridge my experience and my research.
Elementary school can be a frustrating, isolating experience for both students and teachers. Standardized testing mandated by the government was the government’s response to the 1983 report A Nation at Risk that revealed American students were pacing far behind other countries in vital content knowledge (Popham, 2004). Testing and reporting requirements continued to increase with the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and the 2009 Obama-era Race to the Top grant tied funds and teacher success to their student’s test scores. You may know the education strategy of this period as “teaching to the test” and an entire generation of Americans have now experienced it. Standardization rewards competition, conformity and convergent skills, a thinking style defined as “deriving the single best (or correct) answer to a clearly defined question” (Cropley, 2016, p. 391), and has left young Americans deficient in creative or critical thinking skills (Omdal, 2017).
Importantly, during this same time period, business leaders repeatedly identified creativity and innovation as the most important 21st century skills (IBM, 2008; Battelle for kids). Creativity uses various processes like imagination, intuition and divergence (the offering of many answers or ideas) and, interrestingly, longitudinal divergence tests show that 98% of kindergarteners test in the genius range of divergent thinking. Four years later those same students still testing at the genius level have dwindled to 30% and the decline continues to 12% by high school, with most adults testing at around 2% (Land, 2006, 9:16–10:35; Robinson, 2010, 8:50-10:00). In other words, the capacity for generating creative ideas evaporates quickly and almost entirely by the time we are adults. The lack of opportunities to develop and practice this natural ability together with its devaluation in school result in people who don’t think they are creative when, in fact, all people are creative (Robinson, 2006; Hardiman, 2016). Paradoxically, in our push to compete on global assessments, we have failed to educate students to compete in the global economy and have contributed to student disengagement, increasing behavior issues in the classroom and skyrocketing rates of physical and emotional health issues in children (Sawyer, 2010; Louv, 2008)
In 2006, Sir Ken Robinson’s 18-minute TEDTalk “Do schools kill creativity?” revealed this issue to the world and called for an education revolution. Since then, Sir Ken’s TEDTalk has been viewed 62 million times (as of this morning) and has ever since been the most popular TEDTalk. Taking into account the appeal of online videos since 2006, anyone might imagine a video by any individual (or kittens) could easily have eclipsed 62 million views, but no other TEDTalk has. In later writings, Robinson (2016) points out that high-stakes testing marginalizes other talents in education and regards those who do not excel as “’less able’ or ‘disabled’ – as deviations from the norm” (pp. 36-7), unfair labels that may cause wounding that follows students throughout their K-12 career. Sir Ken’s presentation may have been the first time many of his 62 million viewers considered the issue of creativity in education, but it wasn’t the first time for me. (Robinson, 2006; Robinson, 1999).
My son, Ethan, is a creative collaborator who imagines worlds. As a preschooler he oozed original character-driven epics, using everyday objects (the food on his plate, bottlecaps, or rock and sticks) as action figures, naming each one and elaborating their backstory in a constant narration that didn’t stop when he entered school. From 1st to 3rd grade his desk sat alone facing the wall (far away from his classmates who sat together) because he was a distraction to himself and others. Killing his creativity and achieving his conformity proved to be difficult. That’s when I started the Playhouse for children aged 3-13.
Improvisation highlights creative competencies which include listening, observation, communication, present moment focus, problem-solving, curiosity, accessing personal resources, risk-taking, failure recovery, negotiation, flexibility, humor, tolerance of the different or unusual, self-reliance, self-esteem, self-determination, and self-confidence. All of these could be considered collaborative skills and 21st century competencies. Social skills are also developed in an atmosphere play. Future blogs will explore ways teachers might use the natural process of improvisation to engage students, prepare them to meet the challenges of the future, and improve the classroom experience for everyone.
Ethan graduated high school in full possession of his creative capacities because they were loud, valued and developed at home and through music, but it was never easy for him. The tension he experienced at school created by the conflict between his natural gifts and the expectations of conformity caused physical and emotional health challenges that he shares with many of his peers. Times are changing and working with students in a creative way has made me an optimist. Listening to their ideas convinces me that young people have arrived to solve the problems of today. They already possess what is needed and there has never been a more critical time to help them.
References:
Battelle for Kids. P21 Partnership for 21stCentury learning. Retrieved from http://www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p21
Budde, Alyson. (2019, June 6). Ethan’s graduation[photograph]. Salem, OR.
Cropley, A. (2006). In Praise of Convergent Thinking. Creativity Research Journal,18(3), 391-404.
IBM (2008). Global CEO Study: The Enterprise of the Future. Retrieved from https://www.ibm.com/ibm/ideasfromibm/ae/en/ceo/20080505/index3.shtml
Land, George. “The Failure of Success”. TEDx Tucson 2006, December, 2011, Tucson, Arizona. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfKMq-rYtnc
Louv, R. (2008). Last child in the woods : Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder (Updated and expanded. ed.). Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
Miller, Stan. Blog featured image [photograph]. http://www.morguefile.com.
Omdal, Stuart N, and Graefe, Amy K. 2016. Investing in Creativity in Students, In Beghetto, Ronald A., and Kaufman, James C. Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom (394-414). Cambridge, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press.
Popham, W. (2004). America’s “failing” schools : How parents and teachers can cope with No Child Left Behind. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
Robinson, Ken (1999). All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education. National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education.
Robinson, Ken. “Do schools kill creativity”. TED2006. February, 2006. Monterey, California. TED.com. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en
Robinson, Ken. “Changing Educational Paradigms.” At RSA Animate. October, 2010. Uploaded by TED.com. https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms
Robinson, K., & Aronica, Lou. (2016). Creative schools : The grassroots revolution that’s transforming education. New York, New York: Penguin Books.
Sawyer, R. K. (2016). Learning for Creativity. In Beghetto, R., & Kaufman, James C. (Eds.). Nurturing creativity in the classroom (172-190). Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Like stepping into a dream, my life changed this week. I know that one day merely walking on campus won’t make me cry, but that day was not today. My sense of good fortune is visceral and commanding. People say my choice inspires them, that returning to school at my age is courageous, and that they are glad it’s me doing it and not them.
Each morning I am greeted by this paddling of ducks, eager to get 
close, optimistic for what I imagine is food, willing to swim upstream, navigating the small, but strong waterfall in distinct ways, the A-types flying over it in that aeronautically challenged way ducks fly, all flapping and careening with webbed feet dangling, and the creative types using the eddy of the waterfall to propel them sideways with the proper amount of force, gracefully launching them onto the rock they easily walk across to access the upper pool. I have nothing for them but do enjoy the show. Among these ducks there are more creatives than A-types, a fact that comforts me as I finish my first week of college.
My first day was alternately exciting and terrifying, and utterly exhausting, climbing a dozen flights of stairs and walking miles with a heavy backpack, digesting stacks of reading material, working out strategies for remembering assignments, and playing the repeating icebreaker games, remembering names, conjuring that single word that describes me or the animal I resemble most. By the third class, the only word I could think of to describe myself was “crazy”, crazy to have thought college in my fifth decade was a good idea, crazy to have imagined I have the juice for such an ambitious endeavor. My colleagues agreed that the more correct word was “adventurous” in that way good collaborators do when they sense you are down, but not yet out.
Most surprising were my classmates, an awakened group of young people who seem
enthusiastic and thoughtful, unexpectedly willing to work with someone who may remind them of their grandmothers, and resolutely unwilling to be identified by gender, race, or preferences. To the extent they have freed themselves of the shackles of limiting pronouns, they seem to have acquired boundless energy reserves to be who they are. I remember wanting to be so authentic, and also wanting to fit in, and ultimately exhausting myself seeking approval. Times have changed and the future looks bright, and it is deeply inspiring to move among these change makers in this dreamscape.
I’m not the perfect parent. I once dropped my son off at school in his Mario costume on Halloween parade day. He was so excited; he loved Mario. Except, it was a week early for the parade and because I was late for work he was the lone cartoon character at school that day. Mistakes were made while I hyperventilated my way through working and raising kids; late arrivals, scheduling snafus, half-assed work and home tasks, and confusion hijacking my otherwise order-seeking personality. Wonderland Playhouse is the only job I’ve had that ignited my passion. Mostly, I have worked as an assistant to men of varying degrees of power. I wrote and spoke with their voice. I even gave up pursuing my passion after work as it left little time for family.
I dreamed about college since I can remember, but attempts made fell short and circumstances got in the way. I graduated early from high school the year my parents divorced and neither could help me apply. Accepted to UCLA when my daughter was four, I couldn’t agree to the sacrifices moving to Westwood would mean for her. Twelve years later I was delighted to attend Long Beach State where I kicked ass in its demanding theater program that kept me on campus from nine o’clock in the morning until after the final curtain fell on most nights. At the end of the semester and with a need to care for my kids I reluctantly returned to work.
In a dialogic response to the statement that one’s heart is filled with pain and suffering, the poet Rumi writes, Stay with it. The wound is where the Light enters you. My wound was this deep, unfulfilled desire that no amount of busyness, meditation, or yoga could heal. It stayed with me, scrambling up with my unworthiness and insufficiency, ensuring I would work a series of good jobs I am grateful for that brought no professional satisfaction, surfacing from time to time to remind me I didn’t know why I felt bad about it, and guaranteeing my inability to heal it would be a personal failure.
Earlier this year my daughter graduated with a master’s degree and my wound split wide open. I found it hard to breathe. Friends didn’t understand my suffering and I couldn’t explain it. The list of reasons to let it go was long, but that didn’t change how I felt. Tortured and exhausted, asking for help and willing to do anything, I was guided to apply to a small liberal arts college near my home. At once terrified I would certainly endure another failure, and unable to remain wounded any longer, I hoped my action would end this one way or another.
On an early June evening, surrounded by cakes at a dessert auction I coordinated, drunk on the smell of sugar, I received the email. The college’s letter said they were impressed by my commitment to my family and my community, stated I was precisely the person they were looking for, and offered me a near-full ride scholarship to complete my degree. I came full stop.
Some wounds are a paradox. They don’t go away because they’re not supposed to. Light illuminates one’s suffering while simultaneously spotlighting the path to healing. Improv can help. Stay with it– collaborate with it. Say, Yes! And . . .. Don’t ever give up.
Do you dwell in the past or the future? What do you do with your commute time? Sometimes I rehash conversations I had with my husband or children the night before, or with my mother decades ago. Sometimes I calculate the best route to outsmart the traffic, plot what I’ll cook for dinner, worry about how I’ll pay the bills, or strategize my next meeting or home remodel. Sometimes I ponder retirement or politics. In these moments I am unaware of the present moment. I hardly notice the morning sky or the plants blooming in my garden on the way out the door. I don’t see the faces of fellow commuters.
If my intellectual skill is analysis and planning, what is the use of the Now?
Improv can answer that question. In the Now problems co-exist with their solutions because all available resources and ideas exist in the Now. Creativity is in the Now. Inspiration, too. There are no new ideas in the past. Perhaps most importantly, connection with our fellows happens only in the Now. Listening is a tool of the Now. The ability to uplift or destroy another with a thought, word, or glance happens in the Now. Fun is here. Laughter, too. Intimacy takes place only in the present moment. Joseph Campbell counseled about following your bliss: It is here! It is here! It is here!
Children are born improv artists – master teachers of the value of the present moment. I dreamed up the Wonderland Playhouse Acting Improvisation and Storytelling Project because I was certain that more than being mere consumers of story, kids had their own stories to tell. My own children did. Their stories were epic and endless, and sufficient hours did not exist in a day to provide the audience they craved.
I really wanted to hear those stories. Weary of the predictable violence and lowest common denominator responses made popular by modern media, I was desperate for entertainment and dynamic stories of human experience. I hypothesized that children were capable of surprising artistic expression and great humanity. That’s why I was caught off guard when one of the early Playhouse sessions contained stories with chainsaws. I remember thinking, “My goodness, what have I done?”
Yes! And, . . .. Improv dictates all ideas are valid. Exerting authority to change unwanted ideas is not an option. I reminded myself I had intended to tell their stories. If they wanted to talk about chainsaws, so be it. We moved on to rehearsal. When the chainsaw hijacked the story the players were confused and dismayed. Once the gadget worked its magic the story was over, but they didn’t want the story to be over. (Do you remember what it felt like when your favorite game ended too soon?) We elected to re-write and we replaced the chainsaw with a magical medallion. This new device was more fun to play with and it transformed the story. Our chainsaw massacre evolved into a story of overcoming prejudice and the reunion of a boy and his father.
These players needed to move past limited ideas to access deeper truths. We are trained early that knowing the right answer is prizeworthy. Being able to sit in not knowing takes courage and it is easier for kids. At first that chasm is scary because it feels empty. I remember when I couldn’t breathe in that space. But, just beyond that breathlessness are entire worlds full of ideas, resources, and friends to help. Commanding the courage to leap that divide, past the fear that you don’t know what to do, or the conviction that you’re not smart enough to do it, is a skill you were born with.
Thus, in the season of our discontent we learned to rely on each other, that the best impulse is not always the first impulse, and that waiting and listening in the Now is powerful.
Their story is A Dragon in Pink Bunny Town.
The one thing I feel most deeply about is creative freedom – for everyone. All my passions align with that: health, children, nature, education, dreaming. Because I am a creative I cannot say I am this or that, because it sounds ridiculous. I am complicated and my identities seem endless and forever shifting. Today’s list: daughter, wife, mother, ex-paralegal, Pacific Northwest resident, grade school office manager, writer, storyteller, dancer, actor, yoga teacher, improviser, gardener, empath, psychic, bicycle-riding small town dweller, lover of animals and growing my own food, and devotee of following my own path. My past is littered with lifetimelines filled with identities that are now mere chapters in my herstory. Today is destined to be a chapter one day. I have friends who say they don’t like change. I can’t relate. I thrive on it. Boredom is my Kryptonite.
Now you can see why the final five years of my 30-year paralegal career put me to sleep. Earn and spend, earn and spend – the cycle bored me while my creative self starved and I obsessed over my hunger. I searched for creativity when not working, raising kids, and remodeling my house. I binged on acting, ballet, and writing classes. The most delicious treat I found was improvisation and like potato chips, one bite derailed me. I did something crazy. In 2006, I retired and started a children’s theater. Wonderland Playhouse Improvisation and Storytelling Project evoked kid-told stories and mounted them into full-scale theater productions.
The Project was embraced by the local art center, several after-school programs and the Department of Education. We played in galleries, community centers, parks, and multi-purpose rooms. Wonderland players were a diverse group: kids whose parents searched for options, kids who believed in fairies, kids who didn’t like sports, science fair winners, kids with special needs, gentle kids, shy kids, funny kids, kids who didn’t talk – all of them brilliant and exceptional.
There are few rules and no wrong answers in improv. Every impulse offered is valid. The only answer to every question is, Yes! And, . . .. Improv done well leads to trust, intimacy, and a lot of fun. Players contribute in any way they imagine. For the most part, kids are natural improvisers. Have you ever seen a kid create a whole world while no one is watching? I was driven by a deep knowing that kids’ voices matter and I wanted to hear their stories. Once the kids knew they could not fail, they flew. Their stories were wild and we laughed a lot. Sometimes adults didn’t understand what we did, but that didn’t stop us. The players thrived and so did I. Storytelling together broke us all free.
We mounted story after story until the ’08 market downturn caused evaporation of the Playhouse contracts. Then, I took the theater home to my backyard and we continued for another year. Leading the players was entertaining, exhilarating, challenging, and humbling. They surprised and delighted me everyday. I look forward to exploring all the ways creative freedom shows up in this blog. I will write more about Wonderland and how its players inspired me to write courageously. StarWalker and the Fairy Queen is my first book. There’s a preview on my website.
Alyson Budde 