In CCT 612, I explored creative thinking in several ways. A brief reflection is below, as well as a project exploring creative thinking in my classroom.
Reflection:
Creativity is a process that can be impacted by external and internal forces, and is overall difficult to define and control. As a result, investigations into creativity rely, often, on subjective data and observations. While this might feel frustrating at times, the fact that creativity is so difficult to define is also part of what makes it such a magical, freeing concept. Creativity cannot be written down in a clear list of rules to tell someone that they are or are not creative, meaning that anyone can access creativity and anyone can “be” creative. American society is best described by bell hooks as a “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” In such a system, everyone hurts and is limited. Yet everyone has the opening to respond to this system in a way that opens new doors, makes new ideas, and brings greater justice to themselves and others.
My own creativity has been shaped in large part by societal forces, both because of my perspective on myself and creating as well as because of the interactions I’ve had with other people acting out, in their own way, the oppressive system that contains all of us. In many ways, like people we have read about during this course, my own creativity is most often developed in direct response to the negative forces around me - writing (for me) is a positive and healing reaction to a world beyond my control. To some extent, as a result of this, I don’t view creative blocks as a critical part of my own creative process. Everyone in American society is blocked from creativity. White people are blocked by the racist attitudes and beliefs fostered in them by systemic racism, men are made to feel powerful and worthy for aggression and violence, and people with money create new systems to recreate that wealth. I focus here on the attitudes of people who have privilege, because to some extent it is precisely that privilege that is a block to being truly creative. That said, the flipside is the ways that a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy blocks those who are being oppressed from being their full selves, from being seen as worthy, and from accessing opportunities to be creative.
As I move on from this class, it is my aim to continue exploring the ways that creativity can be developed despite the society we live in, both in my own life and for the lives of the young people in my classroom. In the words of one educator I met recently, I’d like to “subvert the system for someone anytime!”
My own creativity has been shaped in large part by societal forces, both because of my perspective on myself and creating as well as because of the interactions I’ve had with other people acting out, in their own way, the oppressive system that contains all of us. In many ways, like people we have read about during this course, my own creativity is most often developed in direct response to the negative forces around me - writing (for me) is a positive and healing reaction to a world beyond my control. To some extent, as a result of this, I don’t view creative blocks as a critical part of my own creative process. Everyone in American society is blocked from creativity. White people are blocked by the racist attitudes and beliefs fostered in them by systemic racism, men are made to feel powerful and worthy for aggression and violence, and people with money create new systems to recreate that wealth. I focus here on the attitudes of people who have privilege, because to some extent it is precisely that privilege that is a block to being truly creative. That said, the flipside is the ways that a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy blocks those who are being oppressed from being their full selves, from being seen as worthy, and from accessing opportunities to be creative.
As I move on from this class, it is my aim to continue exploring the ways that creativity can be developed despite the society we live in, both in my own life and for the lives of the young people in my classroom. In the words of one educator I met recently, I’d like to “subvert the system for someone anytime!”