I am afraid I am going to have to disconnect from this group - which is a
shame, all this creativity is blocking my inbox and I am over quota, sorry
folks. Now, how do i do it?
Liz
--On 22 July 2009 20:34 +0100 Kevin Byron <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello Carol,
>
> After further thought about the disconnected(the brainstorming team I
> alluded to)versus the connected group (your examples of harmonized groups
> - improvised jazz, sports teams etc),I believe that whilst the latter is a
> much richer experience than the former, creativity - by which I mean an
> idea that is original - is reducible to a single event in an individuals'
> mind independent at that moment of other people. This is not to say that
> the other team members didn't contribute to that idea though. Newton's
> "Standing on the shoulders of giants" quote comes to mind. I think as you
> suggest it's about how you factor in time into the definition of
> creativity, but also in terms of the connected group I think it's
> important to separate talent from creativity.
>
> Talent doesn't require creativity, it's a measure of the ability to do
> things well and creativity is not pretty when there is no talent there,
> but it still represents original thinking. An experienced team of talented
> individuals who know the skills and can read the 'game' can produce a
> breath-taking performance. To the on-looker and to themselves they appear
> to work as one but did any new ideas emerge in this experience, in the
> sense that they are original and can be recorded as such for the benefit
> of other teams that aspire to such skills ? We can record the jazz improv
> session and play it back or watch the video of the sports team but will
> we spot something original that emerged. By that I mean can the magic
> moment be separated and abstracted back beyond the emotional experience
> to a tangible artifact or a technique that can be passed on to others ? I
> don't think it can for the team or group, but we could probably spot the
> individual who initiated it. Maybe it was an accidental chord change by
> one musician that sparked the musical dialogue or a counter-intuitive
> move by the mid-fielder that set up the goal.
>
> So it is with the disconnected group having a brainstorm. Ideas build on
> ideas and then the winning one emerges but it came from the person who
> suggested it though of course they don't 'own' it in those circumstances.
>
> I see creativity as the same thing in both these instances but the
> experience of being involved has quite a different quality but I question
> whether creativity has to be there to facilitate this experience ?
>
> Best Wishes,
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
>
>
>
> activities that appear to be a team but are not eg brainstorming Starting
> with example of the group brainstorm
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: List for people wishing to share knowledge experiences of curriculum
> design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Carol Macgillivray
> Sent: 21 July 2009 10:13
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: FW: How drafts reveal the creative process?
>
> Hi Kevin,
> Thanks for the thought-provoking response - is creativity the same as
> spirituality? Hmm. Group-wise, it feels the same experientially. Perhaps
> the individual equivalent is a mini-nirvana?
>
> More prosaically, the reason management developed the MBTI tools etc was
> to fit teams together that are more likely to produce this synergy, and
> that is why football managers choose teams and directors cast actors and
> choose crews. I suppose the current academic vogue for sandpits is the
> new equivalent. The jury is still out on whether these are valuable or
> not. It would be interesting to know how these are documented - I know
> the outcomes are, but is the process?
>
> There are new artforms that have popped up where group synergy is
> integral. Flash events and confessionals such as blogging and 'Secrets
> on a Postcard' spring to mind. Are they fulfilling/replacing
> spirituality? Some MUDs seem to create the same feeling. Is the
> architect of these the one with the creativity manipulating groups of
> people as clay or are they curators and midwives for many
> mini-creativities? Is there a difference between the Chinese drummers at
> the Olympic ceremony and England winning the Ashes at Lords? Yes,
> because there is no room for a Flintoff in the former (hear he can't
> drum for a toffee...)
>
> Cheers
> Carol
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: List for people wishing to share knowledge experiences of
> curriculum design on behalf of Kevin Byron
> Sent: Tue 21/07/2009 08:52
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: FW: How drafts reveal the creative process?
>
>
>
> Hi Carol,
>
> Thanks for those really interesting comments. I agree that ideas
> have a time
> - the zeitgeist - as you suggest. For example when Einstein
> developed
> special relativity, Fitzgerald and Poincare were on the brink of
> a similar
> discovery and who knows how many other less well known
> scientists were on to
> it too at the time or even earlier ? But I would argue that a
> discovery, at
> least in science, isn't an act of creation but one of
> serendipity. No one
> ever planned a discovery or knew when it was imminent, but
> that's not to
> suggest a lot of creative thinking didn't lead up to it. In a
> sense one is
> witness to a discovery but it isn't the product of an individual
> or group. I
> think it was Pasteur who said "Chance favours the prepared mind"
> and I think
> being prepared (which doesn't require one to join the scouts) is
> the best we
> can do.
>
> So in a sense a disparate group can catch an idea and they don't
> need to be
> in communication with each other (though in science they almost
> certainly
> would be aware of current knowledge and thinking).Usually though
> someone
> gets there first or at least we celebrate those who brought it
> to our
> attention first (the innovator) which is not the same as saying
> they thought
> of it first. I guess we will never know who thought of any idea
> first.
>
> Your second point really fascinates me and it concerns how a
> group of people
> involved in any activity (I assume) can spontaneously harmonise
> and act as
> one. This in my view is what I would call a spiritual experience
> in the
> sense of that word in its more modern usage being extricated
> from its
> associations with religion. It is a sense in which ones'
> personal experience
> goes beyond the boundaries of ones' familiar sense of self and I
> agree with
> your observation "...there are few more satisfying moments
> available to us
> as human beings." Is it a creative experience as well ? and is
> creativity
> the same as spirituality ? - there's a whole conference here
> (but in the
> experiential sense of what is implied in these questions and the
> way one
> arrives at such experiences - would there be any value in
> attending one ? -
> probably not!)
>
> I had in mind a group of people brainstorming to find ideas. If
> only the
> holistic experience you allude to could be achieved in those
> circumstances,
> but it rarely is - hence my belief in those instances of only
> individuals
> having new ideas. I do take your point about group creativity
> with those
> examples you cited and thank you for responding.
>
>
> Best Wishes,
>
> Kevin
> University of Leicester
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: List for people wishing to share knowledge experiences of
> curriculum
> design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of
> Carol Macgillivray
> Sent: 21 July 2009 03:29
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: FW: How drafts reveal the creative process?
>
> Hi Kevin,
>
> With you on the maths, but I am not sure that I buy your
> reductionist
> take on synergy.
>
> First because history is littered with ideas being 'of a
> particular
> time' with creative solutions being arrived at in parallel. If
> you are
> 'creative' and riding the zeitgeist, there is a strong
> likelihood that
> someone else in a similar discipline has caught the same wave.
>
> Second, because synergy is not infrequently demonstrated in team
> sports
> or cooperative art in many forms -such as when a football team
> moves
> seamlessly and with near-telepathic grace or performer
> partnerships
> crackle with electricity (Tracey/Hepburn, Fonteyn/Nureyov,
> Laurel/Hardy?) or a jazz ensemble hits their stride - such
> special
> performances show ideas being played out in real time, creating
> a
> synergistic whole. In short this is when a group acts as a
> brain;
> bouncing individual ideas together to generate new ideas in the
> moment -
> I would argue there are few more satisfying moments available to
> us as
> human beings. High fives need an opposing hand.
>
>
>
> Perhaps this leads to an interesting point: Timescale of
> creativity...
>
>
>
> Carol
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: List for people wishing to share knowledge
> experiences of
> curriculum design on behalf of Kevin Byron
> Sent: Mon 20/07/2009 19:57
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: FW: How drafts reveal the creative process?
>
>
>
> In spite of the popularity of the multiple intelligences
> model
> as yet
> another way of slicing and dicing the person (in this
> case
> preferred
> learning styles), I think it is flawed in that these
> intelligences have big
> overlaps with each other and in common with other
> 'typing' tools
> eg MBTI, we
> incessantly swish and swash around from one to another
> and to
> another.
>
> We are different things to different people and we draw
> on
> different
> intelligences in different situations. Though this is
> not to
> suggest we are
> all things to all people. The simplicity of that model
> can be
> questioned
> further when creativity is brought in to the picture.
> For
> instance why
> logical and mathematical are con-joined by a hyphen
> defeats me.
> There's
> absolutely nothing logical about doing mathematics
> except in
> retrospect and
> this is where the importance of drafting comes in
> especially for
> students.
>
> So when we look at a text book of mathematics and we see
> a proof
> let's take
> something as basic as Pythagoras'theorem do we see any
> creativity ? - no -
> just a series of logical steps that lead from a
> hypothesis to a
> conclusion
> and confirmation of the hypothesis. Is that how people
> do maths
> ? -
> absolutely not. When you don't know the destination you
> keep
> trying
> different routes (drafting) and it may take years to get
> there
> but what is
> left behind and what gets published is the one clear
> path that
> led to the
> conclusion and it looks so obvious in retrospect. So it
> is with
> scientific
> research too. We teach maths in a logical fashion but it
> doesn't
> make you a
> better mathematician - it's creative skills that make a
> good
> mathematician.
>
> With regard to the idea of group creativity - I am not
> so sure
> about this.
> To be reductionist about it a good idea only happens in
> an
> individuals'
> brain when two neural networks connect and produce
> something
> bigger than the
> sum of the parts. Most of the time something lesser than
> the sum
> of parts
> arises and the connection is weakened. When we
> collaborate we
> make social
> connections and this can facilitate more ideas but no
> two people
> can have
> the same idea except extremely rarely. The group may
> agree
> something is a
> good idea and it may have built on many earlier ideas by
> individuals but
> only one person can have a good idea. Maybe we need a
> different
> concept for
> what has been described here as 'group creativity'. In
> my view
> groups
> collaborate: they share and communicate ideas and
> stimulate
> further ideas
> but the group as a whole don't have an idea - but
> individuals
> do.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Kevin Byron
> University of Leicester
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: List for people wishing to share knowledge
> experiences of
> curriculum
> design
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of
> Kleiman, Paul
> Sent: 20 July 2009 14:55
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: FW: How drafts reveal the creative process?
>
> It occurs to me that there may be something here that
> ties in
> with
> Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences i.e. multiple
> creative
> intelligences.
>
> Of the original seven intelligences (now 8, with the
> possibility
> of a
> ninth) it is only the first two that, traditionally,
> have been
> regarded
> as essential to education - Linguistic, and
> Logical-Mathematical
> - hence
> the focus on the 3Rs (or 1R, 1W and 1A, so much for
> 'linguistic'
> intelligence!)
>
> Higher education research is framed almost entirely
> within the
> Linguistic and Logical-Mathematical (witness all the
> problems
> with
> Practice-as-Research), and demands that whatever our
> various
> process
> e.g. making marks on paper, making and composing sounds,
> moving
> in
> space, we present it, or at least demonstrate its worth,
> within
> the
> confines of those two intelligences.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
liz Anderson,
Teaching Fellow,
Community Based Medicine,
Tel: 0117 9546789
----------------------
Liz Anderson, Teaching Fellow,
Dept of Community Based Medicine
University of Bristol,
Cotham House, Bristol BS6 6JL
email: [log in to unmask]
telephone: 0117 95(45575)
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