—Martha Graham
Creativeness often consists of merely turning up what is already there. Did you know that right and left shoes were thought up only a little more than a century ago?
—Bernice Fitz-Gibbon
Questioning Assumptions
We all have assumptions. Often we don't know we have these assumptions because they are widely shared. Creative people question those assumptions and eventually lead others to do the same. When Copernicus suggested that Earth revolves around the sun, the suggestion was viewed as preposterous because everyone could see that the sun revolves around Earth. Galileo's ideas, including the relative rates of falling objects, caused him to be banned as a heretic.
Sometimes it's not until many years later that the crowd realizes the limitations or errors of their assumptions and the value of the creative person's thoughts. The impetus of those who question assumptions allow for cultural, technological, and other forms of advancement.
Teachers can be role models for questioning assumptions. You can show students that what they assume they know, they don't really know. Years ago, Sternberg's 7th-grade teacher asked the class if anyone did not know what social studies meant, and responded to our silence by asking us what it meant. We spent two days examining, questioning, and changing assumptions about something we thought we knew. The discussion went far beyond mere definition, forcing us to question what social phenomena are and how we might study them.
Williams' high school teacher asked the class to list worthwhile career options for women and men on separate sides of the chalkboard. We volunteered answers typical for 1975. The teacher, a man, marveled at the number of answers we generated and then asked why certain occupations were on one side or the other. His question caused a bunch of 15-year-olds to think about our futures and what we might accomplish. By enabling us to make our assumptions explicit, the teacher focused our attention on the limitations imposed by the assumptions. The discussion allowed two boys to share their aspirations to become a chef and a dancer and three girls declared their intentions to try police work, brain surgery, and forestry. Twenty years later these ideas may not seem revolutionary or particularly creative, but this discussion encouraged us to question our assumptions before choosing a career.
Of course, students shouldn't question every assumption. There are times to question and then to try to reshape the environment and there are times to adapt to it. Some creative people question so many things so often that others stop taking them seriously. Everyone has to learn which assumptions are worth questioning and which battles are worth fighting. Sometimes it's better to leave the inconsequential assumptions alone so that you have an audience when you find something worth the effort.
Teaching students when to question and when not to is hard to communicate. How do you teach students what they should question and what they shouldn't, and how often to ask questions? Once on the creativity bus, younger students get into gear quickly and their zealous questions can be tough on their teachers and their parents. Now the children think of “better” ways to do everything. Some of the ideas may be good or interesting, but we must encourage questions without allowing the children to turn into monsters. How can you encourage an appropriate level of questioning in your students?
Make questioning a part of the daily classroom exchange. It's more important for students to learn what questions to ask—and how to ask them—than to learn the answers. Help your students evaluate their questions by discouraging the idea that you ask questions and they simply answer them. Avoid perpetuating the belief that your role is to teach students the facts. Instead, help the students understand that what matters is their ability to use facts. Help your students learn how to formulate good questions and how to answer questions.
We all tend to make a pedagogical mistake by emphasizing the answering and not the asking of questions. The good student is perceived as the one who rapidly furnishes the right answers. The expert in a field thus becomes the extension of the expert student—the one who knows and can recite a lot of information. As John Dewey (1933) recognized, how we think is often more important than what we think. We need to teach students how to ask the right questions (good, thought-provoking, and interesting ones) and lessen the emphasis on rote learning.
Students are natural questioners and use that skill to help them adapt to a changing complex environment. Whether your students continue to ask questions and challenge assumptions—and to ask good questions— depends largely on how you respond to their questions (Sternberg 1994). Knowing how to ask good questions is an essential part of intelligence and is possibly the most important part (Arlin 1990, Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi 1976, Sternberg 1985). It is an ability you can either foster or stifle.
When students ask questions, teachers respond in several different characteristic ways. How you respond to a question is differentially helpful in developing a student's intelligence. We propose a seven level model of teacher-student interaction in the questioning process (Sternberg 1994). Responses that correspond to the higher levels of our model better foster intellectual development than those in the lower levels. How you answer a student's question either places the student on the track to intellectual fulfillment or derailment. For example, after visiting Holland, seeing a documentary about Holland, or reading a book about the area, a student might ask why people in Holland are tall. Now consider the various ways you might respond to this or any question. The higher the level of your response, the more you enhance the student's intellectual development. Note that raising the level of response simply requires an affirming attitude toward the student and the question.
Level 1—Rejecting Questions. Typical responses include “don't ask so many questions,” “don't bother me,” “don't ask stupid questions,” and “be quiet!” Responding in this manner sends the message that questions are inappropriate and irritating and students learn to be seen and not heard. Consistently punishing students for asking questions teaches them to stop asking questions and they learn less. Frustration, time constraints, and many other factors may push teachers to use these responses, but we must recognize the repercussions.
Level 2—Restating Questions as Responses. Typical responses are “because they are Dutch, and Dutch people are very tall,” and “because they grow a lot.” At this level we answer the question, but in a completely empty way. Our response is nothing more than a restatement of the original question. We state redundantly that people from Holland are tall because they are Dutch, or because the Dutch grow a lot. Or we say that a person acts the way he does “because he's human,” or acts crazy “because she is insane,” or that some people come up with good solutions “because they are high in intelligence.”
Level 3—Admitting Ignorance or Responding Directly. Typical responses at this level are “I don't know” and “because [followed by a reasonable answer about nutrition or genetics].” At this level teachers either say they do not know or respond based on what they do know. Students are given the opportunity to learn something or to realize that their teachers do not know everything. Admitting ignorance or responding directly are reasonable answers in certain situations, but they are not the best responses for fostering learning.
Teachers can answer at this level either with or without a reward. A reward is “that's a good question,” “I'm glad you asked that,” or “that's a really interesting question.” Such a response is likely to increase the frequency of questions and fosters more learning opportunities.
Level 4—Encouraging Information Seeking. Typical responses at this level are “I'll look it up in the encyclopedia” or “why don't you look it up in the encyclopedia?” Students learn that information can and should be sought and that the process does not end with just an answer or admission of ignorance.
Notice the difference in the two responses. In the first, the teacher takes responsibility for seeking the information and students learn that someone else will do the work for them. In the second response, the student is given the responsibility for learning and learns how to learn. Active learning helps students develop skills in seeking information.
Level 5—Considering Alternative Explanations. At this level the teacher admits ignorance and suggests ideas for the student to explore. Ideally, the student and teacher generate ideas together: People in Holland might be tall because of the food, weather, genetics, or hormone injections. The student learns that even simple questions invite formulating and testing hypotheses.
Level 6—Considering and Evaluating Explanations. Students are not only encouraged to explore alternative explanations, as in Level 5, but also to evaluate the explanations. A typical question is “how can we decide which of these explanations is correct?” For example, if genetics are responsible for the average height of the Dutch people, what do we expect to observe? How can we discern if food or weather is responsible? Students learn from the teacher's response not only how to generate alternative hypotheses, but also how to test hypotheses.
Level 7—Considering, Evaluating, and Following Up. A typical response is “let's gather some information we need to help us decide among these hypotheses.” The teacher encourages the students to gather information that might help determine a valid hypothesis. The students learn how to think and how to act on their thoughts. Although it may not be possible to test every hypothesis, it is often possible to test several. For example, the students can gather information about whether taller Dutch parents tend to have taller children, or about the traditional Dutch diet.
Note how the responses build from rejecting students' questions to encouraging the formulating and testing of hypotheses and from no learning to rote learning to analytic and creative learning. The higher level responses communicate interest in our students and their questions. Teachers don't have the time or resources to always respond in an ideal manner, nor are higher levels of response equally appropriate for all students—responses need to be developmentally appropriate. The more we use the higher levels as students grow up, however, the more we encourage and assist students in developing cognitive skills.
Defining and Redefining Problems
Promote creative performance by encouraging your students to define and redefine problems and projects. Encourage creative thinking by having students choose their own topics for papers or presentations, choose their own ways of solving problems, and sometimes choose again if they discover that their selection was a mistake. Allow your students to pick their own topics, subject to your approval, on at least one paper each term. Approval ensures that the topic is relevant to the lesson and has a chance of leading to a successful project.
A successful project (1) is appropriate to the course's goals, (2) illustrates a student's mastery of at least some of what has been taught, and (3) can earn a good grade. If a topic is so far from the goals that you will feel compelled to lower the grade, ask the student to choose another topic.
You can't always offer students choices, but giving choices is the only way for them to learn how to choose. A real choice is not deciding between drawing a cat or a cow, nor is it picking one state in the U.S.A. for the project fair. Give your students latitude in making choices to help them develop taste and good judgment, both essential elements of creativity.
Sometimes we all make mistakes in choosing a project or in the way we select to accomplish it. Just remember that an important part of creativity is the analytic part—learning to recognize a mistake. Give your students that chance and the opportunity to redefine their choices.
Encouraging Idea Generation
Once the problem is defined or redefined, it's time for students to generate ideas and solutions. In one of our research investigations, teachers assigned their classes a book report on colonial America. In most circumstances, the students would present an idea to the teacher a day or so later and would be off and running. What is wrong with this picture? A lot.
In this investigation, we encouraged teachers to state the general topic—colonial America—and then to distribute project planning sheets. The students spent two social studies class periods generating ideas for different types of projects and reports. Homework for those two nights was to come up with more ideas and to critique each one on the project planning sheet. For each idea students had to answer the following questions:
- What is the idea?
- What tools and materials are needed?
- How likely is a successful project?
- How much do you like the idea and why?
Together, the class explored the answers to the following questions:
- What types of ideas do most classmates prefer and why?
- What types of ideas are likely to lead to successful projects and why?
The volume of ideas generated was remarkable. Once the students got past their first few ideas, mostly ideas they had used in the past, the ideas became creative, challenging, and personally meaningful. One student's suggestion grew from a book report on Uncle Tom's Cabin into an accurate map and report on the Underground Railroad.
One student volunteered to write a report about food—growing, harvesting, storing, and cooking in colonial America, including recipes found in old books. He made three dishes with traditional ingredients for the class to taste while they debated the merits and pitfalls of mid-eighteenth century food practices. The report was creative, fresh, and was not among the first ideas on this student's list. He came up with the idea at home after participating in class discussion.
The environment for generating ideas must be relatively free of criticism. The students may acknowledge that some ideas are better or worse, but you must not be harsh or critical. Aim to identify and encourage any creative aspects of the ideas presented and suggest new approaches to any ideas that are simply uncreative. Praise your students for generating many ideas, regardless of whether some are silly or unrelated, while encouraging them to identify and develop their most unique ideas into high-quality projects.
Your students can use project planning in and out of school and in the future. Questions about marriage, family, and careers are best answered after thoroughly considering many ideas. Teaching students the value of generating numerous ideas enhances their creative-thinking ability and benefits them now and in the future.
Cross-Fertilizing Ideas
Stimulate creativity by helping students to think across subjects and disciplines. The traditional school environment often has separate classrooms and classmates for different subjects and seems to influence students into thinking that learning occurs in discrete boxes—the math box, the social studies box, and the science box. But creative ideas and insights often result from integrating material across subject areas, not from memorizing and reciting material.
Teaching students to cross-fertilize draws on their skills, interests, and abilities, regardless of the subject. For example, if your students are having trouble understanding math, you might ask them to draft test questions related to their special interests—ask the baseball fan to devise geometry problems based on the game. The context may spur creative ideas because the student finds the topic (baseball) enjoyable and it may counteract some of the anxiety caused by geometry. Cross-fertilization motivates students who aren't interested in subjects taught in the abstract.
One way to enact cross-fertilization in the classroom is to ask students to identify their best and worst academic areas. Then ask them to come up with project ideas in their weak area based on ideas borrowed from one of the strongest areas. Explain to them that they can apply their interest in science to social studies by analyzing the scientific aspects of trends in national politics. For example, opinion polling is often discussed in social studies, so help them link it to scientific reasoning by analyzing the pros and cons of opinion polling. Show your students techniques that are acceptable for conducting polls and techniques that render polls invalid. Then ask them to examine data predicting the results of upcoming local and national elections and to critique the pollster's predictions. Initiate a discussion about the media projecting results before the polls are closed.
Cross-fertilization helps students and teachers generate creative ideas for readings, reports, assignments, and assessments. For example, one student conducted a mock town poll about a referendum that would face the voters on election day. Another student clipped news articles referring to pollsters' predictions as guarantees and then explained why these predictions are invalid or at least unwise. Use cross-fertilization techniques in teaching, “how can we think about this physics problem? How about thinking about Michael Jordan playing baseball versus Michael Jordan playing basketball. What can we learn that's relevant to this physics problem?” Suddenly all of the basketball and baseball lovers are interested in solving that physics problem.