key: cord-0060740-amhngitr authors: Córdoba-Pachón, José-Rodrigo title: Taking Creativity to the Classroom date: 2020-08-09 journal: Creativity in Management Education DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-50960-6_7 sha: b649a4535ca23e83234b5225dee3827e6b8212cd doc_id: 60740 cord_uid: amhngitr Alongside the previous chapter of this book, this chapter presents a narrative of a play game called ‘protecting our most precious selves’. This narrative is closely related to personal memories as a management educator. Through its writing, it becomes clearer that creativity in the classroom needs to be protected from the excessive operation of power emergent functions (‘creative subjects’ and ‘lack of time’) of soft tyrannies in management education. In the chapter, other rules to play this game are drawn. From the previous chapter and in different forms (objects, events, rules), creativity has become a dear friend of mine rather than a muse. In our previous game of hide and seek, I have been able to recognise valuable old selves and practices, and I have been able to manage if not 'survive' the influence of collective 'clans' and roles whilst developing my individual/ public creativity. I have also acknowledged the existence of a perfectionistanxious self. This one seems to emerge when I am (self) drawn to collective and often impossible demands, one of them being 'saving the world'. In this chapter and through short narratives oriented towards idea stories (Clapp 2017) , I narrate both refreshing(s), re-starts and iterations of a game called 'Let us protect our most precious selves'. The difference between refreshing(s) and iterations is that in the former I try to play as if it was for the first time. A key lesson from this chapter is that creativity and I-now friendsmust make sure that we do not get 'killed' in the classroom via the operation of soft tyrannies in management education. To do so we would need to be both playful and serious (i.e. exploring alleyways, organising, failing, stopping, reflecting, saying no), acknowledging also our perennial nature as beings. The chapter is organised as follows. I present a glimpse of the narratives I want to articulate in the chapter in the form of a picture with courts, refreshing(s) and iterations. I then narrate in more depth my experiences when nurturing creativity using some of the nurturing ideas and perspectives previously described in chapter 3 of this book. In some situations, I find it difficult but not impossible to fail. This could lead me to laugh more often about my different selves (i.e. anxious-perfectionist) when playing, and to be bit more mystical-realistic about life in general (Droit 2018) . In a more serious one, the above leads me to reconsider saying no and be more (self) compassionate to laugh a bit more about what goes on. A gAme In two courts After some deliberation with myself, and a bit of frowning from loved ones, I have bought myself an electric bike or e-bike. To make storage space, I sold my recycled bike. The person who acquired it said, 'It is a bargain!', after me trying to explain all the things that this 'old vintage' bike had, including my loyalty to it and what it represents: a recycled self-someone who decided to cycle again and regained pleasure in getting bikes gradually fixed. A bit of my current recycling enthusiastic me went with the sold bike. But an old one resurfaced: that teenager who used to cycle around the neighbourhood never wearing a helmet, competing once to find out that it was too hard to do so, falling over a few times and crying in front of friends. The one dreaming about fellow Colombian cyclists climbing in Europe, the one who lost the bike that mum bought on credit and specially for him, the one who re-painted or repaired a couple of old bikes when arriving in the UK. I am now an old self, going down alleyways (this time alone), rediscovering some curiosity and passion (Wagner 2015) . With the e-bike I have now found myself doing bits of riding with my children and struggling to decide how to include cycling in mid-life. I have also found myself getting excited when explaining to students and colleagues, what an e-bike does, and how I use it. In the company of creativity and after being convinced by the enthusiastic Steve who sold me an electric bike, I begin to 'pedal' slowly; I keep a good posture; I take time to prepare the bike equipment (battery, clothing, lighting, work documents, lock) before setting off. I do not venture too far on my own or with my children. I am slowly learning to start every day of cycling as a new day, to be patient and to enjoy being 'slow', something that challenges the old and perfectionist ones elicited in the last chapter of this book and elsewhere (Córdoba-Pachón 2019). Having done mindfulness meditation for the last few years (sometimes frequently, some other times when I feel anxious), often I catch myself in a speedy mode which gets reinforced by the 'lack of time' function of soft tyrannies. I want to do many things in class and with my research; I dream of wonderful ideas when showering, walking or going to bed. I feel worried about my job, my families, our future. The perfectionist-anxious self from the last chapter takes over and makes me 'speed up'. I know I need to let these feelings pass. In this game of protecting what I consider my best selves (calm, noble, organised, inventive, enthusiastic, etc), the perfectionist-anxious self plays back by arguing that I need to be more creative and that creativity is now my 'field of knowledge': I need to show this in my research and teaching. In the space that I create for all these selves and within soft tyrannies, I know that this latter argument is just an illusion, something that can be let go as part of my different selves (Wright 2017) . Still, the game continues. Life continues. New iterations of the game happen. I like my job, at least some parts of it where I can be creative and encourage others. I feel grateful. After a few journeys to and back from work during spring and summer on the new e-bike, and some clashes with myself and others (drivers, my wife, students), I am (re)learning a few rules to play with the power functions of lack of time and knowledge disciplining: • I am not that physically young anymore, and the 'roads' (physical, emotional) are bumpy; following my passion and curiosity needs grounding in who I am now (father, academic, still foreigner); • Cycling, or 'learning' and dealing with creativity involves 'slowness' (Berg and Seeber 2016) . Extension: even if one tries to follow the rhythm of other cyclists (colleagues) or races (institutions); • To follow 'safety' practices, wear helmet and visible clothing. I need to rest at times, mindfully meditate, humour, walk, to express my feelings, say no whenever possible, look after my own well-being (Córdoba-Pachón 2019); • Contributing to saving the planet by reducing car pollution is not an easy business, as many of us still want to be fast to close the gaps between ourselves and reality as we see it. Let us not panic. The world is more complex and interconnected than we can fully understand. And the coronavirus has reminded us all of this. As Bateson (1994) says, this 'cycling' self is combining the old and the new, it is beginning to converse and interact with others in its adaptation to new situations. I am learning that I don't need to show to others how and radically 'creative' or 'adventurous' I am, at least not all the time. I just need to enjoy this type of 'small' creativity as a collective role or use of my individual roles and activities to teach my students. In this game, safety means seriousness and vice-versa. I say after a tiring cycling journey: I have to accept that easy does it. Creativity, my friend, munches her sandwich and shouts: "I told you so! One step at a time, (re)learn to walk AND cycle before you run". I reply: "No you did not, you were all up for enthusiasm, asking me to be a lone creative genius, perfect and save the world, remember?" After some silence and reflection from both parties, we call it quits. For now. An IterAtIon: recyclIng And dIgItAl InnovAtIon The above cycling experience and rules have also influenced my teaching of creativity elsewhere. I am more mindful of my new selves, some of which have been 'buried' and are waiting to be reborn. I teach with passion how the brain works and how we need to train our brain to chunk information, recall it and put it in practice (Oakley 2014) . I am also more aware and less fearful of engaging with my physical and social surroundings (Bateson 1994) . Having seen how student residences on our university campus are left during summer and in between student intakes for each year, I set up a student assignment in my final year undergraduate course of digital innovation management. In this written assignment, my students are asked to identify needs for recycling specific items (clothes, electronics, plastics, furniture, etc.) and generate digital solutions to improve recycling processes. To do well in their assignments, I repeatedly encourage my students to go out and speak to different stakeholders, to generate and validate a storyboard and business plan for their solutions, to also engage with their surroundings, to challenge their assumptions (Montuori 2012) . This whilst I contact our university estates manager who I heard talking about plans to increase the total percentage of waste that is recycled on campus (including student residences). Arriving a bit late for one of my classes of this course (now delivered online because of the coronavirus situation), creativity and I have an epiphany. The spirit of play visits and makes me leap on time, mute in wonder, and I try to articulate what comes to mind: taking on a new course, talking about recycling to students, setting up what I think is a creative assessment and using creativity criteria to mark it (Cropley and Cropley 2016) . I remember students asking me if their idea for a digital innovation or solution to recycle is 'good' or not and becoming impatient with their endless questions and wrong interpretations about the assignment, their understandings of the increasing returns offered by digital technologies and their worries about their exams. Wow, a lot has gone on. The perfectionist-anxious self surfaces, arguing that it is my fault for not clearly explaining to my students. At home, my wife helps me calm down and enjoy being online as well as valuing my creativity. • There are always many good things in what we do as management educators in creativity. An IterAtIon: dIvergIng And convergIng In BIke recyclIng By the time I get to teach second year undergraduate management students, they know how to play the games derived from the emerging function of 'lack of time'. Most of them know what is required in terms of lectures, group activities, assignments, exams, committees, unions, feedback, attendance and so on. Their attendance diminishes, and I hope it is also because they are rediscovering themselves. In parallel with the above recycling iterations, I set up another assignment where students are to become familiarised with bicycle recycling processes. They are to propose meaningful improvements to a chosen bike recycling process or set of processes. Students are taught and encouraged to use divergent and convergent creativity thinking techniques like the rich picture, random word, concept fan, or cost benefit analysis. They can also incorporate some business process management philosophies (design thinking, complexity thinking, creativity at work, etc.) to justify their proposed solutions. Last year, students and I were able to visit a bicycle recycling facility nearby. The project manager was very kind, prepared a very informative flyer, explained it and let us see how they work. The visit proved to be novel. I think students got a good impression of how it is to work with different goals and pressures in mind in organisations like this (i.e. be profitable whilst contributing to sustainability and quality of life improvements). I felt very satisfied by having developed this idea. For me this experience meant going back to what I like to do as an educator, which is to put students in touch (again) with their local surroundings (Córdoba-Pachón and Campbell 2008). It also meant going back to some of my old 'saviour' self: using my skills, knowledge and willingness to help others. This time the saviour-self did not overdo it as a perfectionist-anxious one. He teamed up with creativity for the benefit of the students. He let others (managers) take part in creativity. In that year, I also encouraged students to help me draft a report with our insights to give to the facility manager. We worked together, I compiled ideas and made the report. I sent it and went for a quick visit afterwards to follow it up with the manager. He said he gave the report to their boss, they said it was useful… • Creative educators and students, we made it this time, well done! Let us celebrate, let us be grateful. This year though, the bike recycling facility manager has resigned and a new one promised to email me after another quick visit… And then the coronavirus pandemic hits all of us. • We cannot fully control what happens with ourselves, others or our creativity efforts. Be grateful, be kind to ourselves and others, always. A refreshIng: (re)leArnIng ABout numBers Now we are back in time where this book began (remember me sitting alone in a lecture theatre?). And this year, I was asked to take on the leadership of a quantitative methods course for first year undergraduates in management. My workplace is worried that students are scoring low in numeracy tests and needs to see improvements on this front, also for accreditation and employability purposes (an emerging set of soft tyrannies). To me this could be another form of creative recycling: reuse some educational content whilst I also introduce a bit of creativity into it to make it more enjoyable for students. I feel anxious. I call upon another old self: an engineer with an interest in mathematics and problem solving, the one who studied engineering and worked for a bit in developing software. I try to make this challenge exciting for myself and students. I see an opportunity to introduce them to ideas about how the brain 'learns' (Eagleman 2015; Oakley 2014) , and how learning could also be conceived of as creating (Oakley 2014) . I also want to help students who, in my view, had not been adequately taught this course in previous years. Too heavy on the side of advanced statistics, too little on having a gradual learning process. As one of my previous mentors recommended: 'Rise to the bottom!', meaning that as educators we should assume little knowledge and motivation from our students, something that does not sit very well with my child and perfectionist self, the one who learned maths very quickly and enjoyed this subject until his early twenties. This situation is a refreshing one, a re-starting one too. I learnt about numbers many years ago. Now it feels like the first time I am doing it. Currently and outside my work office door there is a board where I have posted a quote from Lehrer (2012, p. 23 ): When students are given full instructions, when they know exactly what to do, they become easily bored. Curiosity is a fragile thing. I feel anxious however: it is a course with over five hundred students! I feel all eyes are on me. Because of this, I start preparations. After a conversation with colleagues (including the previous course leader), I notice that I want to radically transform this course. I feel my shoulders are heavy now. I re-read Barbara Oakley (2014)'s book. In the early course lectures, I introduce her two modes of brain activity: Diffuse and Focused. I explain that the diffuse mode is a kind of warehouse in which the brain stores ideas and makes connections between those of them which we consider loose or distant from each other. We do so often unconsciously, making use of the hypothalamus and other networks of the brain (Lehrer 2012; Eagleman 2015) . The focused mode is when the brain stores ideas in the frontal cortex, to make connections between adjacent elements. I ask my students to think of three things that they are curious about (Wagner 2015) . I get very profound answers: 'afterlife, planetary life, Brexit' are some of their responses. I encourage them to ask themselves these questions when tackling a mathematical problem to generate possibilities: 'What if?' or 'Why not?' (Craft 2013; Barros-Castro et al. 2014) . With a few exercises, I show them our brains often trick us by enticing us to jump into the first available answer we find (Dobelli 2013) . I also bring my systems-thinking self as well. I teach my students different types of problem-solving: (a) solving it (finding the best solution); (b) resolving it (finding acceptable solutions); and (c) dissolving it (challenging our assumptions or self-imposed constraints about the problem, imagining novel and systemic ones) (Ackoff 1987) . In this course I think I am putting some of my best individual, creative public selves before students in this private space of the classroom. I play the recorder to help them visualise mathematics and numbers (this felt like a public audition, but I enjoyed it somehow!). I use humour in my examples. I include some bits on the history of mathematics and problem solving. My intention is to generate a sense of wonder, which could help us start articulating (business and management) situations in terms of problems and equations. I tell them to be patient with themselves. Learning takes time and practice. In some lectures, I also throw a frisbee at some of them with questions about what they are curious about or what they have learned from me so far. In others I ask my students to stand up. I encourage them to shout 'fail!' and clap: I want to include failure as part of their language and celebrate it as a learning opportunity. I can see some of them are a bit confused or curious. There are always those who don't want to stand up or who refuse to do so when I ask them to repeat the exercise. I show a human side of myself that students would not normally see (Berg and Seeber 2016) . For instance, I show my bag contents (including the frisbee), my passion for writing, my desire to do some diffuse thinking and go to a nearby lake and take a walk as a way of ruminating through the ideas that I have about my research projects (my books being some of them) (Oakley, 2014) . I try to breathe. I play with the room's lighting. I tell them stories about my children, my previous jobs, life back in Colombia. I play the recorder at an away meeting with colleagues. I learned to play as a child. Some of my colleagues look surprised. Others clap or encourage me to practice if I want to sound better. I just say: I play to my students to help them better understand maths and have a hobby or go for a walk if they feel tired (Fig. 7.2) . We inhabit the house together. We go back in time and restart our relationship with numbers. We do maths exercises together, we imagine. I challenge their assumptions about education: I say it is likely they have been trained to fear failure and produce the right answers, the ones I want to hear. I humour them. I tell also them to be patient with themselves. In a more 'serious' tone, I learn to record online lectures and set up online tests for this course on the hoof: everything is set up this way. I talk to colleagues and seek help. It feels like some of my old selves (engineer, perfectionist-anxious) are taking over the impending deadlines. It has been many years since learning numbers! And I feel the pressure to do well and do it quickly. I feel all eyes and institutional constraints that make me offer the best experiences to students are on me on the days of the online tests. I also need to be bit more patient with myself. I encourage my team of tutors to value the positives. • We could still use our best selves with creativity when we do the things that we value and in the midst of pressures and mis preparations; • No one is really looking when we are creative ; we just need to be bit more patient with ourselves. I should (could) have followed the previous rule(s) more to the letter! In one of the above learning numbers course lectures, some students walk out of the lecture theatre. I later find out that they were not interested in what I was saying. I follow up by email, asking them to be more 'professional' in their attitudes. I get anxious. Soft tyrannies do really shape our roles. In addition, the online tests don't go smoothly. In the first one, I get called to come to the room where students are taking it. I find out that I made some editing mistakes and that our digital, online learning environment displays graphics or information differently or inaccurately. Faces of some students and invigilator show anxiety. I quickly correct the mistakes and ask students to refresh their screens. The number of mistakes reduces as students and I identify new ones in subsequent test sessions during that day. It will be several nights of self-worry and self-berating which affect me. My helpful administrators offer some students the opportunity to test again. I meet some of the most concerned to offer reassurances and tell them they did not fail. I also discover a calculation error and remark the whole cohort. I am not allowed to offer detailed feedback on which test questions they got wrong. I send several emails to all students to continue reassuring them that they will be OK. As I share my feelings and thoughts with colleagues and loved ones, it seems that students and I got caught in a soft tyrannies generated situation, where we exchange blows for what happened in the face of 'blind' feedback: we do not have much time to reflect, listen or talk to each other. Being playful and doing online tests (inherited from someone else) did not sit together easily. We are subjects of these 'governing' technologies, as play could also become the 'norm', to the detriment of seriousness. Any failure is to be managed within this assessment territory, even if its potential causes or consequences reside outside it. I could however, seriously acknowledge 'failure', humour a bit about it, be more mindful, and restart. This situation has been a refreshing of play: it is now me teaching rather than only learning numbers. I fail, I quickly correct my mistakes. I learn to better use digital assessment technologies. I communicate with students using it. I get anxious. And so, they. I think I just met my match: Perfectionistanxious students! Some of these students offer good suggestions to improve the assessment though. Grateful, always grateful. Restart. • Cover the basics of any assignment or course and do it slowly and gradually. That is also part of being creative. • Simple exercises will do for the time being when refreshing learning about numbers and in large courses. • One step at a time please. We cannot please everybody, especially if there are five hundred of them! (Did you hear, perfectionistanxious selves?) • We did (not) fail. I say 'we' because failure deserves a systemic analysis beyond assessment. In the above course (learning about numbers), students got good results in the online tests. Some of them tell me they were pleased with my teaching; others get enthusiastic about the potential to further explore how the brain works in further management courses. I feel we (me and my course team) were able to improve things from last year. Nevertheless, other feedback from student-staff committees was a bit 'different'. I hear and read students' comments like: 'This course is a waste of time'. 'The lecturer is not serious'. 'Neither lecturers nor practice tutors speak clearly'. 'There was not enough practice'. Some of this feedback also arrives via online evaluations, giving us an overall score. Feedback: another governing technology made more immediate, impersonal, sophisticated, punishing to a great extent. Following Drummond (2013) , I try to interpret feedback. I could have been focused on my own mathematics-knowledgeable/playful self, to the potential detriment of other ones (organised, helpful, hard-working and serious) or the students' (worried, hateful of numbers, assertive, anxious-perfectionist, careless, demanding) ones. Nevertheless, When reading the feedback, my friend creativity says, in a playful/serious way: "So, what did you expect? Why so many students (500) My first reactions to the above student feedback suggest that myself, I am taking all responsibility for it, am being too harsh on myself; I acknowledge this when meditating and with the help of others. Perhaps because I wanted things to be perfect, or perhaps because I drained myself in the attempt to please students' (perhaps unrealistic) expectations, I was not able to fully appreciate it, doubting that 'good' feedback was true. Within soft tyrannies, not many people beside my selves want to hear about failure, let alone share responsibilities for it or success. Interestingly, I also got an email from a student's partner from another country who heard about my playfulness and some of the negative reactions I received and encouraged me to continue instilling creativity in my courses and my students. ' We need tutors like you', he would say. • There is always room for improvement if not learning in everything we think or do as human beings. • Let us play to be compassionate, let us try to appreciate ourselves and others more fully. Let us try to find humour in all this. • There could be emotional support around to help us deal with failures (wife, well-being groups, close friends). In a more compassionate and serious manner, student feedback could be reinterpreted as another, emerging governing technology which, alongside play and assessment, aims to ensure that both educators and students assume certain conducts and achieve governing objectives laid out by governing programmes like the ones laid out earlier in this book. On this occasion, mediated by ICT and 'like a bull in a china shop', feedback has entered the space created for individual selves: we left the door open, and the bull had a field day. I forgot that my teaching team and students' freedom is framed within soft tyrannies power. We got too close to our collectively defined boundaries. As perfectionist-anxious selves, we can really harm or be harmed by using this sort of technology; we could be reinforcing it with ICT mediated ones. We all need to stop, become silent, and if possible, better articulate what we think is going on; consider the existence of other selves whose feedback could protect creativity and us. We could consider other governing technologies to enable mistakes to be corrected without affecting creativity or education. Maybe we just need to express how we feel as a way of protecting ourselves and others and with the possibility of creating better instances for reflection, dialogue or participation within soft tyrannies. And try to become less serious, more compassionate with ourselves and others. • Within this game of selves protection, being serious would mean suspending judgement about ourselves as educators; restore perceived imbalances between collective and individual roles in management education, restraining or arguing against the effects that governing technologies like feedback is having on all of us. This is what creativity and I have to say to be more self-compassionate. We need to say no to large lecture theatres, doubling up teaching, standardising learning, fully automating online assessment. These and other things make us educators and students more anxious. They make us become or adopt more perfectionist and anxious selves, isolated, unhappy selves. Time to stop and reflect before taking any further action. Cup of tea? So, what really happened? Perhaps we will never fully find out, and that should be OK. • This is what I have to say to myself, other educators and students: Let us try to be or become more compassionate, ok or good enough selves in education and beyond. This chapter has narrated my experiences of engaging with creativity at present. Such experiences have revealed several different selves that have surfaced with the help of ideas previously presented. In the space for nurturing creativity that was carved out previously in this book, these selves have mostly performed a collective role of educating others. Through several refreshing(s) and iterations of the game I call 'let us protect our most precious, private selves', and using ideas about nurturing creativity in education previously explored in this book, I have been able to advance creativity; as a friend, creativity has been there to help convey ideas about recycling, cycling and learning about numbers. I have also been able to show some of my most precious selves to students. Playing this new game has also allowed me to elicit several useful rules. These suggest that we should keep safe emotionally and mentally; use creativity to tackle real world problems from our physical surroundings; ensure that we also keep our imagination going so that we can entice our students to experience wonder and surprise; celebrate successes when our students make sense of creativity; accept failure as a systemic issue that involves us and others, be more understanding and tolerant, cover gradually the basics of domains of knowledge, and use feedback to promote self-compassion in ourselves and students, even if that means saying 'no' or 'back off!' to existing and potentially detrimental educational practices in management. There could be times where we need to become silent or serious about creativity, meaning that we need to protect ourselves and our students by using feedback to promote systemic changes that are needed in our management educational systems. Being creative also means being able to shift and share responsibility for 'failure' to such systems as a way of living an ethos towards our present time(s). (Self) counter-conducts can also be about pushing back; redesigning governing programmes (mass education) or technologies (i.e. online feedback and assessment), and reacting against what we see as negative effects of power technologies and emerging functions. In my case, taking on large management courses and expecting 'positive' if not 'perfect' student feedback could be twofold: as my own fault as educator (I needed to cover the basics bit better, although I think I did an OK job, all things considered), but also as a systemic fault of a system that does not ask itself if these practices are good for us all. For this reason, there need to be creativity opportunities to design educational environments that do not take their toll on educators or students. It is time to rethink what management education wants to achieve and how it wants to achieve it. The infusion of creativity could not be only seen as a way of reinforcing existing and limited conceptions about who educators or students are or should be (cogs in an increasingly sophisticated operating machinery that serves economic and knowledge demands). Rather, creativity in education could be also seen as an opportunity to go back to our most precious selves, manage and protect them from increasing governing programmes and economies of scale, many of which are currently being reinforced by the use of digital technologies. The insights of this chapter could lead to small, silent but powerful reflections which could trigger individual and systemic actions in management education. As educators, let us keep playing and being serious. There is still freedom and time to do so. And in between our playfulness and seriousness, we could become ok or good enough people for our own benefit and future, and that of others around us. The Art of Problem Solving -Accompanied by Ackoff's Fables A Systemic Framework for Evaluating Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning-Mathematical Problem-solving (CSCL-MPS) Initiatives: Insights from a Colombian Case Peripheral Visions: Learning Along the Way The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy Learning to deal with CSR issues in the classroom Participatory Creativity: Introducing Access to Equity to the Creative Classroom Managing Creativity: A Systems Thinking Journey. London: Routledge Childhood, Possibility Thinking and Wise, Humanising Educational Future Promoting Creativity Through Assessment: A Formative Computer-Assisted Assessment Tool for Teachers The Art of Thinking Clearly Volver a ser Niño: Experiencias de Filosofía (trans: Núria Petit Fontserè) Care of the Self in a Knowledge Economy: Higher education, vocation and the ethics of Michel Foucault The Brain: The Story of You Imagine: How Creativity Works Creative Inquiry: Confronting the Challenges of Scholarship in the 21st Century A Mind for Numbers Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World Why Buddhism Is True -The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment