Searching for information, discovering facts, and engaging in deep research are fundamental steps in the creative process. “Scholars argue that current curriculum standards can still be met, if taught in a different way” (Bronson). Like the schools showcased in Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century, learning can take place in new environments using fresh and pioneering methods. The trick to developing new learning practices and truly inventive education is through the teaching of creativity. Like any discipline, creativity is a way of seeing, a way of learning and a culture. Creativity is not an inborn talent and can be taught.
Once it is taught, it can be used by students to discover information through exploration, examination, investigation and analysis. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a psychologist who developed unique theories concerning creativity and beauty by studying artists and the process of creating. His most important theory concerns: flow, which is a description of the mental state in which a person becomes completely immersed and focused on a task, and experiences feelings of eager determination, complete involvement and interest, and enjoyment in the process. In layman‘s terms, the sensation of flow is often described as being “in the zone” or “totally absorbed” or “Zen moments” (Csíkszentmihályi, 107). In this sense, flow seems to be a very metaphysical concept with quite practical applications and physiological inidcators. Csíkszentmihályi describes it as, “being at one with things” or “how to live life as a work of art, rather than as a chaotic response to external events.” Csíkszentmihályi explains he is not the first to have the notion of flow, as many Eastern religions have a similar concept of overcoming the duality of self such as the Tao. However, his research and tests empirically support the theory.
Csíkszentmihályi describes the experience of flow as: 1) focused and concentrated, 2) a sense of ecstasy, 3) inner clarity, 4) a loss of self-consciousness, 5) a sense of serenity, 6) timelessness, 7) balance of control and feedback, 8) intrinsically rewarding, 9) awareness of the activity only and 10) a balance of the activity being too easy and too difficult (Csíkszentmihályi, 49). To the right, you will find two diagrams developed by Csíkszentmihályi outlining the target, psychological areas. First, there must be a balance between high challenge and high skill development. If the challenge is too remedial or the skills needed are unrealistic, the practitioner will not experience flow. Instead of developing curriculums based on blocks of knowledge, courses and content should be aimed at increasing flow feelings in our students. Helping them experience flow, will eventually help them develop a habit of flow. When engaged in such lessons, learning will be natural – not autogamously forced. Csíkszentmihályi describes ideal experiences and situations as being in the flow channel and moving outward as skills improve. He says: “In a normal day, most of us experience both anxiety and boredom, along with many other feelings. Flow experiences exist mostly during the high points”(Csíkszentmihályi, 234). During these high points the individual experiences less distraction, feels deeply invested in the activity, does not feel self-conscious or timid, nor is there a sense of over-confidence. Artists enter the state of flow when they create.
According to Csikszentmihalyi, this is “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it” (Csíkszentmihályi, 208). Csíkszentmihályi says that those persons that practice flow, experience effortless action in which one feels no conflicts or contradictions. He further describes the feeling as if being carried by a current or flowing with a current. The participants in his studies described a feeling of ecstasy when engaged in certain tasks, feeling most alive or forgetting one is alive. I would argue that when you actively pursue flow, you are actively pursuing beautiful moments. This is where their creativity originates from. Another way to think about it: is to imagine each of us being born with a well of creativity. This well is drained when we use up our “creative juices” or become stifled and depressed. Flow activities refill the well, giving us new life. The artist reaches a holistic, inhibited state while within the flow channel. When artists are engaged in their craft, they are simultaneously experiencing arousal and control, while being moved by both instinct and feedback from the work. When an artist paints an image, the image actually creates feedback. Tiny fluctuations and imperfections in the paint, the brush and the canvas create exciting circumstances. Sometimes these are relished and embraced, other times they require willful rejection or correction. When they are beneficial they are referred to as “happy accidents.” When they are not beneficial, they are referred to as “mistakes.”
Colors, shapes and forms develop and stimulate the artist. The artist then continues to work the image, changing, altering, adding, subtracting – creating a piece of flux. Most artists will claim that a work is rarely finished. Instead, the piece merely works towards completion, although never actually getting there. More can be done or undone, but the artist actually finishes when s/he leaves the state of flow, not when the product is complete. A finished painting, like a completed building, is only complete in the most arbitrary ways – because the artwork can be continued endlessly no matter how close to the goal the artist is. The finality of a work is not based in the product itself but in the process. The artist engages, and in a sense, communicates with the work. The work gives the artist information, the artist becomes enriched by the information and seeks more. The information could be symbolic or literal: the forms and objects appear aesthetically pleasing or the forms and objects take on deeper meanings. In this way, the state of flow gives rise to learning. Learning in fact, becomes flow, in that the more feedback, the more information, the more knowledge acquired propagates flow, nurturing it and allowing it to bloom.
When learning ends and anxiety or boredom sets in, the state of flow tapers off and the ecstasy of being in flow comes to a halt. If it is a gradual slipping, then the flow experience seems to quiet into peacefulness, whereas if the flow is abruptly ended, then the artist is left frustrated and unfulfilled. Csíkszentmihályi says that 10% to 15% of people never experience flow, while another 15% to 20% experience it at some point every day. In allogamous learning it is vital to experience flow (Csíkszentmihályi, 82). Flow is not limited to the artist; it is just most easily identified in that field. Flow exists in all fields, including science and mathematics. For instance, Einstein was fond of Csíkszentmihályi’s idea of flow, decades before Csíkszentmihályi developed the model. Einstein worked in flow, although never terming it as such. Rather, for Einstein it was merely a natural state – his mind worked in thought-experiments which were characterized by flow. Einstein was fond of using his mind to create: he imagined scenarios, abstractions, patterns and relationships conceived in the ephemeral, ethereal fabric of ideas.
And in this landscape, Einstein used flow states, creatively and critically. In fact, much of his progress and theories were developed in flow states, for his experiments could not be directly perceived (ie. the nature of time, light and wormholes). Einstein challenged his mind to solve unsolvable problems within the thought-experiment context. Einstein was not an artist, although his methods for practicing science were very much alike the mental practices of creating art. The mental processes are one in the same, even in fields as different as art and science. Within this allogamous landscape, creativity is the vehicle of learning – even in science.
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