Creative Aging

Below is a Letter to the NYT that reflects feelings about the content of an essay on Creativity and Aging that appeared in the Times. I was interrupted while completing it. However,
had I returned to in in time to post it to the Times, it would have ended as shown in red type below.

Response to

What Happens to Creativity as We Age?

Alison Gopnik and Tom Criffiths

Sunday Review Section, NYT, SUNDAY, AUGUST 20, 2017

In contradiction to the premise proposed by the authors that our creativity lessens in age, the personal experiences of myself and friends (mostly within stone's throw of early 70's) is that we are experiencing a flowering of new creativity.  For most of us, one or another kind of creative endeavor has been maintained throughout our adult years- early child rearing years the exception, but now there seems to be a new freedom to our creative efforts. No longer worried about how our efforts may play out in a professional way (i.e. will my stories ever get published, my photo show at the library draw a crowd, etc), there is the enjoyment of creating for oneself - and sharing with whomever is receptive. To this end, we are right now organizing a monthly-

To this end, we are right now organizing a monthly meet-up as a means to share the creative energies and enterprises that are active and alive for each of us despite age.

Legacy of a North Shore Childhood

Joseph Sears School, Kenilworth Illinois

• Age 7, moved from Maumee OH to Evanston, IL ; attended Lincolnwood School

• Age 9, moved from Evanston IL to Wilmette, IL ; attended Harper School 

• Age 11, moved from Wilmette, IL to Winnetka IL; attended Joseph Sears School and New Trier High School

From my first year in Evanston, I realized that I was no longer in 'Kansas', a truth first experienced by the differences in schools.  My Maumee school, which my father had attended, was an old building of tall dark hallways, uneven wooden floors and small desk cluttered classrooms - no room for activity centers and/or group work provided!.  There was little to see on the walls other than what was visible through the high glass windows. Surrounded by modest homes, the schoolyard was largely blacktopped dirt. In places, a few trees reached over a tall wire fence.  In contrast, Lincolnwood was set in the middle of a large treed suburban neighborhood of old, stately homes.  A small woods-park at the far end of the block bordered one end of the school property.  Built after the war, the school was single story, red brick and, very surprising to me, had dark bark wood chips under all the playground equipment.  Inside, the classroom walls were decorated with posters, prints and low shelves - each with an assortment of what I can only imagine from this distance were materials for 'educational enrichment' as deemed most important by educators of the 1950's.  

 

I thrived in and loved my North Shore school experiences.  When my father died in 1961, my mother considered moving back to Maumee. It was my vociferous objections to replacing my New Trier High School opportunities with those offered by Maumee High that heavily influenced her decision to remain on the North Shore. And yet, it was while in grade eight that I resolved to become a Russian Language major - with the secret goal of spending my life collecting folk songs in the Ukraine.  This was my fanciful assurance that I was a guaranteed a life far away from the suburbs of Chicago. 

 

The experience I recall the most vividly as sensitizing me to the inequalities of life was that of picking my father up at the commuter train station at the end of his work day. Watching the groups of brief case bearing white men hurry from train to cars, I knew at the nearby bus stops black women with paper bags, 'cleaning ladies' were heading south to 'negro housing'. However, it is likely a plethora of smaller experiences, barely remembered now, that culminated in my conviction that something about the set-up - wonderful as it was for me - was not justifiable.

 

Even before I left the North Shore for college, I understood the unrealistic fantasy of my proposed Russian-Adventure career, but my desire to escape and/or be come reconciled to what I perceived as the highly privileged, largely raciest and materialistic nature of upper middle class/upper class life remained a large influence on how I spent my adult formative years - and continues to shape where I put my energy and time, with whom I build and renew friendships, and how I view the world today.  There is an obvious dilemma in this situation that I acknowledge and on some level still struggle to accept.

However, I have come to appreciate the following legacy of my upbringing:

• I had excellent educational opportunities from grade 2 through high school.

• I was surrounded by good friends with caring (even if sometimes misdirected) parents who had time for and supported outside activities and programs created just for us!

• I experienced from a young age the truth that wealth alone was a poor predictor of successful families and meaningful lives.

• At an impressionable adolescent age, I saw on a good many social occasions the underbelly of the wealthy life.  As I result, I was never impressed with individuals simply because they were financially successful nor intimidated by the social/political power this brought them. This has been a freeing and useful position from which to navigate life.

* * *

My own life has been privileged in many ways and I never take it for granted that I 'deserve what I have'.  When you are born on Third Base (or in some cases half-way to Home Plate), how can you take credit for 'Hitting a Home Run'. Had I been born half-way to First Base, what would my chances of escaping that legacy have been?  It is an unanswerable question, but one that for me is always worth keeping in mind when looking at the lives of others at all socioeconomic levels.  Meanwhile, I remain at heart a European-style socialist with the acceptance that my views are unlikely to be shared by many of those with whom I grew-up. However, it would be interesting to hear their stories if only to ponder the possible reasons we walked the same hallways for so many years, but came out through very different doorways.

A Tale of Two Schools

 

Yesterday, I visited two classrooms for forty minutes to introduce kindergarteners to a program developed by myself and two teachers, a program that puts cameras in the hands of young children for the purpose of exploring the natural world. Both classrooms were full of neatly dressed children whose excitement about the new project was visible in the eyes and body language of each. The schools were located only a half dozen miles apart -  there the similarities ended.

The population of the urban classroom consisted of many children raised in or threatened by poverty while those of the suburban school were raised by college educated parents with the economic stability. These latter children will not encounter poverty until they learn about it via the media or classes where it can be discussed or debated intellectually.

Poverty environments are stressful environments. The developmental consequences of  children being raised with brains flooded frequently by stress hormones are now well documented. Most notably there is a negative impact on the frontal lob. Frontal lob impediment impairs an individual's ability to judge and decide upon action. It is the seat of self-discipline and attention.

In one classroom, students sat attentively through a six minute self-created video of 'how to use the cameras';  in the other, frequent student interruptions fed by positive excitement and difficulty with self-control limited the chance of information sharing. In both rooms, the video was a backdrop to the hands-on exploration that followed. In both rooms, students had clearly been hooked by the technology as well as the promise to go outside into the sun of the September day. But it was a struggle for some of the urban children to attend well enough to arrange quiet movement through the hallways, and once outside a continued struggle for the same students to share the cameras with respect for one another.

Fortunately, a great deal of material now exists that documents successful ways to help children of poverty succeed. Unfortunately, the system is making it nearly impossible for this information to be implemented in our classroom. Not surprisingly, the teachers in the urban school spent their lunch period time (before the camera event) team planning.  The topic of their discussion: How to ensure that their kindergarten charges will learn how to handle testing materials (how to write on the lines, avoid scribbling, circle only One answer, etc.) !  This was not a teacher choice topic, but a choice mandated by a very broken educational system that has restricted where they can place their attention and time.

Of course, I could also document the differences in the class sizes, the percentage of children who had had pre-schooling experiences, the number of high needs children in each classroom, and so on, but why repeat what is now easily available via a simple google search.

For myself, a volunteer who can easily walk into and out of the classroom, it is hard to maintain the shimmer of optimism. As well, I struggle to find compassion for those of us born on Third Base whose ignorance of their entitlement limits the supports that are available for the successful education of those born often only half-way to First.

Our public school systems through ignorant interpretation of cognitive, emotional and social pedagogical research have produced a plethora of new student-testing (as if children needed more cortisol inducing experiences) and demands that continue to move learners at the most risk step-by-step closer to an adult life of failure. Admittedly what I have written is largely an appeal to heart and mind.  Perhaps an appeal that will carry more impact is:  Invest Now in Education, Save later on Prisons. 

Why EdCamps?

Thirty-plus years a teacher, I've attended my share of conferences and presented at a good many as well. I valued them for chance to look beyond my classroom, my school, my community. 'What else is happening?' 'What is another way of doing what I'm doing? - or if I was a presenter:  'How do other teachers respond to what I am doing?'

However, no matter where or what the conference, there  was always a lack of time to engage in conversations at a deeper level even during the most participant-active presentations. At times, a conference felt like being at smorgasbord of the decade's best foods and never given more than a smell or a small lick of the offerings. Reflecting on these experiences, I believe my disappointment in the process was largely due to the following:

•  the ideas, concerns, issues I encountered during conference sessions often did suggest new directions, but by the time I'd returned to the classroom much of my excitement would fade beneath day-to-day demands; any chance of innovation was mentally and physically filed away for a summer review by which time my mind had traveled elsewhere

• at the conference I was largely a vessel for information, a token agent in process

• as I shuffled from room to room with groups of teachers gathering notes, handouts and photos, I sometimes experienced the isolation of being a low valued member of a crowd because there were no on site chances to tease apart and debate the possibilities being aired during sessions

Now I realize what I was craving an EdCamp experience.

EdCamps are participant driven 'unconferences' with a few simple guidelines.

• free to all participants
• for educators by educators
• the space is provided by EdCamp, the discussion themes by the participants
• the day's sessions are listed at the start of the event by any participant
• the educator-generated sessions unfold as those present determine

For more information, including a number of descriptive videos: https://edcamp.wikispaces.com/Promotional+Material

In the Service of 'Ah Ha' Education

For over twenty years, each school year I accompanied my young middle school classes outside to the creek where they undertook a variety of environmental activities: collecting macro invertebrates for later exploration in the classroom; testing: water turbidity, pH, hardness, temperature, depth, stream flow; noting bank health and visible signs of human impact (green lawns, trash).  While I understood the validity of these methods of environmental education, I was also aware that the true benefit of the creek field work was far more to support and sustain interest in the outdoor world than to reinforce curricular content.

Our middle school spanned grades five to eight. I had elected to remain at the five-six level because I felt it was here I would have more curricular freedom to introduce science concepts in manner that captured the real excitment of exploring the world - and captured it without the burden of latter dragging students inside and 'testing them' on what they'd experienced.  Of course, I prepared them dutifully for the outdoor explorations. Indeed we often did formal group assessments of the creek health using well established protucols based on macro-invertebrate populations. And yes, they dutifully filled in a lab notebook noting the results. However, I was always acutely aware that most of this information/learning would fade quickly as they moved subject to subject each day being exposed to ever increasing banks of other information. Yet, I also knew that their surprised responses to first viewing the gills of a mayfly larva or the mating behavior of scuds would last far longer.  Here was a world they'd never known existed despite, for many, years spent playing in and about the creek.

It was in providing my middle schoolers with the tool of the dissecting scope that I believe I served them best as a teacher/mentor regarding creek life.  The names, dates, general data related to the experience, while justifiably important in a science class were secondary to the 'ah ha' moments generated by simply seeing the small world up-close. And these 'Ah Ha' moments often took place outside without my intervention. The large animal hole a group discovered in the lawn, the odd red roots of the trees along the bank, the ability of rising creek waters to move large rocks, the hidden worlds under the bridge that carried traffic over the creek, the difficulty of walking across a rocky streambed - all produced varying levels of wonder. In a world freed from formal assessment tied to specific curricular demands, it is obvious any motivated teacher can build an entire year's program around students' wonder especially given the accessiblity of outside experts and other resources via the Internet.

In this world, the workshop oft-quoted popular advice:  "Be Not a Sage on a Stage, but a Guide on the Side" takes on real meaning. In this world, other teachers suddenly are excited by the field trips to local natural habitats that result in students missing a day's lesson in the (math or English or French or Art) classroom because they understand such explorations can also generate a wonder that can be connected to their own disciplines.

New Roads - Old Roads

A few days before Spring break in April of 2013, I learned my contract-position at The Harley School had fallen beneath the budgetary ax and would expire in June. From the day I left the Classroom to become an Educator/Contract worker, I realized I had assumed a tenuous position. Thus, the news was not a total surprise and for the past ten months I have become the 'tree-stands-alone; hi ho the forest-o" as I attempt to discover new directions. I am currently involved in a number of activities all of which suggest future possibilities and draw upon different aspects of the skills and experiences that have shaped me as an educator:

• K-12 environmental teacher/mentor for 25+ years
• technology-early adapter-consistent user
•  educational 'yearner' in the tradition of Seymour Papert - forever looking for another way to define learning, to mentor and support learning for others, to continue learning myself
•  roots as a home schooling parent (largely ignorant of what I was attempting to do) taught me early that a good teacher must be as committed a learner as the best of his/her students
• acceptance that the world today belongs to those younger than me, but if one is respectful of new ways there is still two-way learning to be shared
• forty-five plus adult years grounded in meditation and self-reflective practices that have at long last helped to temper some of my impatience with people who seem willing to float with the times rather than dive beneath the surface for deeper understanding
• a lifetime curiosity about the natural world and  an appreciation that adults can have a key role in providing children with opportunities to explore it
• desire to work with others with whom I have some level of shared interests and goals

On my own
Current positions/activities that captured my time this past year include my fall work as a College Supervisor of Science Student Teachers for SUNY Geneseo as well as the continuing development of the program, Kids Afield, I initiated in September of 2013 with two Harley school teachers (and have written about extensively in this Blog). Our intent was to connect children to nature via digital photography. With the success of the first year's work, we presented the program at the New York State Science Teacher's Convention and the North American Association of Environmental Educators Conference in the Fall of 2013.  connectchildrentonature.wikispaces.com

A half-dozen years ago, I had teacher's mini-epiphany when the cover story of the Stanford Alumnae magazine featured Stanford's d.school. Reading about this program (that was beginning to include K-12 education) was enough for me to regret for the first time in my life that I'd left Stanford after only two year. Had the d.school (dschool.stanford.edu/blog/category/k12/) been around in the late 60's, possibly I would have not been so ready to jump elsewhere for my education. However, the d.school materials did enrich my last years in the classroom where I successfully employed design thinking practices in much of my grade six curricula. As a result, I feel competent to help other teachers bring the elements of design thinking into their programs. Just how to do this, aside from workshop presentations, is a puzzle I am still trying to put together.

Now
For years, a follower of edtech/innovation conferences and discussions via podcasts, I have finally decided to become an online presenter. I presented at 'real world' conferences almost since my first years as a classroom teacher, but never considered being an online presenter.  In part, I want to do this now because I can, that is, I have the time. But, additionally, I want to develop a closer connection to the larger community of innovative educators. Perhaps then for now, my over-riding goal is simply to continue to find new ways of working with others on behalf of others and the environment. And in this way, continue the sense of generativity that made my life as a classroom teacher so satisfying. 

Cultivating Young Naturalists

Grade 1 student pointing out the site where she'd hung a bird feeder for the non-migrating birds.

 I had just finished a migration activity with a group of twenty-two K-1 students who had been studying birds. Taking on the role of a particular Northeastern bird, they had simulated locating food in an upstate New York field/wooded area during the summer.  Whether Great Horned Owl, Hummingbird or Chickadee; all had located ample food. We shifted the simulated wood-field six months forward:  the flowers vanished, small animals (an important food sources for carnivorous birds) were hard to locate, seeds were under a foot of snow while worms and insects had relocated to warmer sites in some form of temporary stasis or life cycle change. Still, the Chickadees thrived at the many human provided feeders and the Owls hunted successfully while the odd Red-winged blackbird located just enough food to survive.

Afterwards, we discussed the activity and children quickly saw that the best strategy for ground feeding Robins and Hummingbirds was to find a warmer climate, that is to migrate. As teachers, we were pleased to see how readily the experience had produced a new understanding of migration in our young naturalists. While children prepared to leave for another school activity, one grade one student pulled me aside.

 "Do birds ever share the food they collect?",  he asked.

 "Great question", I responded (the old teacher stand-by when startled into new awareness of a learning situation).  Then with a moment's thought I explained that birds share food with their young, but generally not with other birds. However, I went on to explain that generally they only take what they need which leaves food for others. He seemed satisfied, but still debating the differences between people and birds.

Afterwards, I reflected on the depth of the boy's question. Certainly, as a young student he has been encouraged to share and care for others. In nursery and elementary classrooms everywhere, it has become such a standard practice for teachers  to encourage good community practices that it is not surprising that my young student was aware of the need to share resources. However, his application of this fundamental 'fairness' issue to the world beyond the human experience, I found profound. He was seeking a connection between his life and the life of another organism - one whose mechanisms for survival are far different than our own. This is the very seeking all environmental mentors/teachers hope to nurture in every student with whom they interact. For from the childhood desire to understand the needs of others arises the possibility that as adults they will remember this yearning as they debate the environmental needs of the future.

If opportunities for all students to make personal connections to the natural world were as much the focus of their learning as 'reading, writing and arithmetic', I have no doubt we would water the seeds of environmentalism in all students. With over thirty years in the field of environmental education, I do not see these opportunities jumping out of any of the ongoing current curriculum discussions that seem locked in assessing learning that can be measured numerically. I find my inspiration as a teacher in those young learners who are being given this chance with the hope that in time their voices may carry enough weight to shift the discussion for all learners everywhere.

For resources on connecting children to nature:
Natural Start a NAAEE Initiative