Critically Creative conclusions
Or perhaps "creatively critical conclusions". Presumption aside - why did I go with one word ordering over another? I just don't know. My reasons are actually opaque to me. One sounded much the same as the other. Putting "Creatively" first seemed even more presumptuous than putting "Critical" first. I am suggesting that anything I write here actually is creative. False modesty does no one favors: this has been a truly creative act - the entire piece. And yet - it is not a wholesale creation ex-nihlio. It never is. It is an adaptation of many ideas. Most of them from David Deutsch. Who himself gained them from Karl Popper. I struggle infact to find anything I write here truly unique (and that is not false modesty) - perhaps my application of these ideas to the rather narrow topic of how teachers teach and how teachers themselves are taught. So I do not even know - which is to say I do not understand - I am not aware - of how I come to create what I do. I just do it. Given the time and motivation, ideas flow - when I am interested. Isn't this what we desire from people we are supposed to teach? From people we want to learn? What did I need to do this?
Freedom as I said before. And time. And were I forced to try and be critical or creative about Russian Literature - I would not, as I have explained in my article on learning mentioned earlier. So there is a deep problem with the attempt to actually teach critical and creative skills using techniques simply called critical and creative thinking.
I do not wish to disparage attempts to improve educational systems. I think we do need something like a revolution. Of course I see absolutely nothing of the sort happening. And when I say "revolution" I really do mean "revolution" - I mean "out with compulsory schools" where they exist. And out with the tradition of just sending your children off to them as child care where they do not. But I am also a realist. This will not happen within any time frame I can reasonably foresee and for the moment it is safer to just hope for incremental progress and do what I can in speaking about this and encouraging others to continue to work on alternative systems for the nurturing of children in better ways. But in this narrow area of critical and creative thinking as it is currently presented in schools and universities let us be critical and speak clearly and plainly and tell the truth. The truth is that the lip-service paid to critical and creative thinking in education systems is just that: it is named and then teaching strategies deployed which are simply called “critical thinking” skills or “creative thinking”. A very typical example of how critical thinking might be taught can be found on many university websites. Just google critical thinking and your local university. Typically you get a checklist of techniques - approaches to text - processes to go through - in order to analyse something (say, a piece of writing). There are certainly some worthwhile questions often considered - questions about the relevance of evidence, say. I’ll provide a link in the description for this podcast to what the university of Sydney has to say. I’m not picking on them - they all say similar things because they all come from a certain educational culture. https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/critical-thinking.html The important thing to notice is that the overall motivation of such schemes belies the fact that they miss the central point: critical thinking is about criticising. And one might even begin with criticising the scheme itself.
Children actually really do do this! They object to the lesson. To the class. To the methods. And we label such objections "behavioural issues". Genuine critical thinking - in the most pure sense of the word is regarded as an unwillingness to learn. Of course what that really is, is an unwillingness to learn what we have to teach as well as the way we are teaching it. Schemes that attempt to prompt students with helpful guides to assist with analysis tend to “lock-in” ways of thinking rather than allow for truly novel approaches a student might take. Teachers may object: but these are mere recommendations; ways to help. And I agree - but let us consider: Help with what? According to my Sydney university example you may wish to refer to - their critical thinking skill sheet explicitly says it is at least in part about how to (quote) “achieve better marks” - and perhaps that is, of course, the whole point.
That is exactly what it is designed to do. Formulaic techniques can indeed do that. Because there are recipes to the way exams are written there must be simple rules to follow to answer them. But passing exams, getting good marks - these are not critical and creative thinking. Following certain rules to get good results on a test is the absolute antithesis to creativity. Which is the flip-side of this coin. Teaching so called “critical thinking” in that way using some recipe of techniques stamps on creativity because the very purpose (stated explicitly as in this case or at least implied by lessons) is that we are here to pass tests - to meet standards and objectives. To fit a mould. To not create something truly new but to best we can meet the outcomes. A child rarely gets to create their own outcomes - except outside of school, unconstrained by marks, reports, expectations and rules.
Within school some illusion is given, sometimes, about devising outcomes - but I have argued elsewhere - this is merely playing in shallow waters when there is a deep ocean to explore.
We must not lie to ourselves. The purpose of lessons truly is to pass exams and get good results for so long as the education system remains the way it is. Roughly the same as it has been for centuries. We have tinkered at the edges and more tinkering is required and will happen. But it is no revolution. And calling things "critical and creative thinking" that truly are not does not help. It disguises the problem. It is problem denial - not problem solving. People in classrooms do create. They are sometimes actively engaged. Anytime they learn something new it is truly because they have created that knowledge in their minds, anew. A student who did not know before that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides has created that in their mind. And attempted to criticise it. And without a good criticism, tends to believe it and regards it as something they then know. All of this is true. Creativity and critical thinking is certainly going on in classrooms. You actually cannot stop it. But you can stunt it. You can stunt it in all manner of ways. Teachers are in a peculiar situation of being asked to maximise the very thing that the system they are working within is bent on minimising. The theory is: help maximise critical and creative thinking. The practise is: minimise both because this is how tests are passed.
Creativity. The word is everywhere. It is a wonderful word. It is a wonderful concept. It is the key to civilization. We really don't understand it. It would be great if we could learn (that is to say teach ourselves) to be Einstein or Mozart if we wanted. But we don't understand how creativity works. No one does - or we would all know how. Creativity is a word that fills compulsory, coercive schooling. And although I have argued the system is flawed - I do think at least talking about the word is good. If we do so honestly. This indeed is incremental progress. This is better than actually telling students explicitly not to be creative. Teachers rarely to that anymore, is my guess - though I may be wrong. But I know the system is set up to implicitly warn them against genuine creativity. After all - they are there, ultimately, to perform well in assessment tasks.
Critical and creative thinking is absolutely crucial to learning. It is essential to knowledge creation both at the level of the individual and as a society. It is how progress actually happens. Current ideas - our best ideas - are criticised - strongly, constantly. As harshly as we can. Not because we dislike them necessarily but because we love them and the best we can do for them is to improve them. Have them lead to the birth of new ideas. New creations. And we have to admit when we are not quite sure about how aspects of this process works. We have to admit when we are ignorant. Because only then can we allow a truly important creative insight to come about: a genuinely explanatory theory of creativity. And when we have that, we can teach that. But until then: let's not pretend our schemes can do more than they really can.
Credit
This article is based in large part on ideas found in the books "The Fabric of Reality" (FoR) and "The Beginning of Infinity" (BoI) by David Deutsch. BoI in particular has entire chapters devoted to creativity - its evolution and significance. FoR has a number of important chapters about the role of criticism in science. Both books are not only explorations of these concepts and the growth of knowledge but also examples of creativity and critical thinking in practice. Not only educators, but all people interested in these issues, should take the time to read those ideas. They can be bought on iBooks, or through Amazon and there is a good audio version of BoI available through Audible.com
Or perhaps "creatively critical conclusions". Presumption aside - why did I go with one word ordering over another? I just don't know. My reasons are actually opaque to me. One sounded much the same as the other. Putting "Creatively" first seemed even more presumptuous than putting "Critical" first. I am suggesting that anything I write here actually is creative. False modesty does no one favors: this has been a truly creative act - the entire piece. And yet - it is not a wholesale creation ex-nihlio. It never is. It is an adaptation of many ideas. Most of them from David Deutsch. Who himself gained them from Karl Popper. I struggle infact to find anything I write here truly unique (and that is not false modesty) - perhaps my application of these ideas to the rather narrow topic of how teachers teach and how teachers themselves are taught. So I do not even know - which is to say I do not understand - I am not aware - of how I come to create what I do. I just do it. Given the time and motivation, ideas flow - when I am interested. Isn't this what we desire from people we are supposed to teach? From people we want to learn? What did I need to do this?
Freedom as I said before. And time. And were I forced to try and be critical or creative about Russian Literature - I would not, as I have explained in my article on learning mentioned earlier. So there is a deep problem with the attempt to actually teach critical and creative skills using techniques simply called critical and creative thinking.
I do not wish to disparage attempts to improve educational systems. I think we do need something like a revolution. Of course I see absolutely nothing of the sort happening. And when I say "revolution" I really do mean "revolution" - I mean "out with compulsory schools" where they exist. And out with the tradition of just sending your children off to them as child care where they do not. But I am also a realist. This will not happen within any time frame I can reasonably foresee and for the moment it is safer to just hope for incremental progress and do what I can in speaking about this and encouraging others to continue to work on alternative systems for the nurturing of children in better ways. But in this narrow area of critical and creative thinking as it is currently presented in schools and universities let us be critical and speak clearly and plainly and tell the truth. The truth is that the lip-service paid to critical and creative thinking in education systems is just that: it is named and then teaching strategies deployed which are simply called “critical thinking” skills or “creative thinking”. A very typical example of how critical thinking might be taught can be found on many university websites. Just google critical thinking and your local university. Typically you get a checklist of techniques - approaches to text - processes to go through - in order to analyse something (say, a piece of writing). There are certainly some worthwhile questions often considered - questions about the relevance of evidence, say. I’ll provide a link in the description for this podcast to what the university of Sydney has to say. I’m not picking on them - they all say similar things because they all come from a certain educational culture. https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/critical-thinking.html The important thing to notice is that the overall motivation of such schemes belies the fact that they miss the central point: critical thinking is about criticising. And one might even begin with criticising the scheme itself.
Children actually really do do this! They object to the lesson. To the class. To the methods. And we label such objections "behavioural issues". Genuine critical thinking - in the most pure sense of the word is regarded as an unwillingness to learn. Of course what that really is, is an unwillingness to learn what we have to teach as well as the way we are teaching it. Schemes that attempt to prompt students with helpful guides to assist with analysis tend to “lock-in” ways of thinking rather than allow for truly novel approaches a student might take. Teachers may object: but these are mere recommendations; ways to help. And I agree - but let us consider: Help with what? According to my Sydney university example you may wish to refer to - their critical thinking skill sheet explicitly says it is at least in part about how to (quote) “achieve better marks” - and perhaps that is, of course, the whole point.
That is exactly what it is designed to do. Formulaic techniques can indeed do that. Because there are recipes to the way exams are written there must be simple rules to follow to answer them. But passing exams, getting good marks - these are not critical and creative thinking. Following certain rules to get good results on a test is the absolute antithesis to creativity. Which is the flip-side of this coin. Teaching so called “critical thinking” in that way using some recipe of techniques stamps on creativity because the very purpose (stated explicitly as in this case or at least implied by lessons) is that we are here to pass tests - to meet standards and objectives. To fit a mould. To not create something truly new but to best we can meet the outcomes. A child rarely gets to create their own outcomes - except outside of school, unconstrained by marks, reports, expectations and rules.
Within school some illusion is given, sometimes, about devising outcomes - but I have argued elsewhere - this is merely playing in shallow waters when there is a deep ocean to explore.
We must not lie to ourselves. The purpose of lessons truly is to pass exams and get good results for so long as the education system remains the way it is. Roughly the same as it has been for centuries. We have tinkered at the edges and more tinkering is required and will happen. But it is no revolution. And calling things "critical and creative thinking" that truly are not does not help. It disguises the problem. It is problem denial - not problem solving. People in classrooms do create. They are sometimes actively engaged. Anytime they learn something new it is truly because they have created that knowledge in their minds, anew. A student who did not know before that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides has created that in their mind. And attempted to criticise it. And without a good criticism, tends to believe it and regards it as something they then know. All of this is true. Creativity and critical thinking is certainly going on in classrooms. You actually cannot stop it. But you can stunt it. You can stunt it in all manner of ways. Teachers are in a peculiar situation of being asked to maximise the very thing that the system they are working within is bent on minimising. The theory is: help maximise critical and creative thinking. The practise is: minimise both because this is how tests are passed.
Creativity. The word is everywhere. It is a wonderful word. It is a wonderful concept. It is the key to civilization. We really don't understand it. It would be great if we could learn (that is to say teach ourselves) to be Einstein or Mozart if we wanted. But we don't understand how creativity works. No one does - or we would all know how. Creativity is a word that fills compulsory, coercive schooling. And although I have argued the system is flawed - I do think at least talking about the word is good. If we do so honestly. This indeed is incremental progress. This is better than actually telling students explicitly not to be creative. Teachers rarely to that anymore, is my guess - though I may be wrong. But I know the system is set up to implicitly warn them against genuine creativity. After all - they are there, ultimately, to perform well in assessment tasks.
Critical and creative thinking is absolutely crucial to learning. It is essential to knowledge creation both at the level of the individual and as a society. It is how progress actually happens. Current ideas - our best ideas - are criticised - strongly, constantly. As harshly as we can. Not because we dislike them necessarily but because we love them and the best we can do for them is to improve them. Have them lead to the birth of new ideas. New creations. And we have to admit when we are not quite sure about how aspects of this process works. We have to admit when we are ignorant. Because only then can we allow a truly important creative insight to come about: a genuinely explanatory theory of creativity. And when we have that, we can teach that. But until then: let's not pretend our schemes can do more than they really can.
Credit
This article is based in large part on ideas found in the books "The Fabric of Reality" (FoR) and "The Beginning of Infinity" (BoI) by David Deutsch. BoI in particular has entire chapters devoted to creativity - its evolution and significance. FoR has a number of important chapters about the role of criticism in science. Both books are not only explorations of these concepts and the growth of knowledge but also examples of creativity and critical thinking in practice. Not only educators, but all people interested in these issues, should take the time to read those ideas. They can be bought on iBooks, or through Amazon and there is a good audio version of BoI available through Audible.com