Designing for Creativity + Growth in the Classroom, Part 3

…to navigate a complicated world

Last month, I shared how we designed Sunnyside Micro-School with liberation in mind, which meant designing a classroom that strives to be anti-racist on a structural, curricular, and interpersonal level (read it here). I believe that cognitive freedom is intertwined with cultural freedom—and creativity is the hinge upon which either exists. Which is why creativity was Sunnyside’s second guiding value.

It’s my experience that twice-exceptional children are some of the most creative individuals on the planet by virtue of their brain design. What’s difficult for them is easier for others, and vice versa. Their unusual perspectives inspire unusual insights in the best possible way: they see the world differently and are, therefore, able to see novel solutions to everyday problems. This is one of their great strengths and offerings to the world. As a strength-based learning program, it was essential that we position creativity at the head of our curriculum design and culture. 

Dr. E. Paul Torrance, pioneer in creativity research and education, defined creativity as a process:

…Learning and thinking creatively takes place in the process of sensing difficulties, problems, and gaps in information; making guesses or formulating hypotheses about these deficiencies; in testing these guesses and possibilities, revising and retesting them; and finally in communicating the results (Torrance, 1995).

Creativity is an essential aspect of the art and exercise of learning. The process of comprehension and application is itself a creative endeavor. It’s recursive: when we learn, we make mistakes, which provide insights into how we might do better in the future.

Creativity is also connected to our happiness. Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi was a renowned and beloved Hungarian-American research psychologist known for his work on “flow,” a hyper-focused state of deep concentration and learning pleasurable to the individual experiencing it. Flow is considered an essential aspect of joy and meaning-making for humans. In his paper on happiness and creativity, he shares, “For many people, happiness comes from creating new things and making discoveries. Enhancing one's creativity may therefore also enhance well-being” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). If learning and creativity go hand in hand, it’s easy to see that joy and learning do as well—make room for joy, and you’ve made room for flow.

As I explored in September’s posts about the magic of gradeless classrooms (check them out here and here), at Sunnyside, we didn’t use letter grades or other external standards to track progress; I found those methods to be counterproductive to the goal of helping students develop intrinsic motivation, curiosity, and, of course, their creativity. 

In place of these external ranking systems, we used individualized, thoughtful methods to document growth and any accommodations made to account for each student’s strengths. Each child’s progress was monitored through pictures, videos, and short transcripts of interactions between the student, teacher, and other students. In addition, for any given topic of learning, students were given the space to create projects that aligned with their strengths and personal creative style, which may have meant creating comics, writing scripts for plays, or developing songs. 

While providing choice as to how a student could access and demonstrate learning is an essential first step in establishing a creative environment, the type and quality of choice matters. We went to great lengths to observe our students’ preferences, interests, and strengths so we could engage them in the curriculum. We let them know when we noticed them enjoying a particular task or experience. We asked their caregivers what their child(ren) enjoyed spending time on at home and in their community. In this way, we established a creative environment that was inclusive of and authentic to each student.

Above is a picture of an engineered banjo a student created while learning how sound travels. (2019)

Sunnyside’s third pillar value was growth, the value with the most obvious benefit for caregivers and educators. Children learn and grow by default, but are they learning what they need to know to navigate a complicated world?

At Sunnyside, we took a long and wide view when determining if a student was advancing, especially given the asynchronous development of twice-exceptional children. While I unpack in detail how we assessed the academic growth of our students in September’s posts, I’d like to briefly touch on how we also approached our students' social and emotional growth. I plan to go into depth on this in a future post. 

The asynchronous development of twice-exceptional children means they present at different ages at once. They may be chronologically 7 years old but demonstrate the intellectual capacity of a 16-year-old and meltdown like a 4-year-old when experiencing acute, negative stress. Socially, this translates into an ability to connect with children both older and younger than themselves, depending on the environment. In many ways, then, Sunnyside was a multi-age learning environment. To account for this, we generally accepted 2nd through 6th graders into our program.

As you can see, our three pillar values—freedom, creativity, and growth—informed every aspect of the Sunnyside model. This ensured that our micro-school acted with integrity as we fulfilled our mission and vision and created a distinct culture unlike most other learning environments. One that was decidedly human, nurturing, and fun! By and large, I think that the best, most authentic learning thrives where joy lives. 

Thank you for being here! This newsletter wouldn’t exist without you <3

If I’ve shared something that resonates with you and/or you’ve learned something new, please help spread the word: every heart and restack makes a difference.

Until next time,

Jade

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997, Sep). Happiness and creativity. The Futurist, 31, S8-S12. https://www.proquest.com/magazines/happiness-creativity/docview/218552938/se- 2?accountid=197765

Torrance, E. P. (1995). Insights about Creativity: Questioned, Rejected, Ridiculed, Ignored. Educational Psychology Review, 7, 313-322.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02213376