More Mundane, Humane Creativity? Anna Craft's Little C Creativity (LCC)

Professor Anna Craft (1961-2014) was a leading researcher in the area of creativity and early education.  I did not come across her work until recently, when deciding to explore what happens with creativity before my students arrive at university.  

This coincided also with my review of Csikszentmihalyi's model of creativity as part of a new book project already mentioned in this blog.  Craft seems to have adopted a systems view of creativity, only that she was interested not in the eminent but in more mundane forms of creativity when people like myself want to do something about our lives.  

Craft's notion of Little C Creativity LCC stroke a chord with me.  She regards this notion as one that can be enthused in children.  We can nurture their desire and intention to change things, and we can also inspire them to have a vision of what they want to do with their lives.   This is not to say though that as educators, we are to define such a vision for them.  Rather, we can enable them to explore and find out things for themselves.  We can also encourage them to channel their energy to identify obstacles and frame problems as challenges which they can then set out to overcome.  All of this under a 'can do' attitude that sees life as a big domain to learn and act on.  

All of this by thinking that we as human beings do not need to be recognized as eminences in our efforts to live meaningful lives.  

My son Fabrizio is going through a phase of not liking school and fearing to be bullied.  My wife has encouraged him to talk about what goes on, and together we have spoken to teachers at his school.  At times he feels sad, other times he is very happy.  

I still have not found a way to use LCC fully, only we have been able to ask him to identify a problem.  Afterwards, maybe he can then decide how he wants to solve it.

Within LCC, there are two elements that are included within it: play and imagination.  They both can help a person to pose questions and explore possibilities to address a challenge.  They both also imply a relationship with something and someone.  Fortunately Fabrizio has Sofia to talk about things.  He also has found a friend in the neighborhood and yesterday he confided in him about his fears.  When he came back, my wife tells me he was a different person, the bubbly one we normally see hanging around and teasing others, the one who plays (and has learned to download and play lots of electronic tablet games!).  

Perhaps LCC needs guidance in whoever wants to use it to positively move on in life, in particular if we are to consider self-determination, development and depth (the left hand side system in the figure above).  Perhaps its reliance on the 'can do' attitude needs to be taken a step back so we can ask questions like:  What if we are sad or depressed to even consider that we can do something? Maybe these and similar questions are ones we can pose in our search for possibilities to positively move on.  For Fabrizio, playing and imagining seem to apply more at the moment.

Perhaps we also need to have a bit of faith that things have a way of working themselves out...so we can imagine that bad situations are just temporary, and that we will find appropriate support to get out of them.  We can imagine that we can talk to friends, to listen and be listened to.  

For my management students, I think LCC and its elements shown in the figure as two systems (self-determination, development/change, depth in having identified challenges and conventions about a problem, innovation, conscious risk taking, play, being imaginative, being open to possibility and posing questions) could help.

As educators we could instill some of these elements in our classes, and we could connect these systems as we see fit.  How we do so would need a more conscious reflection of who our students are; what are their motivations, and what they want to make of their lives.  

We could instill their desire to be who they are, to be human.  

Thank you Anna for your gifts to the rest of us !

And thank you Fabi for giving me all these life lessons!