Humi 1 The Creative MindThis course will explore the lives of creative people for what they can teach us about ourselves. We will use psychology, moral philosophy or ethics, history, art history, the natural and social sciences, literature, music, poetry, athletics, and other subject areas where we find highly creative people.
People who have made a major impact that changed or produced a shift in our understanding of ourselves and/or any domains of human culture, both theoretical and practical, will occupy our attention. They were and are highly creative. For example, Freud was a major creative person who altered or produced a shift in the domain of medical science when he contributed his discovery of the unconscious and its way to promote psychological health. Or, Rachel Carson created a major shift in the life sciences when she managed to shift the focus to the sustainability of life through care for the environment. These are but two examples of people who were Creative with a "capital" C because they brought a major shift into a particular cultural domain.
In addition, we will examine the processes of creative people who have not produced a completely new shift in a domain but have made major contributions to a domain e.g. Pulitzer prize winners, Nobel prize winners and other recognized women and men who have been significant leaders in their domains who gained recognition as "creative" even though they did not change or alter a particular domain. They were recognized as "leaders" or "highly proficient" members in a field of experts associated with a particular domain. These people have been "creative" with a small "c."
People "Creative" with a capital "C" and people "creative" with a small "c" are included together in this course; much of the time we will focus on representatives from both groups who have much to show us about ourselves. We will look at any creative person whose life can disclose: 1) how we can live more fully, 2) experience the challenge of developing our native and acquired skills, and 3) discover the enjoyment and exhilaration associated with acting creatively. There is enough evidence on "creativity" to conclude that all of us have the capability to live our own lives with many qualities that we find in very creative people. In other words, the capacity for being creative is already co-natural for us; we need to identify those capacities and develop them. Our talents and abilities are key to an enjoyable, enthusiastic, and flourishing life. Developing our skills throughout our life time constitutes one of the most important factors associated with being successful. Creative people have done this already and are like mirrors for our self-understanding and self-development. The consequences of being creative, we will find, bespeak activities and achievements so important that everything else is significant only in relationship to them. What do we love and desire to do most of all? What is the "good" for the sake of which we do everything else we do? These questions are keys to discovering our creative abilities.
Readings and Assignments
We will focus in class on the theory of Multiple Intelligences developed by Howard Gardner and his associates because this theory seems, at the present time, large enough in scope to include almost all the ways in which human beings are and have been creative. In addition, Gardner holds that each individual person among us is a unique combination of two, three, or four kinds of intelligence and that unique combination offers each one a set of skills and capabilities the development of which we cannot afford to neglect.
We will use as a text Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who is one of many psychologists associated with Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory. I chose the book because it combines a theoretical understanding of what "creativity" means as well as biographical data gathered from interviews of ninety-one (91) individuals from almost every area of skill development. These individuals are from arts, literature, science, philosophy, business, economics, and many other domains.
Each student will be expected to write a short biography on a creative person in a field or domain; this written essay assignment must be accurate and coherent, and it must be from one of the people cited by Csikszentmihalyi, Gardner, or a choice of a creative person approved in consultation with me. I will explain in class when this essay will be due.
In addition to the short biographical essay, students will be expected to keep up with the book on "Creativity", participate in each class discussion, and contribute both questions and answers in class.
Exams
There will be at least two (2) exams, a mid-term and a final; the exams will be multiple choice, true and false, and at least one (1) essay. In addition, we will have quizzes in class designed to help focus on understanding the material in the book.
Grades
Grades for the quizzes, biographical essay, mid-term and final will be combined with class participation to form a student's final grade.
Attendance
Each student is expected to attend every class, be prepared, and participate; any student absent more than 3 times will lose points and may be dropped. Any student who arrives late will also lose points that will affect their grade. In addition disruptive behavior will result in a warning and if repeated will result in dismissal .
Schedule of Readings
Read the following in Creativity
Week One: read pp. 1-51 Where is Creativity
Week Two: pp. 343-373 Enhancing Personal Creativity
Week Three: pp. 51-76 The Creative Personality
Week Four: pp. 77-106 The Work of Creativity
Week Five: pp. 107-151 Creativity and Flow
Week Six: pp. 151-183 The Lives
Week Seven: pp. 183-231 The Lives
Week Eight: pp. 237-264 The Domain of the Word
Week Nine: pp. 265-291 The Domain of Life
Week Ten: pp. 291- The Domain of the Future
Week Eleven: pp. 317-342 The Making of Culture
Week Twelve: Review
N.B. Pages 373-397 should be reviewed as needed throughout the class.
Be sure to read each part of the book thoroughly, be prepared to ask and answer questions, and by May 11have your biographical essay approved by me. Those essays are due by June 1; no late essays will be accepted.
Multiple Intelligences Theory
Over hundreds of thousands of years, as human beings evolved, the human mind and human brain, as we know them today, evolved. In that evolution a number of separate information-processing devices emerged as ways of coping with human life; knowledge and skills developed in ways that were organized by the human mind functioning in many different subject areas; besides processing information, ways were found to communicate, solve problems, create and develop new products, and new ways of using knowledge and acquired skills. “Intelligence” is now used to designate these separate functions that make up “mind.” “Brain” refers to the physiological neural components that allow for the kinds of mental activities we have come to know as “human mind” or “human consciousness.”
We realize the human mind and brain are not only interconnected, but have these multiple or “modular” organized areas because separate functions involving different forms of organizing our knowledge and skill developed; we call them "symbolic systems" because they are "coded" ways of passing on the knowledge and skill needed . Each symbol system contains and conveys basic ideas, information already processed and codified, principles, rules found over time to have worked effectively, meanings, procedures, and conventions that helped people develop their cognitive skills. Today, we have developed more formal organizations ( e.g. schools and training programs) for communicating and educating people in these symbolic systems. For example communication in mathematics is very different than communication in music; both are symbolic systems of understanding meaning and insight; both form part of what we value as culture; they do indicate, however, separate intelligences. Likewise a visual/spatial intelligence or an interpersonal intelligence are different symbolic systems. At the present time, nine different intelligences have been identified as different from one another because each constitutes a symbolic system of understanding. Each separate intelligence is further divided into different sub-intelligences. Data from Neuroscience, Evolutionary Psychology, Cognitive Psychology including case studies of brain damaged or brain impaired people tend to support the theory of multiple intelligences.
Besides being a formally organized symbolic system in an organized domain, each intelligence is a psycho-biological potential that individuals have from their natural or acquired capabilities. These potential intelligences may or may not get developed depending on “experience, culture, and motives of the person” as well as other social factors. In addition, each individual is a unique combination of 2, 3, or 4 of the intelligences; in other words, we each have more than one intelligence as part of our psycho-biological constitution. Many of us by the age of ten or twelve have already identified and begun to develop the intelligences we have. We found ourselves relishing or delighting in their exercise whether in school or not; and we have gained some acquired skills in these naturally given potentials. We can and need to develop those capacities even more than we have already. This is the work of becoming more creative, and it is also the work of a culture’s institutions. How a person discovers and develops her or his unique combination of natural and acquired skills is a major part of human development; learning and developing our own human potential with the help of others and the institutions under which we live is a most important part of the study of “creativity.”
When developed culturally, each intelligence forms a more or less complex symbol system that conveys the basic ideas, principles, rules, meanings, procedures, and conventions that can make a person an "expert" in a domain. Each individual coming into the cultural world finds, more or less, social accessibility to these many symbol systems that represent each intelligence. Some may respond immediately at a very early age to one or more of the intelligences. Some may, unfortunately, fail to identify an intelligence or combination of intelligences that seems to describe them; others may not find sufficient encouragement or social support to develop the skills they are inclined to develop, while others may lack the discipline required to learn how to be proficient in the skills; why and how people fail to develop their creative potential is a major concern for every culture because a culture develops and thrives to the extent that it can enable its citizens to become creative.
The theory of multiple intelligences holds for at least nine (9) separate intelligences, each with a long human history, within a domain of its own, and with a field of institutional experts. As a result, each intelligence has an “end-state”,or model of what makes one "creative" in the intelligence. As we noted, each individual is a combination of 1, 2, 3 or 4 of the intelligences in a unique combination. How a person grows and develops; what they find exciting and life-giving; what makes them sense fulfillment in their life are all connected outcomes of becoming creative people. In large measure, this sense of purpose and fulfillment is why we study creativity, and why we use multiple intelligence theory as a model for understanding all the different ways we know people have been creative.
The Nine Intelligences
Linguistic Intelligence Here skills in speaking, listening, writing, are displayed in words, sentences, essays, novels, poems, paraphrasing, summarizing, explaining. Any verbal communication even connected with history, philosophy, science, art history, etc. can enhance communication in these subjects even though they are usually associated with another separate intelligence. For this reason, linguistic intelligence is a generalized type of intelligence found in the area of communication, and it has the importance it has in schools and IQ tests not because it is one of two or three intelligences, but because it functions in almost all the intelligences.
Logical-Mathematical intelligence-is associated with areas of the brain that bespeak fascination with time, number, quantity, patterns, calculations, models, statistics, computers, distances, Venn diagrams, syllogisms, analogies, graphs, averages, percentages, and probabilities. It is often found in conjunction with physical and natural sciences. It too is a major form of communicative intelligence used in all those skills and symbolic forms of communication that require precision, univocal meaning, and logical clarity.
Musical intelligence includes skills in performance, composition, and understanding of musical patterns. It can be in classical, new age, jazz, rock, rap, or country or any hybrid forms of these. It involves a psycho-biological potential that is fascinated with sound, melody, rhythm, found in nature or human nature. Prodigies like Ella Fitzgerald and Yehudi Menuhin exemplify early in life this fascination and its potential development. This type of intelligence can be easily missed or dismissed because it is so often connected with the "life style" of an artist, and that life style can be so easily classified as inferior to or less than one in "business" or "sales" where success can be so readily identified with income rather than with "creative" skills recognized and appreciated by other "expert" artists.
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence refers to the intelligence of athletes, dancers, surgeons, performing musicians, artistic producers in sculpture, painting, constructors of models in a science lab, and handicraft production. It is a good example of using the term “intelligence” to overcome the “Cartesian Anxiety” that denies mind and body functioning together as a unit, and it shows that mind and brain are now regarded in union with a nervous system that unites with body to form a single functioning unit. The classical philosophers, east and west, appreciated the beauty associated with this form of intelligence, and anyone who admires the skill and beauty of some of our professional athletes today recognizes the skills they admire as forms of intelligence.
Spatial-Visual refers to skills like navigation, sketching, drawing, architectural design, and many other skills that require saying or showing meaning in color, spaces, shapes that cannot be said in verbal language. Visual imagery speaks through this intelligence and it presents us with a very early form of intelligence that used pictographs, metaphors, ideograms, and other imaginative forms. In people like Einstein and Newton it was combined with math-logical intelligence used in science to generate questions or evoke a sense of wonder about the visual and spatial. The paintings, sculptures, photographs, buildings, and interior decorations we admire so much are part of this set of intellectual skills. The more developed the skill, the more astonishing these works of beauty are in their abiliity to communicate meaning and insight.
Interpersonal Intelligence refers to those skills connected with understanding other people, their feelings (worries, fears, frustrations, loves, desires), their motives and hopes. In addition, this intelligence employs understanding oneself and others in ways that promote working together, helping one another succeed, and accomplishing goals together. It also seems to be the case that people who are very successful in business are remarkably well developed in their interpersonal intelligence skills. Can you figure out why? People with this psycho-biological potential show a tendency toward compassion and empathy for others, community service, willingness to discuss in groups, and engage in interpersonal dialogue. Gardner also finds this intelligence associated with religious and political leaders, clinical psychologists and psychotherapists, ministers, and teachers. Whatever other intelligence teachers have that makes them qualified to teach a subject, the interpersonal intelligence seems especially connected with the knowledge and skills of instruction and learning. Gardner thinks that Gandhi is a very good representative of a Creative person in this domain. Can you guess why?
The Intra-personal intelligence is associated with self understanding, one’s own hopes, dreams, frustrations, and desires; it aims primarily at the conduct of one’s own life, and for that reason is associated, along with the interpersonal intelligence, with moral and psychological development. Practical wisdom functions as a major part of the intra-personal intelligence because it focuses on accurate self understanding, developing confidence, learning from experience how to direct one’s life, learning from one’s mistakes, and developing a “bigger picture” of conflict situations. This form of intelligence is most directly associated with accurate self-esteem and self-respect. It also has a wide range of utility because it seems to enable people to function intelligently in the social context, working intimately with many other people, connected with every other domain of human intelligence.
The personal intelligences (interpersonal and intra-personal) seem central to educational institutions facing “equity” issues, those connected with helping students develop their psycho-biological potentials, because the personal intelligences together make up what we call “emotional IQ” or those skills and abilities associated with working in one or more of the other seven (7) intelligences with courage and perseverance. "Emotional IQ" is a term coined by Daniel Goleman, another Psychologist associated with Gardner's theory, to identify those intellectual skills required to handle our own feelings of anger, frustration, sadness, depression, and despair. Goleman thinks that this form of intelligence helps people face mistakes, disappointments, urges for excessive pleasure, feelings of anger and violence so that they can function effectively in the pursuit of developing their potential. As we will see, many creative people, both with a capital "C" and a small "c", learn during "trying times" and through disappointments how to live creatively in one or more of the nine intelligences.
The Naturalist Intelligence is fascinated with nature, living things, environment, biology, botany, and medicinal arts. It goes back to very early human history where a “science of the concrete” developed and it extends to contemporary interest in how all the life sciences come together in concern about the environment and human health. It includes farmers, hunters, cooks, gardeners, rangers, nurses, doctors, health professionals, and those associated with research in the life sciences.
The Existentialist Intelligence is concerned about the metaphysical or spiritual dimensions of human experience; why did anything come into existence? Is their a meaning to human existence? Does a transcendent being exist? What happens when we die? These questions lead us to face experiences that are not finally or conclusively answered, but they seem to evoke a psycho-biological potential or interest in and fascination with the enigmas at the threshold of human experience. Philosophy, especially metaphysics or ontology, and some forms of spiritual or religious or mystical experiences seem to be central to the long history of the “existential” intelligence. Almost always, the questions are like the “wonder” legitimately produced when we know we do not know; the origins of the cosmos or of reality, the source of human responsibility, the meaning of time, change, and the unchanging, the real existence of a trans-phenomenal world are some of the issues connected with this intelligence. Here we are faced with the unanswerable, thought-defying possibility that we are related to an unknown.
When we think about intelligence, even today, we tend to think of it as manifest in one or two ways; it is either measured by a person's over-all IQ test score, or it is measured by the SAT or GRE tests that look for a measure of verbal skills and math skills. Intelligence tends, for this reason, to be nothing more that what these tests claim because they have led us to believe that "intelligence" is just those two forms. The theory of multiple intelligences is very, very different; it holds for a very wide range of intelligences, one not associated only with psycho-metric testing for schools. This does not mean that the schools are all or totally wrong, or that the psycho-metric measurements connected with SAT or GRE are unimportant or useless. It does mean, however, that they are primarily intended to measure how successful people have been and/or will be in the kinds of schools that insist on the communication skills connected with these tests.
I believe it is accurate to say that the SAT and GRE, like the regular IQ tests, measure fairly well the kinds of intelligences we need primarily for communication, and that schools were, and may continue to be, mainly interested in two of these intelligences, e.g. verbal and math. It is clear, however, that many schools, if not most, are beginning to recognize a broader descriptive definition of intelligence, and are shifting the purposes of their institutions to cover intellectual development in a way much closer to Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. We do need to develop in our educational institutions, however, ways to recognize and develop skill levels in many of the other six or seven intelligences much more than we do at the present time. Of course, we cannot do that and neglect the traditional communication skills; I believe that our best schools are beginning to insist on a model of intellectual development much like Gardner's multiple intelligences while they also stress the importance of communication skills in language and math/logic.
Creative people are models for all of us because they have developed their intelligence skills; many have found an exhilaration and delight in the function of their skills; what they can do delights and fulfills them more than anything else; they seem to have found more purpose to life. They would rather be doing skillfully what they do best than doing anything else; they are not passive, but very active people who model for us the growth and development associated with "evolution" of our species. They seem to have come closer than any other people to describing for us the purpose of human life.
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