49 Days: Thinking Creatively, Living Creatively

COVID 19 is closing down so much of the world’s activities. I teach at Montclair State University. Our doors are shut and most classes are conducted online. This virus struck globally just as our university spring break began. One additional week was added to that break. Most faculty have put their curriculum totally online now. Still, from limitations in sharing devices to personal tragedies, students may have difficulty transitioning to classes online.

But let’s not forget social isolation. Separated from their classmates, some students may not find online classes relevant to their perception of college. And, while students might appreciate the Breakout Room discussions used on programs such as Zoom, it is not quite like being with their peers in a classroom. Separation is having an effect on students directly, or indirectly.  For example, my own mother-in-law passed away last week, not from COVID-19 but from too much time apart from others, which is an effect of the pandemic. Her senior community was on lockdown and the residents were separated from each other. I had been her weekly visitor.  At one point she said, “If I didn’t have you, I would die.”

With the university closed and most people quarantined, students and teachers struggle with many other limitations and changes, which are part of the pandemic pedagogical story. In addition to the shift of venue and media, students face a challenging emotional state, which can foster or hinder learning.

With quarantine a reality, I counted the remaining days left in the spring semester as 49 days, including weekends and holidays.

As a method of letting students know that I care to make a connection each day, and to suggest they keep thinking and inquiring, even though school as they know it has changed, I send an educational message to as many of my students as possible, every one of those 49 days. For my Creative Thinking class, I include quotes by philosophers of education and creativity, as well as artists, scholars, and business people. Each message includes two quotes from different thinkers such as Maxine Greene, John Dewey, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Baldwin, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Maya Angelou to name just a few. I start with a quote, then I share a personal reflection and inspiration for an assignment. Then I close with an inspirational quote. My goal for each message is to evoke thought and action for students, leading to creativity, beauty, appreciation of nature, social interaction, invention, problem solving, and downright practicality.

Many of my messages present a thought experiment. Others suggest an activity which might lead to gratitude for what we do have. For instance, I suggest students listen to and watch the birds, from their windows if necessary. I provide links to the Cornell Lab or Ornithology Macaulay Library https://search.macaulaylibrary.org/catalog to further listen.

While l write the 49 messages they may be arranged into these four themes: philosophical inquiry, perception/aesthetics, social inquiry, and creativity. Below I will elaborate on the four themes. Then, for each theme I will give an example of one of the complete 49 messages.

Philosophical Inquiry messages ask questions such as:

• how do you think
• how freely do you think
• are your thoughts and results inhibited by paradigms
• are your thinking and actions stuck in a rut and how do you get out
• what do I really have to say

Here is an example of my message for inquiry:

#22. Thinking Creatively, Living Creatively

“We go to sea repeatedly from Melville’s time on – and the image of men at sea, like the image of men in the wilderness, seems to me to be almost an archetypal image of human beings on their own, human beings making their own way, guiding themselves by the stars they can see – rather than by faith or prayer or invisible forces.” – Maxine Green

How do you think? Are your thoughts based on what you see, or by faith? Are both necessary? How? Why?

“We only think when confronted with a problem.” – John Dewey

This theme of philosophical inquiry also touches on theology. Many areas of worship are closed now during the pandemic. Still,we can ask

• how do you approach the divine
• are we forever on our way to improvement and enlightenment
• based on COVID-19 experience, do you have any further encounters with the divine

Perception and aesthetics messages ask us to see if paradigms get in the way of our “vision” and also help us perceive the beauty of sound and color of the spring through metaphorical thinking.  Furthermore, this theme list includes messages to perceive the beauty and meaning of life in plants, birds and insects, and the wonder of nature in clouds, rain and sunlight. Here is an example.

“The arts, it has been said, cannot change the world, but they may change human beings who might change the world.” -Maxine Green

Light

The earth is in a different position around the sun in the spring. How has the light changed? Can you come up with one metaphor for the different sunlight in the spring? What can you do with that metaphor going forth today? Can you write or create something else? How does light change your residence, inside? What are the interior effects of spring sunlight?

That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time. -John Stuart Mill

Social inquiry theme messages ask us to:

• find creatively in new social experiences
• examine the common thoughts of our time and question them
• define and redefine trends
• consider what vulnerability is and how it serves us
• identify the positive results of new social conditions.

The following is one of my 49 daily messages from the social inquiry theme:

#15. Thinking Creatively, Living Creatively

“Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.” ― John Dewey

My daughter Farrell is an actress in Washington D.C. She has a six-month contract with Kennedy Center for a long running show called Shear Madness. We went to see her in the show.  Immediately afterwards, Kennedy Center shut down. She was going to come home with us for the weekend anyway. But now she is staying until things open up again. What new social encounters have you experienced? What can you say about them? Think of the positive results or alterations you can come up with because of those changes. No doubt there are losses. Still find the creatively valuable positive in your new social experiences.

“To be an artist is to believe in life”. -Henry Moore

Creativity. I’ll divide these messages for our purposes here into the two sub themes of pragmatism and creative thinking. These can often be the same thing.

Pragmatic inquiries include questions such as what have you learned about yourself in the COVID-19? Other messages suggest solving problems through inquiries such as:

• have you done anything new with food
• what can you make from a piece of cardboard
• how can you envision learning and growing in the coming weeks and months

To evoke Creative Thinking, I suggest exercises that help students appreciate what they do have rather than what they don’t. These exercises include suggesting students:

• memorize a great poem
• take digital photos of new buds on the trees
• question common thoughts and combine them into something new
• collect small things to make greater things
• photograph still life compositions in your room

Here is one example of a creative pragmatic message:

#19. Thinking Creatively, Living Creatively

“To be moral involves taking a position towards that matrix, thinking critically about what is taken for granted.”-Maxine Greene

Creating from what’s available: Make It

I cut a cardboard box apart and used a 20” by 14” side. I cut two hundred notches out of the two longest sides in order to store a long, very thin, copper LED decorative wire, which gets easily tangled unless stored carefully. That left me with two hundred ½ inch corrugated cardboard triangles, which looked just like the fleet of Empire spaceships from Star Wars.  I put them in an envelope, wrote my nephew’s address on it and sent them to him. The post person said it will get there in a few days. So I made double creative use of just a piece of cardboard.

What more-than-one creative thing can you make out of something recyclable around where you are living? How can you make it without going out to buy anything? 

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.” -Chuck Close

In this example, I demonstrate that I can relate to students with popular culture, how I reach out to others I care for, how to create something fun and easy while at the same time solving an LED wire problem – all with a piece of cardboard that was in recycling.  The implication is that students can take actions like this to be pragmatic, be social and have creative fun.

The messages are not delivered in thematic order, And often they are relevant to the exact day or week on which they are sent. For instance, forsythia were out a couple of weeks ago here in the Northeast.  Here is the message that was relevant at that time:

Thinking Creatively, Living Creatively

“We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.” -John Dewey

Spring

Forsythias are blooming. Go out and take a look. Or look through your window. Keep a social distance. Take a picture. Look at shape and color. Write a metaphor that defines the color, the shape. What else can we use this shape and color for? How would you change forsythia?

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” –Dorothy Parker

In a NYC Arts Education Roundtable webinar, Takiema Bunche Smith, proprietor of Anahsa, LLC, Educational Consulting, suggests that there are already many students who may experience trauma as a result of COVID-19. Trauma, adds teaching artist Mazz Swift, is a harmful interruption of safety, agency, dignity and belonging. My hope is that a series of 49 messages may reduce trauma and project a feeling of safety and constancy. As well, by taking action on positive thoughts in the messages, students may exercise their sense of agency. And, by completing a simple exercise or focusing on a reflection, students perhaps will earn further dignity through accomplishment. Finally, by getting messages every day, not just on scheduled class times, students may embrace a sense of belonging. According to Dr. Olajide A. Williams, M.D., with the Columbia University Medical Center, trauma can cause atrophy in the brain. Dr. Williams emphasizes that brain development is still happening in many undergraduate students as the brain continues to grow through age 21 even to 24. A pedagogical method like 49 Days, may help to mitigate that trauma. And, even with some trauma, because of brain plasticity, atrophy can be reversed when accompanied with nurturing. A critical goal of my 49 Messages is to nurture student development.

Even after spring semester is over, we can continue sending messages to our students. This is a good way to reinforce what they’ve already learned with further thinking activities and exercises. Most of all, sending more Creative Thinking prompts helps our students to continue thinking…and to see things through the eyes of hope.

Download a free PDF file of 49 Days: Thinking Creatively, Living Creatively by going to drchristopherwparker.com.

Christopher Parker

Christopher Parker, MFA, EdD teaches Creative Thinking at Montclair State University. Chris did doctoral studies with the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children.  A poet and a playwright, Parker specializes in Creative Aging workshops. Contact Chris atparkerc@montclair.edu, or his web site drchristopherwparker.com