April Hurtado
Its seems counterproductive to talk about creativity and structures or systems. The two
concepts seem to be opposites, sitting on different ends of a scale or coin. Creativity however,
may be used to combine different, seemingly unrelated structures in novel ways. Pink (2006)
refers to this as a Symphony, a trait of the creative mind that allows us as humans to relate and
organize unrelated concepts in unprecedented ways to approach things in new ways. Structures
are often perceived as limiting, but when utilized with symphony can serve as guidance and goal-
setting tools, which is how some teachers have approached meeting educational standards. While
creativity may seem oppositional to structure, Pink (2006) and Eisner (2002) would describe
them as being able to work together to push thinking, ability, and experiences to their potential.
An activity that embodies this is Chance operations where the creation of a piece was
directed by a set of guidelines. In this activity structure serves as a home base from which to try
new and different things. In groups it can be a fun collaborative project allowing for students to
get to work quickly, after only brief instruction. This actually means that experimentation can be
started more quickly. When working with smaller groups or older children it would be ideal to
allow children to gradually adjust the structure of the activity by interpreting rules differently, or
implementing additional and varying materials. It would also be interesting to have alternate
instructions to provide for even greater variation of pieces and experiences. That said structure
often feels imperatively boring or like the rest of students classes every day, as a practice in
following instructions, so its important to monitor the students feelings and help assure children
that deviation is encouraged, and that structure can in fact facilitate creativity. Structure with
flexibility, can actually facilitate creative thinking, this is an exercise in using symphony to
consider the different way structures can be interpreted and used to produce different results.
UNIT 5: CREATIVITY IN STRUCTURE 3
References
Eisner, E. (2002). The arts and the creation of mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Pink, D. (2006). A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future. New York, NY: The
Berkeley Group.