HGSE Group Uncovers Creativity Everywhere

For most, the concept of creativity is most quickly associated with art. For James Croft and Edward Clapp, creators of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (GSE) Creativity Discussion Group, creativity can be found everywhere—not only in art, but in science, cuisine, sports, and cognition.

Every Tuesday, faculty and students from Harvard meet informally to discuss creativity in different contexts, using anecdotes, allegories, and sometimes even props to express their personal understanding of this abstract idea. Participants of this Discussion Group identify a wide range of creative pursuits—from creating electricity with dirt to demonstrating the definition of the word with Legos.

Held at the GSE on Appian Way, the Creativity Discussion Group was created after the Task Force for the Arts released its report last December. Both Croft, a visual artist, and Clapp, who has a long history of acting in theater, are doctoral students in the GSE and were motivated by the report’s publication to make their idea for a forum on the definition of creativity into a reality. Every week, in order to focus discussion and spark conversation, one member presents a scholar’s theory of creativity before participants begin an informal debate about this particular philosophy.

Croft and Clapp insist that finding a definition of creativity, while vague, is urgent for practical purposes. Troubled by how an increase in standardized testing in public schools and higher instruction has pushed arts education to the periphery of curricula, Croft and Clapp hope the group will offer suggestions for ways that creativity should be taught or encouraged in elementary and secondary schools, as well as in universities.

“The arts are not in danger… but the arts don’t have the educational importance that the strength in society would suggest they might,” Croft says. “Creativity is a fundamental characteristic of what it means to be a human being…if educational spaces think that this is a frill, that that is something that is not essential to the enterprise of educating people, then they are just wrong.”

Croft and Clapp also emphasize that the Discussion Group aims to investigate the relationship between arts and creativity as separate but overlapping entities. Rather than being mutually inclusive, creativity is essential to and arises from all disciplines.

“Creativity is a hollow word that takes on different meanings in different contexts,” Clapp says. He and Croft insist that artists do not have a sole claim on creativity. “Most people want to consider themselves creative,” Croft says. “Your idea of what creativity is is very bound up with your idea of who you are as a person and what you do. In a way artists are the worst people to discuss creativity with because it’s so personal for them. We try to include both artists and people who do not consider themselves artists in the discussion.”

The Creativity Discussion Group also incorporates monthly colloquia into its schedule, which makes the interdisciplinary application of creativity more concrete. The colloquia feature research conducted by students and faculty from Harvard and other institutions, such as Emerson College, Lesley University, and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Especially in the current state of economic decline, the colloquia have provided a relatively inexpensive platform for people to present their research.

Last month at the inaugural colloquium, Eric Rosenbaum, a researcher at MIT, presented an interactive demonstration of technology that takes light from objects and overexposes it in real time. The technique allowed audience members to use anything that emitted light to “paint” an image projected onto a screen.

“It’s quite remarkable how a technology like that can transform the way people see themselves,” Croft says. “Suddenly people can be artists in a very real sense.”

At the most recent colloquium, which was held on Tuesday, Jill Peterson, a researcher from RISD, presented a fabric bike lock she designed, which also serves as a GPS social networking device.

The colloquia are evidence that artistic creation is thriving in college communities. Croft believes that while some are pessimistic about the vivacity of the arts in society, in fact, people are as creatively inclined as ever. This creativity, however, may present itself in ways that are not traditionally considered artistic.

He points to the popularity of YouTube as evidence of people’s intense natural urge to express themselves. “Suddenly it’s been made easy to express yourself in ways you couldn’t before. And suddenly you see that this idea of the artist, the creative individual as someone blessed with some sort of spirit from the muses or what have you is wrong. This is all of us. The human species has the gift of the muses. And that’s a remarkable discovery.”

Clapp and Croft don’t have a specific goal in mind for the trajectory of the weekly discussions. They are satisfied as long as people are making personal connections and thinking about creativity in innovative ways with renewed enthusiasm.

“My goal is to connect things that are already in existence,” Clapp says. “Harvard is not an arts-poor community; it is an arts poorly-connected community. There are rich conversations happening everywhere. I just want to have these conversations together.”