I should have written this blog 10 days ago but with one thing and another it didn’t get done. Anger, though, has motivated me to reflect on the events of the last couple of weeks, starting with a TV advert I was subjected to at the weekend which quoted Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘man in the arena’ speech…..something I’ve had pinned up near my desk and bored various colleagues with for years, particularly when faced with the likes of QAA and Ofsted.
My annoyance was prompted by the use, or should I say horrible abuse, of Roosevelt’s words and intentions. Without going into too much detail, the advert chopped out any of the references to ‘error’, ‘shortcoming’ or ‘fail[ure]‘ and merely quoted the ‘sweat and blood’ and ‘triumph of high achievement’ stuff, in some sort of an attempt to emphasise a ‘wey-hey, get stuck in lads and everything will be alright’ mantra. To me, this is not what Roosevelt was saying at all. To me, he was saying that striving is as much about failure as it is success and sometimes, despite your best efforts, success doesn’t come at all…..but…..it’s the striving that counts; it’s the trying that prevents you from being a ‘cold and timid soul’ in the long run.
So, what’s this got to do with creativity? Aside from the ‘creative’ advertising that has gone on here, this episode reminded me of the words of Chris Wilson at the recent UK Creativity Researcher’s Conference who, with colleague Elaine Clarke, told delegates of a conversation with a senior member of a university who said something along the lines of ‘we want creativity…..but without risk.’ A collective chuckle rippled through the room; all delegates surreptitiously acknowledging that ‘there is no effort without error or short coming’ (Roosevelt, 1910).
The conversations I’ve been having with the participants in my Phd research express some interesting views in this respect. It would, perhaps, be natural to assume that the employers, particularly the science based employer, may have shied away from the idea of that risky creativity thing given their financial and reputational commitments. But actually, that’s seemingly not the case. The employers value creativity for the opportunities and change it brings, whilst recognising, accepting and managing the potential risks. The recent Future Skills – The Future of Learning and Higher Education (Ehlers and Kellermann, 2019) report identifies, along with various others, the increasing need for creativity and creative employees in the future.
So, there is work to do.
I say this based on my other conversations with students and academics which have highlighted that both groups also value creativity greatly but feel the HE landscape doesn’t manage the risks as well as employers do. I’ve heard of students stepping back from expressing their creativity because of their concerns of contravening marking criteria and failing assessments; academics feeling limited in their research by the demands of funding bodies or worrying about the consequences of below average module marks should students not perform well in a new assessment method. Performativity seemingly driving safe, compliant behaviour.
Granted, I’ve cherry picked some negative findings here to emphasise my point and there is much positive narrative coming from my findings too (to follow in future blogs 🙂 ) but I would concur with Norman Jackson’s frustrations expressed at the UK Creativity Researcher’s Conference that we haven’t moved on enough in the HE sector with regard to creativity and developing it in our graduates.
I think we need to take a leaf out of the book of the employers I’ve worked with and manage the risks of creativity by contriving much more safe yet meaningful space in HE for creativity development; perhaps allowing, to quote the words of Richard Madden, a degree of ‘negative capability’, whereby students and academics have the ability not to be worried by not providing a solution, or not making a judgement, or being able to tolerate ambiguity.
The participants in my study would also add ‘patience’ to this negative capability list; noting that the creative spark or conceptualisation can be quick but the clarifying, designing and synthesising will take a little longer if a valuable output is to result. The questions in my head at the moment are: is the HE sector prepared to invest this time and if so, does it understand creativity well enough to know how to invest this time?
Hmmmmm, not sure on either of these at the moment; one to ponder while I watch the adverts again.
JW
Ph.D, me and a bit of creativity 