Creativity and Community
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is
a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a
Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse,
as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor
of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans
death diminishes me, because I am in-
volved in Mankinde; And therefore
never send to know for
whom the bell tolls; it
tolls for thee.
John Donne
No man is an island…we are all interconnected. Even people we have never met exert great influences over us. It’s comforting to know that I am a part of other’s lives but on the other hand, it’s frightening when I realize the responsibility that comes with that.
On a microbiological level, are we the sum of our parts? Or are we fragmented? Just remove the electrical cells in the heart and the entire organism ceases to function. I read somewhere (Lewis Thomas?) that when someone dies, the cells do not all die at the exact same moment---further proof that we are not one single entity---there are some rebels within us who may refuse to give up that life force until the very end! Therein lies the creativity in a biologically determined context. Each cell may play its part within the whole but how and when it does this is somewhat up to the individual.
As a biology major, I loved having the opportunity to read Lewis’s work. I already owned the book, having picked it up one day in the bookstore after being intrigued by the few passages I’d read there. Things like: “A solitary ant…cannot be considered to have much of anything on his mind…(but) four ants together, or ten, encircling a dead moth on a path, begin to look more like an idea.” And: (referring to the individuality of our cells) ... “perhaps it is they who walk through the local park in the early morning, sensing my senses, listening to my music, thinking my thoughts.”
It was the vivid mind picture Lewis painted when he talked about how integrated schools of swimming fish were, that made me realize how closely human society resembles those coordinated masses. “Herring and other fish in schools are at times so closely integrated, their actions so coordinated, that they seem to be functionally a great multi-fish organism.” If you’ve ever been snorkeling and tried to touch an individual fish swimming within one of those masses, you can fully understand his point. It’s amazing how the entire school moves in concert just to avoid having one of its members touched. It’s a split second reaction and there’s no obvious communication that seems to instigate the movement. Human society seems to function in the same way. Every day, people everywhere, get up, do their jobs, go home, and start again the next day. No one told them: We need 500 doctors, 400 teachers, and a myriad of other players to take bit parts in this massive undertaking. Our society does resemble bee hives and anthills but with one addition; we have the opportunity (for the most part) to exercise free choice (creativity) in choosing which part we will play.
I could really relate to what Temple Grandlin calls “thinking in pictures”. I have always been a visual learner and have had to rely on pictures in my head, visualizing difficult concepts. Our educational system seems to rely more and more on verbal skills, ignoring people who are not language-based thinkers. This concept explains why she states: Differences between language-based thought and picture-based thought may explain why artists and accountants fail to understand each other. They are like apples and oranges”. For several years I taught teenagers who had been unable to pass the ISTEP test that is required for a high school diploma. Many of these students were extremely creative, in their artwork, writings, and their overall thinking. Grandlin comments that: “Our educational system weeds these people out of the system instead of turning them into world-class scientists.” She challenges the assumptions our educational system has regarding creativity and as part of that system, I hope to explore these assumptions.
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is
a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a
Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse,
as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor
of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans
death diminishes me, because I am in-
volved in Mankinde; And therefore
never send to know for
whom the bell tolls; it
tolls for thee.
John Donne
No man is an island…we are all interconnected. Even people we have never met exert great influences over us. It’s comforting to know that I am a part of other’s lives but on the other hand, it’s frightening when I realize the responsibility that comes with that.
On a microbiological level, are we the sum of our parts? Or are we fragmented? Just remove the electrical cells in the heart and the entire organism ceases to function. I read somewhere (Lewis Thomas?) that when someone dies, the cells do not all die at the exact same moment---further proof that we are not one single entity---there are some rebels within us who may refuse to give up that life force until the very end! Therein lies the creativity in a biologically determined context. Each cell may play its part within the whole but how and when it does this is somewhat up to the individual.
As a biology major, I loved having the opportunity to read Lewis’s work. I already owned the book, having picked it up one day in the bookstore after being intrigued by the few passages I’d read there. Things like: “A solitary ant…cannot be considered to have much of anything on his mind…(but) four ants together, or ten, encircling a dead moth on a path, begin to look more like an idea.” And: (referring to the individuality of our cells) ... “perhaps it is they who walk through the local park in the early morning, sensing my senses, listening to my music, thinking my thoughts.”
It was the vivid mind picture Lewis painted when he talked about how integrated schools of swimming fish were, that made me realize how closely human society resembles those coordinated masses. “Herring and other fish in schools are at times so closely integrated, their actions so coordinated, that they seem to be functionally a great multi-fish organism.” If you’ve ever been snorkeling and tried to touch an individual fish swimming within one of those masses, you can fully understand his point. It’s amazing how the entire school moves in concert just to avoid having one of its members touched. It’s a split second reaction and there’s no obvious communication that seems to instigate the movement. Human society seems to function in the same way. Every day, people everywhere, get up, do their jobs, go home, and start again the next day. No one told them: We need 500 doctors, 400 teachers, and a myriad of other players to take bit parts in this massive undertaking. Our society does resemble bee hives and anthills but with one addition; we have the opportunity (for the most part) to exercise free choice (creativity) in choosing which part we will play.
I could really relate to what Temple Grandlin calls “thinking in pictures”. I have always been a visual learner and have had to rely on pictures in my head, visualizing difficult concepts. Our educational system seems to rely more and more on verbal skills, ignoring people who are not language-based thinkers. This concept explains why she states: Differences between language-based thought and picture-based thought may explain why artists and accountants fail to understand each other. They are like apples and oranges”. For several years I taught teenagers who had been unable to pass the ISTEP test that is required for a high school diploma. Many of these students were extremely creative, in their artwork, writings, and their overall thinking. Grandlin comments that: “Our educational system weeds these people out of the system instead of turning them into world-class scientists.” She challenges the assumptions our educational system has regarding creativity and as part of that system, I hope to explore these assumptions.
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