A Creative Way to Spark Creative Conversations about Creative Learning

I recently visited the Sydney Opera House, to discuss ways that we might collaborate on their new Creative Learning Centre, set to open in 2021. While there, I participated in a workshop with a group of K-12 educators, coordinated by Frank Newman, the Creative Learning Specialist for the Opera House.

I really liked the way Frank sparked conversation at the workshop. We all sat around a big table, and Frank had scattered colored circles of paper across the tabletop. Frank asked me to make a few opening remarks about my book Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play. Then, Frank asked each of the educators to write down, on a colored circle, one word that stuck in their mind from my remarks. After that, Frank asked the educators to crumple their paper into a ball and throw it to someone else at the table — and to continue to throw the crumbled balls around the table.

After a few throws, Frank asked each educator to grab a ball, unfold it, and to incorporate the word on the paper into a question about the creative learning process. Here are some of the questions that resulted (with the original word represented in bold):

• How do you find a student’s passion?
• How can we build authentic feedback among peers within our classroom?
• How can we encourage people to play throughout their lives, not just as kids?
• What role does vulnerability play in the creative process?

• How can we support creative expression by everyone?
• How can we encourage our students to inspire each other and lead change in the world?
• How does collaboration work online?
• How can creativity be used to build engagement in a traditionally non-creative learning areas?

• What is the role of emotions when dealing with passion? How passionate do you want to get?
• How do you maintain playfulness with the requirements of the syllabus?
• What role do peers play in introducing a shift in types and ways of learning?
• How do you spark the creative and collaborative spirit that starts a movement like Scratch?

• How do we have authentic child-led change that encompasses the past and future?
• In a class with many students, how can we successfully and meaningfully draw on individuals’ passion to engage them in creative learning?
• In what ways can we bring out collaboration in schools?
• How can teachers, arts educators, and teaching artists use play to improve and deepen their practice?

• What would happen in learning if passion is missing from the equation of the 4 P’s?
• How can my peers in Creative Learning support each other across schools?
• How can we use play as a means of mobilising young people’s energy in a sometimes overly serious school curriculum?
• If you had to pick only one, what is your one true passion?

These questions sparked a spirited conversation among the educators. I left the workshop with some new ideas about creative learning — and a new technique for starting creative conversations.