Learning as Creativity: Implications for Adult Learners.

Carl Rogers, in Freedom to Learn (1969), describes an educational approach and philosophy in which the learner becomes "the architect of himself." With this metaphor for adult learning as the design and building of oneself and the creative nature of such a process, what role might creativity play in adult learning? In his book Creaavity (1996), Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes creativity as consisting of three main parts. The first is the domain, which is a "set of symbolic rules or procedures." These rules and procedures are used in the practice of an art or science, such as physics, for example. The second part is the field, which consists of those who recognize new, creative work within a given domain. An example of the field related to the domain of physics would be other physicists and editors and publishers of scientific journals. The third part of this system of creativity is the individual person, who uses the rules or procedures of a domain to develop new ideas or works within a domain. When this new idea or work is recognized by the field for inclusion into the domain, then creativity occurs. This creation actually changes the nature of the domain and sometimes can even result in new domains being developed. An example of this is how Bell Laboratory scientists, working in the domain of solid state physics developed the first transistor and with it the seeds for a new domain of semiconductor devices such as microprocessors. While Csikszentmihalyi focuses primarily on whom he refers to as the "creative ones," those individuals widely recognized for their creative work, when he describes creativity, we can adapt some of his key ideas to apply the creative process to individual learning. Let's start by modifying the definition of the three parts of the creative system. First, let us consider the domain to be the individual. Each of us has our own way of interacting with the world, but instead of a set of rules and procedures, how we interact with the world is the result of our unique pattern of behavior, albeit a constantly changing and adapting one! Then, let us consider the field to be the world with which we interact. It is here that our own personal domain is "accepted" or not. It is in our interaction with others, either individually or in groups, as well as with the physical world or even other domains (such as our work) that our pattern of behavior is assessed. How well we achieve the desired results of this interaction, be it completing an assignment at work, or helping a child with her homework, depends largely (though perhaps not entirely) on our own personal domain, our unique pattern of behavior. If we don't achieve the results we would like, we change that pattern of behavior by developing or acquiring a new pattern of behavior. This may take the form of learning how to use database management software to complete that work assignment or trying some new strategies for working with that child that resists doing their homework. With these revised definitions of domain and field, we might now define creativity as it relates to learning. Creativity in this sense is changing one's personal domain (pattern of behavior) such that one's field (the world or environment with which one interacts) "recognizes" this change through a more favorable interaction, an interaction where one is better able to achieve the results one desires. In addition, since changes to our pattern of behavior are the result of learning, we can conclude that learning is a creative act. A Working Model of the Creative Process Having established that learning and creativity are closely linked, would increases in creative ability or skill also lead to increased ability to learn? In order to explore this idea further, I will first outline a working model for developing or facilitating creativity. While there are several such models used in human resource development applications, I will draw upon the work of Peter Senge and Robert Fritz for this working model. …