Creativity & Mistake Making

I love these questions! Mistake making is simply part of the creative process, but failure and mistakes have such a negative connotation, especially in traditional academic environments. Michael Mills and I wrote an article last year about the role of productive failure in creative path-making, and it's something I'm interested in exploring more in my research. It seems to me that we have to create learning environments that encourage a certain level of risk-taking if we want students to feel comfortable embracing the creative process. The same is true for faculty. If we want to reimagine our institutions, we have to know that mistakes will happen along the way. It's just part of the creative process.

"Productive failure"- I love that! How might we change the mindset around making mistakes for all learners to encourage risk taking and promote the creative process?

Great questions Alfred and Jessica!

What do you all think about this paradox and how can schools use the coaching process to explore answers?

Thanks so much for sharing that article, Jessica. Looking forward to reading it!

Thanks, Susan! Would love to chat more about this line of thinking/research :)

I think these questions are so important, as the Head of Art, Photography & Media in my school I am often trying to explain to others that creativity is not just within my subject areas. Creativity is problem solving, it’s experimentation and trial and error. I think we need to look beyond the classroom to build a culture of mistake making, we need to consider what our pupils are exposed to, whether it is through social media/societal expectations to be able to unpick the boundaries they believe exist. How do we create the safe space to break the norms they believe exist? I think we also need to look at ourselves and our colleagues, what mistakes are we willing to make as educators? How vulnerable are we willing to be to model mistake making to our learners?

Totally agree, Laura! If we could build a "culture of mistake making" and remove the stigma that often surrounds mistakes, it would go a long way toward promoting creativity. I agree with you that working toward this requires a lot of reflection on the part of educators to determine whether we're modeling the mindsets and creative habits we hope to promote among our students. Thanks for sharing in the conversation!

Mistakes are the first steps in learning and they should be celebrated. We use this in Science to encourage the experimental design process.

Hi Alfred,

One more resource for you to share (or just check out). In his TEDx talk, The Failure of Success, Dr. George Land talks about his work with NASA and his findings on what happens to our creativity over time. It goes right along with your description of Tom Morello's interview.