Happy Friday the 13th! I hope your spooky season is full of loads of fun creativity. October is one of my favorite and what I feel most creative months. This Friday’s post I get deep into art education theory as I’m currently preparing for a new professor term (teaching my top course - Psychology of Creativity) and my upcoming Creative Fuel course - Fall Reset an Intro to Creativity with A. Slusarski. But since I believe everyone can benefit from understanding their creativity more, I thought I’d share this deep dive here.
This week I reached over 100 subscribers and I am just in awe. Thank YOU all for subscribing and reading along as I share my research, experiences, and passion for creativity and learning.
- Slu
Understanding Creativity
My world lives in meta-land –I’m a creative educator, teaching art teachers how to teach Art, or more importantly what I argue, creativity.
In this researching, experiencing and teaching of creativity, I love to dissect with my students what we know about creativity. Building an understanding and approach to how they engage with creativity, is what I believe will propel their lives and future students' lives as a result. As many of my undergraduates begin class with what they think is their definition of creativity, only to leave realizing it's deeper than they originally thought.
The concept that resonates with many art educators is Kaufman and Beghetto’s Four C Model of Creativity.
Creativity psychology researchers Kaufman and Beghetto present us with developmental levels of creativity. These levels – little-c, Big-C, mini-c, and Pro-C are ALL CREATIVITY. Kaufman and Beghetto in their model aim to help remind us of where and why our skill set may be at a specific level.
“Instead, the model offers a frame- work for conceptualizing and classifying various levels of creative expression and points to potential paths of creative maturation” (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007, p. 7).
This is important especially for art educators in their understanding of creativity, as conceptualizing creativity in these levels supports how creativity looks in the learning process – aka what art teachers do everyday.
First, let’s define my favorite of them all — little-c. These are everyday creative acts and are not limited to visual works. Everyone can access creativity here, and the more little-c’s the better. When learning about little-c for myself and for my students, I’m connected to Dr. Ruth Richard’s research. Her work expresses the importance of little-c as healthy practices for living, while also pointing out that the visual arts are not the only way creativity happens. Her call for emphasizing process over product and daily creativity is that –
“we can live better if we use conscious creative approaches, meeting each situation afresh in our lives, from the meals we create to how we organize things at the office” (Richards, 2007, p. 191)
In contrast, Big-C will be remembered in history books. It’s Beyoncé, Georgia O’Keeffe, Stephan King, Tina Fey, and many other names you could probably recall based on enjoying their creative pursuits. Also, it’s important to note that we often view Big-C as the culmination of their entire body of work. Big-C creatives engage in little-c activities too.
The other two categories help us distinguish even further levels found in creative acts. Pro-C creatives have reached a professional level. This comes from years of experience and training. Typically, it’s commonly shared that ten years of experience or dedication to craft is what's necessary for this level.
Like my new favorite Pro-C dancer from Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, Kameron N. Saunders.
“Mini-c is defined as the novel and personally meaningful interpretation of experiences, actions, and events (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007, p. 4). For art teachers and parents, mini-c is such a special level of creativity as it is a common occurrence in a students learning process. First words, first steps, first drawings are all big places for mini-c creativity.
When you just start out learning, always comparing yourself to a Big-C is silly, as many Pro-C folks live happy, successful lives without reaching legendary status of Big-C. Kaufman and Beghetto also note that “many “amateur” artists are being creative at the Pro-c level, even if it is not their primary means of support (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007, p. 8).
I tend to align with their thoughts here, as connected to a bigger call for arts education –
“Many individuals may use their creativity to express themselves, sort out emotions, or explore ideas and life experiences. We believe that creativity for its own sake is a worthy end goal, regardless of how a creative product may be reviewed or received by a larger population (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2007, p. 8).
Conceptualizing creativity in this way, gives everyone the permission to experience creativity on many levels throughout your life. It's important for all creatives, young and old, to embrace these models as they learn in their art classrooms what creative thinking and processes look and feel like.
As Dr. Ruth Richards reminds us that everyday creativity “is not only universal, but necessary to our very survival as individuals and as a species” (Richards, 2010, p. 190).
As art educators, how can you use the Four C models of creativity in your classroom?
How are mini-c acts celebrated?
In what ways are you building students’ little-c habits?
How can contemporary Pro-C artists be highlighted in your curriculums and lessons?
Lastly, what can we learn from our Big-C sheroes and heroes?
REFERENCES
Kaufman, J. C., & Beghetto, R. A. (2009). Beyond big and little: The four c model of creativity. Review of General Psychology, 13(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013688
Richards, R. (2010). Everyday creativity as a process and way of life: Four key issues. In J.C Kaufman & R.J. Sternberg (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Creativity (pp 189-215). New York: Cambridge University Press.