Creative Habits of Mind Descriptions - Bill Lucas workshop
Inquisitive
Powerful and creative learners have a curious attitude
to the world. They engage with what's around them in
an interested and thoughtful way. They are not afraid
to say: 'I don't know, but I’d like to find out' and 'That's
interesting; what happens if…'. Whatever they are told,
they are inclined to want to go further or deeper.
Wondering and questioning
Being inquisitive means asking questions. It means
saying: 'I wonder why...?' and asking: 'How come?' and
'Why's that?' It means taking your own questions
seriously and not being afraid to voice them. It means
having your own pile of things you really want to find
out about, or get better at, and not just responding to
the suggestions or demands that come from outside.
Being inquisitive means following up your questions by
going out and finding out more. It’s about being curious;
constantly wanting to find things out. It means taking
charge of the 'agenda' of learning and being proactive in
pursuing your interests. It means asking questions of
others as well as of yourself. It means enjoying
adventures - physical or mental - where you don't quite
know what is going to happen.
Being inquisitive means not taking things at face value.
It means saying: 'Hold on a minute...' and asking: 'What
does that mean?' and 'How do we know...?' It means
noticing anomalies and inconsistencies, and being
willing to unearth the assumptions behind what people
may be saying or doing. It means having a healthy
degree of scepticism towards what you see, or what you
are being told.
Exploring and investigating
Challenging assumptions
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Creative Habits of Mind Descriptions - Bill Lucas workshop
Persistent
Sticking with difficulty
Daring to be different
Tolerating uncertainty
Powerful and creative learners know that, as Thomas
Eddison put it, ‘genius is one percent inspiration and
ninety-nine percent perspiration’. Far from seeing
difficulty as sign of weakness, they revel in the
opportunity really to stay with difficult ideas and
challenging situations. They are not afraid to say ‘I
am going to take a different view even though it may
not make me popular’ and they do not need things to
be cut and dried.
Being persistent means still being able to come up
with ideas when you appear to be stuck. It involves
keeping going even when situations have become
stressful or emotional. It is also associated with being
able to bounce back from difficult situations. While
tenaciously sticking with a fixed idea is often not be a
creative response, having the courage of your
convictions to hold to a bigger goal brings many
benefits for learning and creativity.
Being persistent requires risk-taking and this will
often put you on a collision course with others. You
will need to be brave enough to hold to a different
opinion or idea when others have dismissed it or step
out of your comfort zone. Being prepared to be
different will help you avoid ‘groupthink’ (when
people become too comfortable in their own views):
‘Hang on I think we need to look at this from a
different angle’. Daring to be different acts as a
useful counter-weight to a human tendency to
become fixed on one particular solution.
Being persistent involves a degree of comfort with
situations which are not clear-cut and may be full of
ambiguity. The expression ‘creative tension’
encapsulates this need to find sources of strength
from apparently uncertain situations. If you are open
to experience you are more likely to be open to and
willing to live with uncertainty. Being creative require
you to think new thoughts and try out new ways of
being: such explorations are seldom routine and
more often require a mindset that is not phased by
uncertainty but, rather, is resourceful in such
situations.
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Creative Habits of Mind Descriptions - Bill Lucas workshop
Imaginative
Playing with possibilities
Making connections
Using intuition
Powerful and creative learners take pleasure in
exploring the art and science of the possible. They
can often be heard saying ‘That reminds me of…’.
They enjoy categorising and recategorising, using
metaphors, similes and images to make connections
between different ideas. As well as trusting their
rational mind they are equally happy to share halfformed ‘gut-feelings’ about issues.
Being imaginative involves playfulness, a willingness
to ask: ‘What if?’. It means being able to generate
and explore lots of ideas and hold these in the mind
at the same time. It also requires you to manipulate
different ideas, sometimes to fantasize or adapt.
Sometime such playfulness means deliberately
ignoring or flouting conventions, social propriety or
the seriousness which others bring to the task! By
playing with possibilities you can create more ideas
which you can then explore.
Being imaginative requires you to make new
connections and to think new thoughts. But, as there
are very few genuinely novel ideas, your imagination
needs to be brought to bear on how you combine
ideas or use ideas from one context in another
situation. Sometimes this can involve trying things
out in your mind or producing prototypes or ‘drafts’
to share with others.
Being imaginative calls on intuition as well as more
conscious thinking. Using intuition involves a
willingness to heed hunches, inklings and gut feel
about situations. It requires the creating of a state of
mind in which you are less mindful of the world
around and more attentive to what is going on within
you. It means sometimes letting your mind wander
or day-dream or think in images rather than words.
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Creative Habits of Mind Descriptions - Bill Lucas workshop
Collaborative
Cooperating appropriately
Giving and receiving feedback
Sharing the product
Powerful and creative learners recognize that other
people’s ideas are important. They are team players
who recognize that people need to play different
roles at different stages of any task. They regularly
offer opinions and ask others for theirs. They know
that they need to be open to giving their own
thoughts in a constructive way and receiving
feedback from others non-defensively.
Being collaborative involves recognizing that people
are different and contribute in different ways. It also
requires different roles and different activities at
different stages of any creative activity. Ideas need to
be generated, considered, combined, improved,
implemented, critiqued and so on. Each of these
activities calls on different methods. Sometimes
there is a fine line between competitive and
collaborative behavior as competition can help the
whole team to ‘raise its game’. But being a ‘team
player’ implies that you can cooperate effectively
according to the context in which you are working.
Being collaborative requires you to give and receive
feedback in such a manner that relationships are
maintained and developed! ‘Have you wondered
about trying…?’, ‘I really like the way you…’, ‘How
could we make this even better?’ Collaborative
people know that their work will be better if they
openly seek help from others and if they can respond
positively to suggestions. This needs to be reciprocal,
with sensitivity being shown when opinions are
offered to others.
Being collaborative requires a mindset that sees the
sharing of ideas at all stages of any activity as likely
to improve the creativity of the process.
Collaborative learners are generous with their time
and ideas, believing this, in most cases, to be in the
interest of getting the best products. They like to
disseminate work among colleagues and friends and
learn from the process.
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Creative Habits of Mind Descriptions - Bill Lucas workshop
Disciplined
Crafting and improving
Developing techniques
Reflecting critically
Powerful and creative learners know that expertise is
at the heart of most creative activity. They are
constantly wanting to improve their craft and always
on the hunt for new techniques. They are likely to
say: ‘Can you show me how to do that’ and ‘Who’s
the best I could observe doing this?’. They take a
pride in a job well done and always striving for
excellence. They are constantly reflecting, asking
others what they think, keeping notes and looking for
coaching support. While some associate creativity
with eccentric or unplanned behavior, true creativity
and learning requires dedicated and disciplined
development of skills and techniques.
Being disciplined requires many hours of deliberate
and carefully planned practice, whether it is a
predominantly mental or physical activity. This can
mean, for example, slowing things down, mental
rehearsal or working on the tricky parts.
Being disciplined requires a conscious commitment
to learn new techniques, to keep abreast of
inventions and new ideas and to seek out and use
new tools and processes. While rule-breaking is part
of creativity, so too are routines and hard work.
Being disciplined means constantly using feedback to
help you reflect on the progress you are making.
Disciplined learners are constantly trying to do better
and learn from what has gone before: ‘How could I
do this better next time?’.
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