ARTS EDUCATION POLICY REVIEW, 111: 59–62, 2010Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1063-2913DOI: 10.1080/10632910903455884

Teaching Creativity in Higher Education

Larry LivingstonUniversity of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

Individual creativity is ubiquitous. New technologies both enable and urge fresh approachesto creativity in the context of education. University-level education offers a natural place toadjust pedagogical structures in favor of a more individual approach to learning that organizesthe intellectual community into new patters of interaction and time allocation. This direction ismade possible by the vast improvements in access to information, data, knowledge, and opinion.College students live in this world of access, in an ever-expanding sea of material. Networkingsecond-by-second is central to their zeitgeist. The result is far more than social. Interactionand collaboration are now important in most workplaces, and are expected to be even moreimportant in the future. Higher education needs to use its natural resources in ways that developcontent knowledge and skills in a culture infused at new levels by investigation, cooperation,connection, integration, and synthesis. Creativity is necessary to accomplish this goal. Whencentral and culturally pervasive, creativity becomes exemplified and enhanced for every student.Problem solving becomes the driving pedagogy. Problem solving is a technique that can beadvanced through practice, but practice takes time. Universities must meet the challenge ofreapportioning time if suggested changes are to occur. These matters are important to P–12arts education, because colleges prepare teachers and citizens who then provide leadership.Possibilities abound for changing paradigms that now hold arts education back in many policysituations. It is important to take advantage of opportunities inherent in the coincidence ofpresent conditions, youthful energy, technological capabilities, and interest in creativity.

Keywords: creativity, curriculum, higher education, student learning, technological culture

Human beings are inherently creative. We confront and dealwith issues large and small through our capacity to produceand invent as a means of negotiating life. A carpenter designsa window frame of irregular shape and brings into existencesomething heretofore unseen. A chef comes up with a recipefor peach flambe and generates a work of culinary art. Afootball player runs a passing route but suddenly divergesto catch a touchdown pass, and, in the process, performs anunplanned act of striking originality. As a result, creativity isneither foreign nor new to our students. They come to schoolwith a life history of creativity, whether it is manifested in theuse of the Internet, various extracurricular pursuits, or even,occasionally, the classroom. Hence, we need not fret overhow to encourage creative behavior in our schools. However,we do have an obligation to explore the means by whichwe may anchor creativity in the mission of our educationalinstitutions.

Correspondence should be sent to Larry Livingston, University of South-ern California, 2438 North Altadena Drive, Altadena, CA 91001, USA.E-mail: llivings@usc.edu

To establish a new experiential paradigm centered on cul-tivating creativity requires nothing less than an institutionalintervention. As long as we cleave only to traditional peda-gogies and courses of study that leave little or no room fornew experiences, we will not find the time or space necessaryfor nurturing the act of creativity.

How can we find or make room for creativity? One so-lution may lie in turning the technological expertise of ourstudents into a greater asset. We start by fully accepting afact. Operating with almost organic technological facility,our students traverse the ether like Evelyn Woods–trainedvirtuosos of old foraging in a library. Although the labelmight seem stiff to them, college freshmen are highly pro-ficient “researchers” at heart, chasing down books, friends,ideas, facts, clothes, experiences, and music—and the list ismuch longer—on a global scale, instantaneously connected,rarely lingering more than a few seconds on any Web site.Across this increasingly more powerful modality of behav-ior, creative thinking, being, and doing are constants. In fact,it is the play of creative interaction, dialogue, inquisition, andimagination all firing concurrently, that feeds the young. It is

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what we might have wished for long ago if we had only beenprescient enough to see it in the offing. We must find ways ofintegrating the use of the Internet not only into the missionstatement, but into the curriculum itself.

Second, we must be willing to honor and live up to thepriority of the university as an institution about learning,not teaching. Historical assumptions that these two actionsautomatically articulate are more than ever in need of review.If indeed, learning is the goal, we need to rethink the role ofpedagogical constructs, such as the classroom lecture, thathave long stood as absolutes in the university catechism.Although lectures can be provocative and highly personal,the format itself presumes that requiring students to sit in alecture hall and parallel-process information meted out by a“sage on the stage” is a powerful didactic strategy. In fact,much of what is presented in the typical university lecturecan be easily acquired on the Internet.

Imagine Philosophy 101 in an alternative paradigm. Theprofessor gives two lectures at the beginning of the semestercovering the major points and concepts to be comprehended,and then, fully supported by a digital syllabus, office hours forindividual help, and the Web itself, simply gives midterm andfinal exams based on the course content. In this arrangement,the student is given the responsibility to do the work, but on aschedule of his own making. Those students who wish for orneed more personal help can find it by accessing the professorin private tutorials. Meanwhile, the professor and studentsare now released from the constraints of a lecture-orientedclass-meeting schedule to interact in small group settings andcreatively explore the applied and social viability aspects ofPhilosophy 101.

We have always learned from each other. As universi-ties have evolved over centuries, they have become environ-ments in which credit is given for enrolling in classes, withthe community of students and faculty presumed to be valueadded. At its nucleus, the academy has a pedagogy that en-tails a highly organized means for conveying information,ideas, and concepts. However useful traditional pedagogyhas been in the service of human enlightenment, the goal ofa school cannot simply be the dissemination, but rather, mustbe the absorption, of information. In recent years, the costof higher education has soared, running well past the annualconsumer price index. Concurrently, the job market is fraughtwith rapid change and the evanescence of stable ongoing po-sitions. Now, only in the credential-dependent professions,such as medicine or law, may a college diploma be a reli-able asset. This circumstance begs the question, “Why go tocollege?”

The answer may be found in the university’s greatest as-set: human capital. Because the Web acts as an Archimedesspiral of content, information expanding outward from eachsite and link in the vast realms of the digital domain, virtu-ally everything can be studied at home by a student who ismotivated, enterprising, and technologically facile. What isnot easily available at home is a community of individuals,

teachers and students alike, who provide opportunities forsparking and enlarging one’s creative processes. Each humanbeing has a unique way of looking at the universe. As well,each has a distinctive imagination, the seedbed from whichtrue originality grows. If the academy wishes to center itsmission on honing creativity, it can best do so by pedagogiesthat maximize opportunities for students to practice beinginventive. Although it is a normal form of human behavior,creativity is also a technique, a skill that can be developedand refined over time.

The classroom lecture format is, by nature, not a naturallaboratory for interaction and collaboration. Making the cur-riculum about interpersonal exchange opens the experiencefor every student to express, share, and test his or her creativeinstincts. Exchange turns the historical paradigm around andmakes the presence of other students and faculty the coreattribute of the curriculum and the scheduled classes valueadded.

In Daniel Pink’s seminal book, A Whole New Mind, hemakes the point that in the twenty-first-century workplace,collaborative thinking and interacting will be increasinglycore. Although jobs will change, diverge, and morph, em-ployers are more and more going to seek workers whoare adept at teamwork and capable of contributing originalthought to group assignments and tasks. As the university’spurpose lies beyond mere career preparation, it is also in-cumbent on the academy to validate the college diploma asrelevant to the future of its graduates. Therefore, the curriculamust be intentionally formed around courses, projects, andseminars in which both collaboration and creativity work inconsort.

Through such normalized routines as social networking,text messaging, playing interactive games on the Internet,partying, or simply enjoying each other’s company, youngpeople coact as a matter of course. The road to collaboration-based curricula and programs has been paved by the studentsthemselves. They have presented us with a gift that we needonly unwrap.

Young people show up at our doorsteps as informationalomnivores, which the digital domain both prompts and cul-tivates. If we are to challenge and stretch students’ creativecapacities, we need to enthusiastically celebrate the realitythat each of them has long been a habitue in a multidisciplineworld. It is the university that has clung to discipline-specificstudy and has only recently been attracted to interdisciplinaryconcepts as meriting inclusion in the academy. The reasonour students are technological omnivores is because theycan be. The Internet does not parse information by “siloed”characteristics, but is instead an open-ended system that thenavigator organizes based on his or her predilections. Our stu-dents investigate all manner of diverse topics without beingtrapped by discipline-based limitations. They do so becauseno one has told them otherwise.

The university has been invited by every entering classto build experiences that flow gracefully into the stream of

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learning behaviors by which students have grown up. Themultidiscipline river is ours to use as we wish, to swim andwade in rather than dam up or portage around. By whatmeans could this task be best accomplished? By carvingout time in the curriculum to work in collaborative, small-group formats, addressing issues both relevant and timely.By seeking creative solutions to problems that cut across abattery of subjects or disciplines. By using human capital asa credit-bearing framework for shared quests. By providingtime and space for students to mentor each other. By letting goof the need to replicate old pedagogical models as educationalanchors and instead crafting new formats that tether studentsto each other and to joint enterprises that can only be realizedthrough cooperation. By importing into the daily business ofthe university the all-night informal dialogues, sometimesknown as “bull sessions,” which have been for decades thesine qua non of dormitory life.

Our graduates face a world of ever more perplexingchange. The stable days are gone, perhaps forever. The cruxof creative behavior is all about change, or at least changingsomething. If we can transform our educational institutionsto make change part of every topic we study rather than thedaunting future we face, creativity becomes our most pow-erful tool. Inventive people relish challenges, surprises, andeven impediments. I remember the parting comments of Nor-man Hackerman when he retired from his role as President ofRice University. Citing the many things he would rue losing,Hackerman said, “I will miss most the problems, for it is theproblems which inspire our best selves, our most rewardingdays, our most creative acts.”

Practicing problem solving as a team game should be partof every student’s experience. The problems can be specificor general, big or small. The question is how to developfacility in responding to problems. This, like any technique,can be practiced. Tackling a problem by oneself is usefuland can help build skill. Practicing problem solving as agroup initiative, however, opens doors to new approachesand devices for coping. The university is a perfect beta-sitefor working at acquiring a bigger repertoire of strategies.

Creativity is often referred to as a panacea, as part ofthe new “must be good” jargon in education. It is importantto remember that creativity absent a meritorious goal is notautomatically a good thing. Hitler was very creative. So wereOsama Bin Laden and Bernie Madoff. Creativity becomes aforce of great value when it is applied to causes that benefithumankind and the world at large. The study and applicationof creative behavior, then, should also be designed aroundsocial justice and objectives that promote the general welfare.The motto, “It is not enough to do well. One must also dogood,” should pertain to every curricular experience, in everyforum in which creativity is being nurtured.

Universities are among the oldest institutions on theplanet. They have survived for many centuries by contribut-ing not only to the education of their students, but also byenriching the commonweal. As part of their vaunted history,

universities have also been highly adaptive, able to re-valencethemselves in the face of large cultural changes. We now con-front a challenge of perhaps greater import than ever beforeas a result of rising costs and the availability of increasinglycompetitive and easily accessed alternative forms of learn-ing centering on the Internet. It is precisely at such a tippingpoint that curricular transformation, or, more to the point, ex-periential transformation, is ours for the taking. We have thecritical mass of equipment, buildings, staff, and, most signif-icantly, the human capital to once again adapt. It is simply amatter of will.

Although universities are optimally positioned to addressthe place of creativity in the collegiate experience, theirpreparation of K–12 arts teachers is a natural subset of thatinitiative. Taking action is important for P–12 arts educationin a number of ways. Colleges prepare P–12 teachers in thearts and other disciplines, and, as well, educate a significantproportion of the citizenry. What colleges teach and the waysthey teach impact the future of arts education and public un-derstanding, not only about specific knowledge and skillsrequired for graduation, but also about the content and na-ture of knowledge and skill development. P–12 arts educationsuffers in the policy arena, partly because there is no commonunderstanding among a critical mass of people, including thecollege educated, about connections across arts study andthe development of individual capacities and capabilities towork creatively with content. There seems to be a disinclina-tion to find solutions that work when more than one solutionis possible. The arts are thus seen either as a nonintellec-tual realm, or as an intellectual realm that is unconnected tomore serious pursuits like science, technology, engineering,and math, a realm that encompasses and nurtures a glam-orous playground for the talented and their patrons. In thisbenighted paradigm, serious arts study is viewed as perfectlyfine for the interested and talented, but not necessary or par-ticularly useful for anyone else; artistic creativity is placed ina jeweler’s box and admired as something beautiful but unre-lated to other kinds of work. Over time, the kind of curriculartransformation recommended here can counter the thrust ofthis paradigm, particularly if university professors who teachthe arts and prepare arts teachers seize the opportunities ofthe present time. Such transformation can address perennialproblematic conditions and current needs by establishing anew, experiential strategy that centers on cultivating creativ-ity. If we work purposefully within higher education, P–12arts education can be brought into a new relationship withP–12 education in general without losing the essences of thearts disciplines or the rigor and goals for excellence that theyexemplify.

The ultimate question, then, is not how to teach creativity,but rather how to understand, harvest, and build up the verycreativity that every student already possesses and uses. Theanswers may be multiple and diverse, but, inevitably, we mustsummon the courage to reexamine the typical university cur-riculum. By “reexamine,” I do not mean simply yet another

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exercise in curricular revision culminating in a “new” designthat is little more than an ornamental version of the old one.I mean a fundamental commitment to transform the univer-sity experience based on the unprecedented opportunity thatthe modern information age makes possible. I mean lookingafresh at how four years can be structured to place the questfor enlightenment at the center of the institutional mission,and to focus on the development of the whole human as anemerging societal adept. I mean making the sacred asset ofhuman capital core to the educational purpose and curricu-lum of the academy. I mean placing collaborative fora in theheart of the curriculum. I mean helping to forge decisionmakers who see creativity as an art form, as the instrumentby which one becomes not only an able responder to, butalso an agent for change. I mean helping young people take

advantage of their instinctual imaginings, which may beginwith the fantasy palaces of youth, but which can be shep-herded into the magical corridors of adult purpose. I meancentering school on helping students become agile brokersof their own destinies, determined to spread goodness in theculture at large. I mean focusing our efforts on how we wantthe graduates of our universities to be, and not just on whatwe want them to know. I mean growing the Ninja citizens ofthe future.

REFERENCE

Pink, D. H. 2005. A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age tothe Conceptual Age. New York: Penguin.

Articles in this symposium are derived from several presen-tations held at the Teaching Creativity conference at Universityof Wyoming, February 24–26, 2009. This conference was partof a four-conference series titled Creativity, Curiosity, Col-laboration, led by Richard E. Miller, Chair and Professor ofEnglish at Rutgers University, and Mark Sheridan-Rabideau,Professor of Music at University of Wyoming.

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