Social Emotional Learning Topic: Creativity

Transcript for Podcast Lesson on Creativity with Chelsea

Jenny Woo [00:00:07] Hello everyone, I'm Jenny and you're listening to 52 Essential Conversations. Today we have Chelsea Myers sitting with us to talk about creativity. Chelsea plays in the intersection between teaching and neuroscience through her time spent in the classrooms and at the research lab. She has taught in project-based learning school environments from 5th all the way to 12th grade on both the West and East Coasts. While working for the Laboratory for Educational Neuroscience at the University of California San Francisco, Chelsea was a Research Fellow for the Center for Childhood Creativity, where she helped to translate neuroscience research to usable knowledge for parents and teachers. Welcome, Chelsea.

Chelsea Myers [00:00:59] Hi Jenny. Thanks so much for having me.

Jenny Woo [00:01:02] Tell us what is creativity is to you and why is it important.

 Chelsea Myers [00:01:08] It's so interesting from both my teaching background and my research background to answer that question. From a researching standpoint, a creative idea tends to be assessed based on whether it's both original and useful. As a teacher, I tend to think of inventiveness, spontaneity, and imagination. Really though, the non-researcher in me tends to feel that putting a strict definition around creativity is against its very nature. Parents like you, Jenny, of young children have an opportunity to see amazing creativity each day in your children, which stems so much from being so curious about everything around them. Children, when given the right environment can do tremendous things, come up with amazingly inventive worlds, solutions, and ways of navigating their surroundings. And it is through constraints, expectations, social norms, and responsibilities that we start to see that decline in creativity as kids get older and turn to adults. Something called the Fourth Grade Slump has been identified by researchers as a time around nine to ten years old where we really see a decline in creative thinking. Despite this decline, creative thinking is something that we are seeing become more and more important in our adulthood and for our economy. When so many of our jobs are automated now, top employers are looking for innovation and innovation comes from people who think creatively. Paul Tough, an amazing journalist that writes a lot about education talks about how we no longer need just problem solvers but problem finders as well. I have always loved that and I think it is so much related to how I approach creativity with my students.

Jenny Woo [00:02:46] Let's break this down. Tell us what you've done at school or even tips for parents in fostering the type of right environment where we can encourage problem finders.

Chelsea Myers [00:03:00] Great question. So much of creativity for children is about the imagination: coming up with new worlds and imaginary friends. It is probably really basic to say this, but embracing the power of play is one thing a parent can do. So often, kids are inundated with schedules so early on in their lives, and that leaves little room for imaginative play. Protect and prioritize that time for your kids. I think also, research shows us that it is important for us not as adults to put constraints on their curiosity, so using open-ended language as your child explores novel things, such as "I wonder what this is for?" "what do you think?" for example. A language that is encouraging and not dismissive of ideas. As an educator, we often call this "yes, and" rather than using that dreaded "but" phrased. As Carol Dweck promotes, using growth mindset language praising effort rather than results is a great way to foster creativity. Facilitating brainstorming can really help where kids are generating a lot of ideas and organically seeing how some ideas lead to others and asking questions that help kids to see patterns and relationships in the world. Being in nature can especially help facilitate that part too. And just overall, allowing your kids to fail a little bit and helping them through frustrations when they are stuck can be really helpful. Teaching strategies that we often use on our own as adults, like taking a break from something and coming back for example. Movement, as well, can be super important for those aha moments, and movement for creative expression is really great.

Chelsea Myers [00:04:40] Some really important research in psychology and neuroscience recognizes a phenomenon called the "Undermining Effect," which basically is that when something is already intrinsically rewarding--they just like doing something. It is given an extrinsic reward, a treat, or something of that sort, it actually undermines the innate desire and enjoyment of that activity. I think recognizing that is really important for parents and educators. Can we identify and help kids to see when they have done something for pure enjoyment, not for any outside rewards? I think especially as kids get older and approach the slump that we talked about, putting effort into creating environments for creativity can be important. I'm amazed during my time as an educator at how cardboard, pipe cleaners, and other recyclables turn into poly elevators and zip lines. Allowing for these materials and a space to get messy can be super important. When parents are able, providing new experiences such as museums, nature walks, cultural festivals, art performances can be really enriching in creativity provoking.

Jenny Woo [00:05:49] I love how you know these are great tangible examples of how to create that environment where they can make mistakes, fail, and explore that process. And it's so funny that you said "yes, and" versus the "but." It's like every time I lay out a bunch of materials for my kids to play, it's always "oh this is great, so amazing what you're doing" but then in my head, I'm like "oh it's so messy, what am I going to do!" So that's one thing, the balance of just the fact that you do need to clean it up and this mess is there and real. Then also I'm feeling the tension of when do you step in as a parent to use some creativity moments as a teachable moment, say "how about this or do it this way." It's such a balance between the two. Any tips for us in handling messiness and also the tension of letting go, leaving them alone vs. going in and teaching them.

Chelsea Myers [00:07:01] Yeah, that's such a challenging question. I do think that if you are facilitating your children in a way that again uses that open language rather than "you should do it this way," providing a lot of different options of how things can be approached and strategies. I truly believe that when you can, to try to let your children come to those moments on their own and it's really interesting because I think as parents and I know my own parents did this as well is that they're afraid to watch us fail. And really those are some of the most influential learning experiences in our lives and they're especially fruitful when they're in a supportive environment around parents that are there to comfort them or direct them or support them in that failure and all the emotions that come with that. Embracing that and the power you have as a parent to understand the comfort that you can provide in those struggle moments that lead to great learning and productive futures for your children.

Jenny Woo [00:08:17] Yeah. That's a great point. And it actually reminded me of embracing failures within ourselves as parents. I think a lot of the times we do feel pressure and that you know we need to get this teachable moment right. We need to capitalize on this learning experience. We got to do it now versus just modeling the fact that we don't know the right answers and we're looking for it together and embracing that. I think for me as a former executive coach, I've worked with a lot of adults who have a fear of failure. And ironically, those are the things that are holding them back from getting to the next level as you mentioned, the 21st-century skills and jobs.

Jenny Woo [00:09:03] So any tips or resources that you have for us as parents?

Chelsea Myers [00:09:09] A lot of my interest in this topic stemmed from my work with an amazing center out of Sausalito, California right outside of San Francisco called the Center for Childhood Creativity. While I was working at an educational research lab in the area they asked me to come on board to help them to translate some of the newer neuroscience of creativity research into some usable digestible knowledge. Their website has an amazing set of resources on the subject, including the paper that I worked on called Inspiring a Generation to Create, Critical Components of Creativity in Children. That paper includes a really interesting overview of creativity and also which I absolutely love, provides games and strategies that parents and educators can use to help foster creativity, some of which definitely has some parallels to what we talked about today.

Jenny Woo [00:09:58] Well thank you so much for your time, Chelsea. And thank you for tuning in to 52 Essential Conversation.

Social Emotional Learning Topic: Mindfulness

MINDFULNESS: 5 Key Lesson Takeaways

1. Mindfulness is the awareness of being in the moment with a non-judgmental stance.

2. Practicing mindfulness does not have to take a lot of time! It’s NOT a retreat all-day kind of ordeal. Taking a minute out of your day to check in with yourself IS mindfulness!

3. Mindfulness is essential for everyone. There are many proven benefits, such as decreasing stress, increasing mood and concentration, and improving quality of life.

4. It’s never too late to start.

5. There are many misconceptions about practicing mindfulness. Read the transcript below or listen to the podcast lesson to find out.

My favorite mindfulness books for children (click for more info):

Mindfulness books for teens (click for more info):

Evidence-based mindfulness books for adults (click for more info):

Transcript for Podcast Lesson on Mindfulness with Tori and Melissa

Jenny: I'm sitting next to Tori and Marissa and today, and we will be talking about mindfulness. Tori is an instructional coach who works with teachers all across the country to help them personalize their classrooms and boost social and emotional skills. She has also taught third-graders in North Carolina, before completing her Masters at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Marissa, next to me, has a research background at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where she conducted FMRI research on mindfulness. Marissa also has a Masters from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and mind-bring and education, where she focused on integrating neuroscience and mindfulness into educational programs of self-improvement. Welcome!

Tori: Thanks, Jenny.

Marissa: Thanks it's great to be here.

Jenny: Yeah. And as I watch you doing sun-salutations earlier, this is definitely an exciting time to talk about mindfulness because it is such a buzz-word around and you are here because you've created Calm Body Active Mind to help elementary-school teachers understand mindfulness and incorporating it into the classrooms.

Jenny: Tell us what is mindfulness means to you and why is it important.

Marissa: Mindfulness is kind of a big umbrella term. In general mindfulness to me, just means moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness. So simply, being in the moment. Whatever's happening for you, whatever sensations you feel, and just being aware, and not judging what's happening. There are many different ways you can practice mindfulness, such as meditation or yoga but mindfulness itself is simply just being in the moment.

Tori: And there's a lot of benefits to mindfulness for both your brain and your body. Mindfulness actually helps to calm your stress-response systems and in your brain, as well as throughout your body so calming that racing heartbeat, jittery feeling, when you're faced with a stressor. Over time, if you practice mindfulness that feeling actually gets less severe and you become a little bit calmer, a little more relaxed in your resting state. It's also really good for self-regulation and focus. So, it's a really powerful tool to teach yourself as an adult or to teach children how to regulate their own emotions when they're feeling something strongly, not lash out with their bodies, and keep those impulses calm.

Marissa: You know there's been mindfulness research conducted on people across all ages, so both children and adolescents and adults. It's a common finding is mindfulness helps to reduce stress, increase emotional regulation, increase mood, increase academic achievement actually as well, and overall improve satisfaction and life quality.

Jenny: Wow! Clearly, there are tons of benefits both tangible and intangible ones around mindfulness. So how do we get started? I mean, you know as parents we don't have a lot of time in the day and perhaps that's also why we need to practice mindfulness. What can we do?

Tori: So, one of the best ways to incorporate it into your daily life is really to take small moments. A lot of people think that in order to practice mindfulness you have to set aside a half-hour for meditation or an hour for a yoga class but, actually 10 seconds of just checking in with yourself and asking yourself, “How do I feel right now?”, “Why do I feel that way?”, “How do I know that I feel that way right now?” And that's all it takes. If you could answer those three questions, you've had a mindful moment and you can sort of take a deep breath and move on with your day. So it's actually a lot simpler to take those mindful moments than people think.

Marissa: Yeah, there's actually a great quote that, Mindfulness meditation isn't hard to do, it's just hard to remember to be mindful. So like Tori said, just that moment of remembering to check in with yourself in the moment is really all a practice entails.

Jenny: I love that and how you really set it straight in terms of misconceptions around how mindfulness takes such effort and you need to allocate at least an hour. Are there other misconceptions around the buzz-word of mindful?

Marissa: One big one, I notice a lot is people tend to think that mindfulness is about completely being in the moment and not having any distractions.

Marissa: And of course that is the goal. But we're all human so inevitably, we all will have distractions within mostly a couple of seconds and a lot of people think that once their mind starts to wander they're during the practice wrong but, the practice actually is noticing that your mind has wandered and brought it back and that is what mindfulness practice and meditation really is about. So, when you notice your mind wandering that means you're doing it right.

Jenny: One thing I picked out of which you mention is really this notion of self-awareness. You've done so much work around elementary-school-age children also supporting teachers around that. Give us some tips around what can we do in terms of fostering mindfulness, self-awareness for elementary-school students.

Tori: So with young children, one really great way to foster mindfulness is just asking them questions at the end of the day which Jenny, I think you know a little something about things like, “How did you feel today?” or “What's on your mind right now?” to make them think about what they're thinking and what they're feeling. Another great way is through physical activity, having them stretch and hold the stretch and think about how their body feels. Getting kids to be more aware of their thoughts and their feelings really come from talking about what those thoughts and feelings are and allowing them to express them and bring them forward.

Tori: So anything that you can do with kids to bring that about is a really healthy way to get them to be more mindful.

Jenny: So on the topic of connecting the mind with the body, so a very real problem I'm going to put on top of you. For example, if an elementary-school-age child had a fall, a bad fall, and it really depends on personality but, I'm just wondering you know for those who really dwell on, I got a booboo, this really hurts! and kind of can't get back out into the positive zone. But then, we also as parents want to honor sort of that mindfulness of understanding you know, I'm feeling the hurt, I'm not happy. How do you balance that tension between like, Suck it up! You know, let's move on right? during the day for the day versus honoring those feelings?

Tori: Having fielded many recess injuries, one strategy that I used and saw other teachers use was, use that mindfulness and mindful awareness of their body to point out the ways that it doesn't feel as bad as it felt before. So, for a kid who fell, who maybe feels that they can't bend their knee because they've scrapped it after a few minutes, you ask them, “Does it, you know, can you still not move your knee at all? Can you move it even a little bit?” And they start to tune into, oh, I can bend it more than I could before!, that shows them that it's getting better which is a little bit of motivation to then continue to get back out there and try new things.

Tori: But, I think there's there's definitely no downside to being aware of your body whether that means you're resistant to get back out on the playground because you're aware that your knee might hurt, there's still a benefit to being tuned in in that way yeah.

Marissa: Tori makes a great point about being aware of your body. Even in times when you're in pain, there's actually a lot of research about mindfulness and meditation and pain. And it turns out that a lot of the pain we feel is in our heads. It's our anxiety about what the pain is going to happen in the future but, if we just simply focus on the pain at the moment, people tend to report actually feeling less pain, and then over time, it's even shown to reduce the pain activity in your body. And of course, it's not the end-all if you are in a life-threatening situation, you might not want to focus on that pain but for a recess booboo, it actually might be beneficial to just focus on what's actually happening and they might realize that the pain isn't as bad as they're worried it is.

Jenny: I love that! These are such great useful insights. I really like your point, Tori, about focusing on the change, the improvement, the differences which again, that sort of the mindfulness throughout that thread and Marissa, your point about it actually there are benefits of focusing on that now, instead of sort of jotting it away and not thinking about it but having it arise later on. So, tell us what are some of the mindfulness exercises that you personally enjoy doing.

Tori: I love doing yoga at night before I go to bed. I usually set aside 10 or 15 minutes because I like a little bit of a longer, mindful moment at the end of my day to just go through some stretches and count my breaths. So, controlled breathing is a really valuable part of mindfulness. I like the 4-by-4 breath, so you count in for four as you breathe in and out for four as you breathe out and it's actually very soothing overtime to count to four over and over in your head, while you go through these stretches and then I usually sleep very well because I'm all relaxed. So, that's a great way to take a few minutes for yourself especially if you have kids and you're busy and you know that once the kids have gone to bed, you have five minutes to go through a little stretch. That's one way that I keep it part of my daily routines.

Marissa: Yeah I really like to do formal, focused, attention meditation so I also tend to anchor on my breath; so I just focus on my breath where I feel it in my body and when my mind starts to wander, I just notice it and bring it back to bring my attention back to my breath. I also really enjoy doing yoga. If you're a parent, you might not have time to set aside 30 minutes for meditation but doing venus of flow, which is just a quick sequence of a couple of yoga moves really helps bring that connection of mind and body for me.

Tori: If you're looking for something a little less body-oriented to practice mindfulness, journaling is also a really great practice. Even just a few minutes a night or each morning when you wake up to jot down how you're feeling.

Tori: People also really like mood trackers and those types of anxiety trackers or exercise trackers things to make you clue into how you felt in a moment. So if you can jot down you know I had a moment of stress today it brings it to the front and helps you kind of recognize it and be mindful.

Jenny: This sounds great. So tell us, leave us with some resources, and also tell us more about your calm body active mind website.

Marissa: So we created a Web site called Calm Body Active Mind and the goal of this is it's catered towards elementary-school teachers and we wanted to help them understand: A) the benefits of mindfulness and B) how mindfulness actually works. So far we've focused on self-regulation and stress-reduction and we want to help teachers understand how the practices actually work within the body, the neurological and biological systems that are involved. And then we also wanted to help teachers understand how to do this and give them support, so we have a whole page of resources on our website that you can go to. We have vetted these resources to make sure that they're aligned with the research.

Tori: And even if you're not a teacher a lot of the resources on there are really helpful. There are great videos of child-friendly yoga and guided meditation practices that you can do with kids. There's also a lot of lesson plans and research articles as well as some articles from the popular press that really break down the research so that people can understand it. So, we hope that anyone who wants to learn more about mindfulness will check it out.

Jenny: I will certainly be checking it out. And with that, thank you so much for your time here today.

Tori and Marissa: Thanks, Jenny.

Jenny: And thank you, for tuning into 52 Essential Conversations.

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