Creatively Persuading about the relevance of Science Education- Science Buskers Festival

I agree with Carl Rogers (1962) conditions for creativity- especially on his notion that creativity requires a willingness to toy with ideas and play with possibilities.

In this second year as a judge for the Science Buskers Festival, I am increasingly recognising the importance of how the truly creative students are able to challenge themselves with the willingness to toy with ideas and play with possibilities. Besides being a competitive platform to showcase the various ingenious acts, the Buskers Festival includes an important component whereby judges provide their inputs to participants. This is another important iterative learning process whereby judges can assess the participants' openness to learning. During the preliminary judging sessions, I was amazed with how some of them were able to take the feedback and add new dimensions to their performance. This clearly connects to their receptiveness to new ideas and often sets higher benchmark for the next rounds.

In Gardner's book 'Creating Minds' (1993), he defined a creative person as- "... [one] who regularly solves problems, fashions products, or defines new questions in a domain in a way that is initially considered novel but that ultimately becomes accepted in a particular cultural setting." (1993, p.35) I see the relevance of this openness to feedback and experience crucial as the participants learn to recognize that their act need to gain a 'place' of recognition and trust the judgement of the experts. Especially in the larger field of science, this helps us to constantly adapt and innovate.

The Science Buskers Festival is a most interesting concept of learning about the many interesting applications of our everyday Science. That said, what is more crucial is the participants ability to interest, engage, provoke and persuade the audience of their creative acts. Going beyond show-and-tell, they need to creatively change the way we think about Science. It is an interesting connection to Simonton's fifth P of creativity (1988a, 1990) - beyond the creative person, product, process and press. He advocated that leaders need to be persuasive to impress others with their creativity- "A creator claim appreciators or admirers to be legitimatized as a true creator" (p.387). This competition is fun to observe especially if you see how the participants adapt their acts to outdo one another. I see this competitive spirit of Science Busking much enliven through the enigmatic Six Senses of 'A Whole New Mind' (Pink, 2005) .

1. Not just function but also DESIGN. The outstanding acts were not just about the mundane science and its marvelous applications. Each sought to provide audience with an experience that was fun, beautiful or simply emotionally engaging.

2. Not just argument but also STORY. Pink captured it most wonderfully with "The essence of persuasion, communication, and self-understanding has become the ability to fashion a compelling narrative" (Pink, 2005, p.66).

3. Not just focus but also SYMPHONY. The group below 'Magical Science' - most charmingly arranged multiple little acts into a show- allowing audience the flexibility to indulge in the rhythm one 'finger play' performance or freely allow audience to run their palms through the syncopation of the different activities and yet understanding the gist of their almost musical performance.

4. Not just logic but also EMPATHY. Beyond logical thoughts, the whole Festival brings together a whole new dimension of science- exploding in the performers screaming out their acts to capture their pull of audience. Amidst the overload of ubiquitous information, technology of facebook, youtube, and what-have-you (yes, even reading this blog entry), the real-ness and mindfulness of each performance helps to even forge a higher level of understanding- and for some, even stronger relationships.

5. Not just seriousness but also PLAY. I recently got to learn of this concept called Hard Play. Fact is, playing can be a serious affair of cognitive development. Vivien (Zany Science, below) was extremely intriguing in how she used her balloons to teach science. Of course, she did a brilliant job to explain the science of balloon sculpturing and the many applications. But it was the science of laughter, games and humor that made the Science really larger than life!

6. Not just accumulation but also MEANING. The completeness of experience for me- seeing how each participant grew in their initial attempts, clarifying the purpose of their individual acts and discovering their sense of fulfilment, was satisfying-even to me.

References:

Gardner, H. (1993). Creating minds: An anatomy of creativity seen through the lives of Freud, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. New York: Basic Books.

Pink, D. H. (2005). A whole new mind: why right-brained will rule the future. London: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Rogers, C. R. (1962). Toward a theory of creativity. In S. J. Parnes & H. F. Hardings (Eds.), A source book for creative thinking. New York: Scribners.

Simonton, D. K. (1988). Creativity, .leadership, and chance. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Simonton, D. K. (1990). History, chemistry, psychology, and genius: An intellectual autobiography of histrionomy. In M. A. Runco & R. S. Albert (Eds.), Theories of creativity. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.