I have mentioned before that I believe creativity is one of the most important cognitive capacities we can help our students develop.  A few years back I attended a virtual conference by Amit Goswami on Creativity and the brain.  On reflecting on his work, I wrote the following.

From 1/1/2022
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I was listening to a recent interview with Amit Goswami presented by Lauren Galey on The Quantum Brain.  He starts off by saying that the brain is limited.  It is a machine.

There is another aspect of consciousness, he explains, and this is the Quantum Brain.  The quantum brain goes beyond the brain. It is basically our higher conscious awareness that learns to use the brain effectively. The quantum brain is about tuning in to all of our potentialities.  Basically, using the quantum brain, allows us to live our best life.

One thing he said, in order to reach the quantum state, was to soften the control of the brain.  He stated that first step to this is to act creatively.  The act of being creative allows us to engage in higher wisdom, to work effectively with the brain.  It is the beginning of using our awareness and intention effectively.  In his book Quantum Creativity, Dr. Goswami refers to creativity as the life-line to the consciousness field.

"When we recognize consciousness as the central theme of the universe, it becomes clear that creativity is our lifeline to that consciousness."

Listening to him describe the quantum brain reminded me of an aspect of our being that I call the Creative Self.  I feel this aspect of our self is connected to the divine.  It is connected to the consciousness field, to so much more than our limited brain's conception of reality.  The Creative Self has access to this quantum field and helps to draw from this rich limitless source.  This is why creative endeavors feel so much like they are coming through, rather than from me.  This is why they feel connected to the divine (the limitless source).

Dr. Goswami also states, that the brain is endlessly presenting us with possibilities in the form of thoughts, but because we are not consciously participating in the selection of these thoughts, we are collapsing the wave of all possibilities in a haphazard way.  That is no way to live one's life.

So how can we use creativity to live our best life? 

We must begin to strengthen the power of our active engagement with creation we start to learn how to interact with the full range of potentialities.  We can learn to focus our lens, and collapse the wave of all possibilities around that which we truly want to see.

Creativity is a cognitive capacity.  One of the highest capacities we can develop in ourselves.  Everyone has this capacity, but it needs to be exercised and developed.  There is not better time to start to develop your creative muscle than the present.

Mindfulness has become a catch phrase in education.  To really understand what is meant by mindfulness we should recognize that it is not a once a day moment in meditation, but an active way of life, where I am operating not on an unconscious robotic way, but in a fully present, discerning consciousness.  

Conventional education doesn't provide the space for this type of being.  There is constant task completion, where the teacher is looking at speed and fluency more than deeper complexity.  Creativity flows from the inside out.  It must be directed by the one in the creative process.  A teacher directed classroom stifles this form of engagement.

We can do better by our kids.  In fact we must do better if we are to fulfill the vision of a better world.​

It is not a new idea that education has always been a bit about control.  Read John Taylor Gatto's books on education.  His work started a revolution in progressive education, and now look how far down we have gone.  We have not progressed at all, we have digressed into complete tyranny.  

So how did we get here.  It started with the very visible achievement gap between black and white students.  It could more easily have been demonstrated as the rich versus poor students, but it was highlighted as a racial divide.  Suddenly schools had a cause:  to reduce the achievement gap.

No Child Left Behind was the first step towards the take over of our schools.  This program required schools to report all of the test score peformance, but not just general data, the data was to be broken down by "race", social economic status, and whether the student had a disability.  Then, each one of these groups were expected to show growth as dictated by 10% jumps in test scores over every 2 years.  

I have already spoken about how this impossible task was a set up.  I have already spoken about how these tests were designed to create regular statistical distrubutions (i.e. Bell Curves) in which 50% of students taking the test would perform above the 50% line and 50% would fall below it.  I have already share about how by 2011 when NCLB began failing en masse, all these students in all the groups were expected to be in the 70th or 80th percentile.  What a farce.  What a set-up.  

The fear of the achievement gap that drove the entire agenda, and yet nothing changed.  There wasn't even the slightest decrease in the gap, and furthermore the effect of the testing destroyed many of the elective programming switching out music and art for double classes in reading and math.  

Meanwhile, the wealthy schools started to bring in project based learning, flipped classrooms and all of the best models of learning.  So instead of reducing the inequalities in education, NCLB actually made them worse.  Instead of creating a sense of inclusion for all of the different groups, and types of learners, NCLB highlighted the differences, making race on of the primary issues in education rather than self-awareness, self-direction and cognitive capacity.

This was one of the stages of the total destruction of freedom in public education.

https://fee.org/articles/john-taylor-gatto-1935-2018-remembering-americas-most-courageous-teacher/