Into the Driver's Seat

Feel like you lack imagination? Know this: Everyone can be more original--it just takes practice.

by Christina Desmarais

"You might think of creativity as something clever marketers or copywriters whip out when they need to come up with a compelling ad, or a personal trait only certain people, such as successful serial entrepreneurs or brilliant improv actors, naturally possess. But according to Keith Sawyer, research psychologist and author of "Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity," everyone can be more creative just by taking eight incremental steps, but not necessarily in linear order. His path to creativity is more back and forth, a process in which the steps to greater imagination and originality build on and feed off each other.

"The book is a gem, chock full of fascinating findings from research studies and a deep well of tactics that will get you thinking differently. In fact, Sawyer advocates what is likely a radical shift in mindset for most people. Coming up with good ideas isn't something we leave until there's a pressing need. Rather, it's is a skill that can be practiced daily to solve life's problems as well as discover its opportunities.

"Here are his steps for cultivating creativity, along with a sampling of tips that can help you along the way."

Contemplative pedagogy involves teaching methods designed to cultivate deepened awareness, concentration, and insight.  Contemplation fosters additional ways of knowing that complement the rational methods of traditional liberal arts education.  As Tobin Hart states, “Inviting the contemplative simply includes the natural human capacity for knowing through silence, looking inward, pondering deeply, beholding, witnessing the contents of our consciousness….  These approaches cultivate an inner technology of knowing….”  This cultivation is the aim of contemplative pedagogy, teaching that includes methods “designed to quiet and shift the habitual chatter of the mind to cultivate a capacity for deepened awareness, concentration, and insight.”  Such methods include journals, music, art, poetry, dialogue, questions, and guided meditation.

"In the classroom, these forms of inquiry are not employed as religious practices but as pedagogical techniques for learning through refined attention or mindfulness.  Research confirms that these contemplative forms of inquiry can offset the constant distractions of our multi-tasking, multi-media culture.  Thus, creative teaching methods that integrate the ancient practice of contemplation innovatively meet the particular needs of today’s students.

"The following video, produced here at the CFT, features interviews with faculty members of Vanderbilt’s contemplative pedagogy group describing the roles these forms of inquiry play in their teaching."