A Perspective of An Absolute Beginner in the Study and Use of Creativity Where No One had Ever Heard of It

By Fernando C. Sousa

Originally appeared in the International Creativity Network Newsletter, volume 4, number 2, 1994, pages 8-9.

Editor's Note: Fernando Sousa is associated with the Academia Militar in Portugal and was the Portuguese representative at the Presidents' Convocation during the 40th Annual Creative Problem Solving Institute.

The Challenge

In the late Spring of 1991 I had an interesting experience during a Portuguese-Spanish psychology congress in Lisbon. Francisco, a colleague who had just started the same course I was completing, and to whom I had never been formally introduced, approached me and asked, "Do you want to teach creativity to undergraduate students in a school of the state polytechnic?"

"But how come you have chosen me?" said I.

"I asked the professor responsible for the master's course and he suggested your name," he replied.

Now picture my response. I am a 41-year-old career army officer, who graduated in social psychology, and out of curiosity, enrolled in a master's degree because some of my professors insisted. I had: (1) never heard of creativity, nor ever had any experience of the teaching of young adults, besides the military; (2) could hardly spare a minute from my present duties; and (3) knew that permission to teach outside the military normally would be denied. With this picture in mind, would any reasonable person say "yes"? Well, I did, and my experience is the basis for this article.

The Search

Two days later, in the library of the university where I was studying, I frantically started the search for some literature so that I could better understand what I was dealing with, but I found nothing there. Next I asked one of my professors. He remembered once having kept a book about creativity, in memory of a lady he had once seen at a congress. The lady was Teresa Amabile, and her book, The Social Psychology of Creativity, was the first of many I read about the subject. I then managed to find some "hidden" books and articles in an educational psychology library for kindergarten teachers, and came completely by chance across other books.

Three months later I began a 119-hour creativity course with 19 second-year students in a Public Relations course in a one-year-old state polytechnic school. (They told me then that it was supposed to be connected with the making of commercials.)

Sometimes I ask myself how it was possible to prepare a course on such short notice and with so little guidance? (A few months after the beginning, Teresa Amabile kindly forwarded me her syllabus of a similar course, which I surprisingly found to be very similar to mine). I am convinced that the reason is that I have been waiting all my life for creativity, and even though I originally knew nothing about the theoretical side of it, I had built an understanding of how things should not be done as far as teaching and learning were concerned. The creativity literature simply gave meaning and pointed in the right direction.

Continued Development

Another very important experience in my development was attending my first Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI) in 1992. Again, I ran into it completely by chance. I found the Creative Education Foundation's (CEF) address and asked them if I could join the Foundation. Along with the reply I received a sample of their newsletter with a short reference to the next Institute. Again, for some unknown reason I decided to attend it. And that was it. Everything else was the story of my trying to catch the time, the people and the knowledge I should have been aware of many years ago.

I returned to Portugal with about fifty books and a briefcase full of projects, contacts, ideas and the memory of an environment in which I had felt completely at home, even though I had been the only Portuguese there. One of those projects would constitute my third major experience, which was to have the opportunity of meeting and working with Marilyn Fryer, from Leeds University, who is now the supervisor of my Ph. D. (a research on creativity).

The Outcome

Due to these experiences and to the help of many wonderful people who came to Portugal under my initiative, I can now build some interesting opportunities for my students to learn, study and, most of all, have fun while working really hard.

Still, let me tell you that the beginning was really hard, and that I almost gave up. That was not because of lack of time, knowledge, peer and school support, resources, and all the other things that normally make people quit. The fact was that my students decided to go on strike because I had reached a point at which they could no longer take any more of my innovations concerning teaching and learning. I was being too creative for them, and they were right. Since then I have been trying to learn how to keep my pace with theirs and how to turn every minute of their school time into meaningful life experiences.

What I try to do with undergraduate students is to conquer their interest in the first sessions, either by presenting them perception, brain and sensory awareness exercises, or by getting them involved in a series of games and drama exercises in which they must take some risks in their behaviors toward each other. I make every effort to involve them in experiences and projects, rather than facts and concepts. We do field work and have fun (the last time, with the Navy's help, we succeeded in a river crossing with 25 'raw' rowers in the same boat). We bring artists, writers, and poets to participate in the student's work presentations and work hard on individual and group problem solving, as well as summarizing books and articles. We work on figuring our way out of situations that involve uncertainty or difficulty and cognition and affect, to create meaning out of experiences.

With graduate students who are all professionals in their late twenties or thirties in the oldest Portuguese college of psychology, I work more on affect and on the personal and social blocks that prevent them from being creative. I use a very similar approach with them as I do with my undergraduate students. The difference is that with young adults I try to help them grow, and with older people I try to make them feel and act like youngsters again.

I have tried to spread interest in creativity to a considerable number of people. All I wish now is to have the time and the skill to write more about creativity and to find support to continue organizing creativity events. My aim is very simple: to help my country to be creative again.