Visiting 826 Valencia in San Francisco

This is Carson Everett, posing outside 826 Valencia, Pirate gear shop and learning center for kids aged 7 -18.

Carson is the longest running attending student and is actually older than what's allowed at the age of 21, but he brings his unique personality to the space and is hoping to become a history teacher one day.

I tried to continue on my path of filming my research work for my dissertation but was denied to use of any video or photographic equipment inside the learning center.

I emailed the people at 826 Valencia in San Francisco in advance to ask them if it was OK for me to pop around for a chat and a first hand experience of the place which I have researched earlier in research work. You can read more about the background of this project further down on this page.

I spoke to Jory John, Program Director at 826 Valencia. He briefed me about some facts and I responded with questions connecting to my dissertation.

Some facts in brief about the learning center/pirate shop. 

1400 volunteers 

6000 students since 2002

Financed by grants, donations and some through profit of the pirate shop

Most students attend on an annual basis after school to get helped with their homework

I asked the following questions to Jory: 

Why is has this project turn out to be a success?

There was a need for extra help and attention and the kids are not distracted, and the fact that their work is real, tangible and can/will be published. It has involved the community and engages people that come into the store to just look at the pirate equipment. These customers always wonder what's in the big space in the back and it's a good talking point to get new volunteers to join as a tutor. One other main key is flexibility. Even if you only can work 2 hours per month, they will accept that and that's why they have got so many volunteers from many different special fields.

Are they encouraged to be creative?

Yes, through writing and especially on field-trips. 

(I attended a field-trip the next morning and experienced how it was. There was a group of kids facing a stage with a leader, teacher or whatever you'd like to call it conducting a writing session of a story which was created together as a part of a team. There was also an 'enemy' , a pirate on the second floor which no-one could see that shouted to the kids that they couldn't do it, creating an antagonist that made the kids work harder together.)

Even though it is very similar to school, what is it that makes it so much more motivating?

The design is very unlike a school and it has got a really nice feeling to it. The kids don't think school when entering and that is a key to success even though they might be doing the sam type of work. The kids also feel a sense of ownership of the place which makes them more motivated and careful with the environment.

I took part as a tutor and helped a kid named Anthony Royes with his homework. I also had the time to ask a few questions, I was unfortunately not allowed to photograph him.

Anthony feels that he can focus better at the learning center and it's because he knows that he can meet friends here and there's a routine for him to get the homework done and after he can go on-line to play games as he hasn't got internet at home. The environment is different to school.

My personal experience however was that it was difficult to interfere if one kid was disruptive, affecting other kids negatively. The guy next to the kid I was helping out wasn't focusing at all and it was hard to get through to him. I was hoping that this learning resource center would not have to act like a school but only focus on the fun and creative. But I soon realized that so wasn't the case. I asked Jory what they usually do to kids that are disruptive as the 'classes' are voluntarily and for free. Unfortunately there seemed to be as much administration and politics as with a school. They had meetings with kids' parents and condced warnings if the kid wouldn't conform. I guess that is the reality of things.

Overall the concept is interesting, engaging due to its location and store plus that it has got a wide range of ages on the kids working next to one another, not competing or comparing as much as in class with equally aged peers.

 

 

Meeting A Meditator on Creativity in America, Maharishi, Vedic City

I went to Vedic City in Fairfields Iowa while traveling through the U.S this September. The city was initiated in 2001 and is a secluded (because of its location) mini community built for people practicing the Maharishi transcendental meditation technique. Maharsihi was a spiritual guru whom introduced the Beatles to this technique 1967 while meeting in London and embarked on a life long relationship. Maharishi himself died on February 6 this year (source bbc.co.uk) but has affected hundreds if not thousands of people directly through his knowledge and philosophy which is based on ancient indian knowledge.

We had been driving from Chicago for several hours and arrived in the late afternoon perhaps a tad late to see people from the community just walking around doing their business. The sky was dark and had great, big clouds in one direction approaching, so there was no good time for people watching.

I was very interested however in getting a personal experience and perspective on Vedic City and ask a few questions about their views on life and creativity.

I found a sort of town hall house where I knocked on the door as I saw a man sitting in the front of the room. He politely asked me to enter, I introduced myself, my purpose and asked if I cold film an interview. The guy sitting in the chair was named Jim Palmer, a practitioner of transcendental meditation for some 40 years. He had a certain energy about him and it's not only the bright orange T-shirt he wore that I'm talking about here. He was focused and energetic but relaxed. He wasn't worried about the camera at all so I got a pretty good 20 minute talk with him on camera where he explains the how meditation and creativity can be connected.

He explains the philosophy of meditation and the benefits of it. The topics we talk about are fundamental really but he explains them well by using gesticulation and metaphors. Transcendental meditation is the state of mind which is still, the universal experience of practitioners are that there's a silence in oneself, a certain peace which you can reach only without effort.

One of the metaphors he uses is by comparing our state of mind to walking and lying down. You can run, you can walk, you can walk a bit slower you can stand still and in the end lie down. It is the sam with thoughts, transcendental meditation is to reach the place where the thoughts come from, where they emerge, once reaching that state you are in the now and can perhaps not stop your thoughts, they are there constantly, but after practicing people experience a silence. I

It's about not using all your senses outwards it's about using not taking in from the outside, but rather to focus inwards. When being in touch with oneself, Jim says that this is a source of true happiness, energy and creativity. To reach this state of mind is effortless which is why it can be difficult for stressed people to reach as they are used to work hard and push themselves to reach success. It's not about performing!

I ask what creativity means to him. I like his answers as they are long and enthusiastically delivered. Creativity is often connected to art, such as painting, but for Jim it is more about a fundamental matter, where it can mean to listen to oneself inner emotion, intuition or whatever you would like to call it in order to make the right decisions for yourself and create a reality, a life that brings you maximum amount of pleasure. To make the right choices and work with yourself, treat yourself right and create opportunities.

To look at creativity as a bi-product of a state of mind brings the question to a new level, I personally like the way that he talks about creativity as something greater than an ability to be artistic. To be creative can be to create a life that you are happy with, to be able to make the right choices without knowing it in order to get where you want.

I will quote him further and look back at the tape to get the correct information and if I make a visual dissertation I'll include the interview with Jim Palmer as a part of the research.

Obama speech on creative school

Sat on a motel room outside Buffalo this evening and heard Barack Obama speak on TV. He talked about education and emphasized that he wanted every school to have teachers for music and arts. He said that he would like to find new ways to grade within art based subjects and basic civics should be mandatory to teach the kids what their society was built upon.

We've all been there

'I never let schooling interfere with my education'

- Mark Twain

We've all been to school and I think that it would be a good idea to see what todays kids are up to in school, how important or unimportant art based subjects are treated. What does creativity mean to kids? Do they know what it is?

I spoke to my mum today and she had heard a talk on radio by a Swedish guy who's pretty clever and he said that creativity depends on family and parents heritage. Something I can agree on.

For example, if a kid aged 7 or younger is asked to make some x-mas decorations they will probably make them as they want them to look like, whereas a kid aged 8 and older would start being aware of how they look and try to imitate that. This is where parents and other older role-models play an important role. If someone is telling you how things should look or be written, then there is a limit to the creativity. It becomes square and boxed.

I saw an interesting documentary about a 'child prodigy' called Marla Olderstadt, she was aged 4 at the time and had then sold 24 painting to a gathered value of $40.000. It started with her father Mark painting and he gave her a canvas to paint on the living room table. The paintings was exhibited at a local friends coffee shop and the first one was sold for $250. The parents claimed not knowing anything about art, the dad seemed more optimistic to his kids new won fame as it became world wide news rapidly. The mum however seemed more concerned with preserving her daughters innocence and let her paint when lust kicked in.

The art community debated the question, what is art? If a four year old can paint modern/abstract art that is sold for thousands of dollars, then what? As it seems the fine art market is just as it were a market with supply and demand regulating prices. Little Marla couldn't meet the demand and people were asking themselves how she later could produce many paintings in a short period of time, however not when a camera was around. The father told the documentary maker and other media that she was very shy and that she sometimes would get into a zone and paint on lust.

The story was the picked up by CBS 60 minutes and a hidden birds eye-perspective camera of a canvas was installed for a period of about three months. The footage showed Marla paint barely two paintings and her father would give her instructions on how to do it, telling her 'not like that, you make me crazy' 'paint the red'. It made her clearly rebel and not wanting to paint, at one point she also asked her dad to help her paint as he had done before... this was in front of the camera and it was a cringing moment of embarrassment. She did though supposedly paint several more paintings off camera. It started to smell of a hoax! The parents claimed being portrayed falsely and tried fighting the mass-medial war by releasing a 90 minute tape of Marla painting. . . though many of the paintings look suspiciously different from one another. The art buyers in the local town and from other parts, (Marla fans) got angry and didn't perhaps trust the father. . . 

The documentary had a unique perspective as the film maker was a student aged guy and the parents trusted him as he followed them since the start in the local newspapers. At one point (on camera) the family was going to exhibit Marla's work when Marla herself said: 'I didn't do that one, Max did (or what ever her little brothers name was).

The dad and the local art dealer obviously saw their chance in making extra money and the documentary maker had swayed his opinions of the parents and does confront them in the end of the film. The only time he speaks into the camera is in the end when he says that he is very disappointed with them. 

I believe that Marla was painting some nice paintings, but what kid doesn't? It got hyped and the dad saw an opportunity to make some serious $$$, I wonder if they ever got sued?

Want to check out Marla's art yourself? You be the judge:::

www.marlaolmstead.com 

 

http://enwikipedia.org/wiki/marla_olmstead

I think it had a sentimental value cuz it meant that art appreciators could believe that she had a special gift, creating their own meanings in her art, often existentialist, deep.

Anyhow the market was there as she stirred debate and caused publicity.

The store turned into a tutoring center for kids

Ted Eggers is a writer and many of his friends and family got into teaching, the problems with students not achieving goals was lack of teachers. The classes could consist of 30-40 kids and they would have several classes a day, there wan no time for one to one tutoring at all.

At the same time as Ted Eggers was getting a building on a retail street for a publishing company with other writers. The idea was to with his fel

low friends and writers start up a tutoring center for kids after that could drop in after school. The writers and other volunteers would stop working at 2.30pm and help devote some time to each kid.

The problem was that it was on a r

etail street so they had to sell something and they decided to make it into a store selling pirate gear. This was due to while renovating they d

iscovered that the store looked as a ship underneath the previous design of the store.

There was a problem in the start to get kids in the store, as people didn't know what it was, even though it was free 1to1 attention. Research say that 1to1 attention can give kids at least a grade better. Kids would run into the space eventually. Ted Egger believes because it is not called 'center for kids with specials needs school' something happens when the kids come into this exciting space, which is very much like school essentially. About sixty kids came in per day. 

There was about 12 volunteers to start of with, then 40, 200 and now 1400. It is very easy to become a tutor as you can do it 

for only a couple of hours per month, which is wh

y it grew so quickly. The shop/center/publishing store became very popular in the community and the sales of pirate gear became so successful that they could pay the rent and staff with it.

Local schools contacted them and offered them a classroom too. They also published a book with kids' essays which was sponsored and sold around the world. The kids worked harder than ever and about 170 tutors worked on the stories. 

'if the kids know that their written word will be saved and published they will work harder than they ever had and with 5-6 drafts they will learn so much and will reach a level that they will never leave.' - Dave Eggers

Local teachers, donors and others came in to look at the 'store' serving the local community and the idea was lifted to N.Y Brooklyn and L.A and other cities. The spirit of selling something that was very specific and funny was transfered to the other branches. And the tutoring center was at the heart of it all. Local workers, designers, builders was pro bono. 

'It was a happy accident'

A specific case study is 9 year old Khaled Hamdan 9, Brooklyn who

 

came in as he couldn't focus at home. He has now been published in 5 books and did a public readin

g i

n front of 500 people. He got addicted to finishing his homework so that he knew he would be prepared for school the next day.

The success of the project is obviously the

 dedication and goodwill of all those who volunteered to help out, but I was caught by the transformation that happened to the kids when entering something that wasn't labeled school. A place that may have negative connotations. Especially for kids that react neagtively to the word school as soon as they hear it. The relaxedness and choice to go there in the first place is one thing, but the design of the place is also affecting the kids. Labeling the space in which you have to learn is perhaps a negative thing. If it is not labeled as school it seems different, exciting, something that stimulates imagination and creativity.

Just look at these inspiring branches that started started in N.Y and L.A

W+K Embracing failure since 1998

A company that has got, welcome to optimism and and 'embracing failure' as their lead words.

Nokia and Honda's main ad agency. Big accounts. W+K's own tag-line is similar to Honda's own, 'difficult is worth doing'. . . 

A bit cheesy for my taste, . . it's not that difficult to buy a Honda if you've got the sterling innit.

http://wklondon.typepad.com

Bohm on Creativity, . . kids, creativity and work.

Creativity is perhaps impossible to define in words, the more you know about it the harder it is... I think that it would be interesting to ask kids what creativity is to them. 

Bohm speaks about how the ultimate drive of the scientist is to create some sort of order, a beautiful order by the use of science. The scientist that would like to walk the easy, untrue way to get pleasure might bypass correctness and only strive for an end. The real scientists however have got a drive to make something real and beautiful.

"..what he really is seeking is to learn something new that has a certain kind of significance: a hitherto (until now) unknown lawfulness in the order of nature, which exhibits unity in a broad range of phenomena. Thus he wishes to find in the reality in which he live a certain oneness and totality, or wholeness, constituting a kind of harmony that is felt to be beautiful. In this respect, the scientist is perhaps not basically different from the artist, the architect, the musical composer etc., who all want to create this sort of thing in their work."

I would like to say that science is as Blackfoot or English yet another language a form of expression to being able to express oneself and subsequently create.

Kids are seen as creative as we all have been there and started our lives by trying to walk, speak and jump... we have all succeeded by trial and error. If a kid doesn't know something it will try, just without being afraid to fail, discovering all things that are new. Many people look back at childhood with romantic shades being sad over the fact that it is over, a time in the past, a lost paradise. "Growing up" is something we all have to do and school is a big part of shaping us into being more responsible, doing things for an end goal and not for it being fun. You can't have fun all the time. . .

School starts to be more of a task at hand where one has to pass exams to please others like teacher and parents, learning is mainly conducted by repetition. Something happens with many kids at this time and some of the kids start to dislike school, the play and fun and learning disappear. Does it have to be this way? Is it good that it is this way? Most work places are the same, work for salary and do it by repetition. And is this what the society of today needs? Should we care what the society needs? And that need that the society is applying to us, has it turned in to a self-destructive pressure that creates more problems than opportunities. See I just wrote two distinctions. . . . black/white, problem/opportunities, maybe it isn't that simple,.. categorizing is difficult but it seems to make things clearer for communication in order to define what the spectrum of the greyscale is. Anyhow. . . 

The undisputed freedom to try and fail that kids inherent is one definition of creativity. Adults envy that and feel that it is impossible to re-obtain. I would say that this is untrue. In the right environment one can regain these qualities. One workplace that is encouraging their employees to have that one part of creativity is an advertising agency that was voted best ad company to work for 2007, which I went to for a work placement interview this spring. Wieden + Kennedy.

This is from their blog:

As we get older, wiser and bigger we need to make sure that we don't lose our edge. We need to keep our thinking, our people and our environment fresh, provocative and surprising. In kim P's works, we want today 'wrong side of the tracks'. Because the craziness is what generates the big creative leap what makes this a stimulating, challenging, fun place to work. It can be difficult to remember this when you're working as hard as we have been recently. But we have absolutely no interest in turning into a big, boring agency. Still crazy (after all these years)? Let's hope so.

Keep the faith, true believers!

 

Bohm on perception

To understand creativity we need to look at perception. If I see a circle it might just be a circle, but if you watch the circle from the side it will appear as an ellipse. If you view it from the exact side it will be a line. You can also look at it as being black. Or as being atoms, electrons, quarks. 

In the video on youtube, Bohm speaks about how science is creative and perceptual, even the word theory is a good example of this. 

Theory is derived from Theatre, . . Theories don't give knowledge, the theatre in the mind - theory, is used in science and therefore perceptual. Knowledge and science is a byproduct of perception. A chosen belief.

I bought this book yesterday at Foyle's bookshop charing x road. I really like that bookshop by the way, really extensive back catalogue. 

I started reading the book last night and only managed to get through the foreword which seemed more difficult to understand than the actual text.

I wrote down words that I didn't know of in my moleskin notepad only to learn something new so that next time I read or write I might understand and use those big words. I encountered words such as: 

• denominator
• anthropomorphic
• repository
• ignoble
• eschews
• dichotomies
• intrinsic
• affinity
• perennial
• encavates
• paradigm
• torpor
• endemic
• epistemic
• implicit
• acclimation
• anomaly
• inenomble?
• vaporous
• epherneral ?
• impetus 
• discern
• contravening
• sleight
• dissipation
• relinquishment
• discernment
• protege

I will look up these words soon. . . 

The introduction told me who Bohm was and a bit about creativity from a philosophical viewpoint. I think that I must look at creativity from a philosophical point of view to get an in depth understanding of what it actually is.

The introduction written by physicist 'Leroy Little Bear' who read and was inspired by Wholeness and the implicate order by David Bohm in the mid-late 80's talks about comparison of creativity and perception from a native american point of view as he worked and knew a group of them. 

Leroy Little Bear writes about how speaking both English and Blackfoot (which is his native language) can send you down different thinking pathways. He met Mr.Bohm and they acknowledged that Bigfoot as a language is very different than English and how that affects the thinking in a very distinct way. For example, a good Blackfoot* speaker can say the verb 'to go' in calculated: 356,200 different ways in Navajo. The words created are likened to sounds from a periodic table which can be combined in different ways to express oneself. That is a proof of how another language can be more creative as such, which is unaccessible for us to truly grasp as we are fostered with european language.

English and european language does divide the thinking in a way of thinking which is judging things all the time, leaving less space for freedom of thinking and creativity. We think often in good/bad, black/white, absolute/relative, either/or which gives us thought patterns that are logic, square and steers perception towards mechanical reflexivity. 

Blackfoot* philosophy is about constant motion, constant flux, all creation consisting of energy waves, the essence of life being movement. How everything is connected, as our scientific world view could be said to be today (atoms)

European language stresses syntax (ordering of words in a sentence) Blackfoot stresses morphology (the way individual words are constructed) A language like Blackfoot* is all about process and action! 

Furthermore is also spoken about how science and art can and are connected in the way that what drives the scientist to do what he does is to find something profoundly beautiful just as the artist. The scientist has taken belief in some rules and does from that point on work to find answers, an order perhaps prediction. But ultimately feeling that he or she has gained knowledge and discovered something that was previously unknown.

Start of research and planning.

OK. So I've finally decided what my topic is. And I am glad that I reconsidered my topic as I've known that it's important to choose a topic/question that is interesting and fairly easy to research + something that I find engaging. 

This is an engaging question because everybody has got an opinion about school education. We'ce all been there and liked it more or less. 

Today is debated increasingly about kids with problems, not fulfilling the targets set out by government and education authorities. Kids stab each other and drug taking is staring at a earlier age by the day. . . at least it seems.

I will look into what creativity is in order to answer my question and also look at why the school is constructed the way it is. What I've heard thus far the school system is ultimately based in philosopher Plato and some other greek mythology. It was changed rapidly around industrialization to meet the demands of society. Technology requires education and know-how to use it. That knowledge was often practical, as for the farmers. Although I heard on the radio in Sweden where a test was made. An IQ-test was performed on farmers and industrial workers at the age of 20. They then tested them again at an older age only to find out that the 'stupid' farmer had retained his IQ, whereas the industrial workers had decreased their IQ rate by monotone work. The farmers undertook work that requires 'thinking' and initiative was essential. The brain is like a muscle, but if you don't get to exercise that muscle in the way you could and perhaps want, then you are limited.

I want to look at those limits, the limitations of school and disregard to some young peoples way of learning. Maybe is it here that we hold the key to the solution of the growing youth problem in especially U.K and America.