Mary Catherine Bateson comments on creativity, life and improv

[26 June 2005 - Creative Education Foundation's Creative Problem Solving Institute] Anthropologist and author Mary Catherine Bateson wove a rich tapestry of themes about life as an improvisatory art. Her message included:

Practicing improvisation is not an oxymoron. Improvisation -- creativity of many kinds -- is something you learn to do. And it's a kind of coming full circles.

The world is changing so fast that we are all on stage without a script. And it isn't going to help to memorize a script. We're going to have to learn the skills of making it up as we go along.

If you view your life as continuities, you are likely to seek continuities and avoid change. If you look at the discontinuities, you may be likely to move on too quickly.

About fear and the failure of imagination ... you can't prevent something which you can't think about.

It's only when you move to multiple narratives that you begin to see possibilities and get away from thinking things are just going to go on the way they are. That's an essential element of creativity ... alternative ways of understanding; alternative ways of seeing.

Creativity is sparked when cultures meet -- when they meet with open imaginations and full curiosity.

With the demographic changes and the aging population ... there is a group of people who have not yet discovered in the changing currents of time the range of their possibilities.

Education is about making people think for themselves. ... What we tell our children while their minds are open and impressionable ought to be the key for the changes that need to be brought about, and I think at the moment we are moving in the wrong direction.

We all need to work very hard to reinforce those aspects of the educational system that make people open to differences, to alternatives that stretch their imagination.

What thoughts do these quotes spark for you? Or did you hear Bateson's keynote yourself at CPSI 2005? Click the "Post a comment" link below and share your reflections.

Read more reports online about Bateson's keynote and CPSI 2005 in general. Plus, if you missed CPSI 2005 and want to check out materials from some of the programs and sessions, you can do that on the CPSI Web site. Also, you can purchase books by CPSI keynoters and presenters - including Bateson's latest, Willing to Learn - in the online bookstore. Your purchases help support CEF.