Motivation! - Creativity Lessons with Teresa Amabile, Part 3

Creativity and innovation expert Teresa Amabile has much to offer Fine Arts Professional Learning Communities.  In Growing up Creative, she describes creativity as a fine soup. Domain skills are the stock, creative thinking and working skills are the seasonings, and intrinsic motivation is the fire (1989, p. 46).  Dr. Amabile understands that motivation is both essential and undervalued, so she devotes an entire chapter to this element of creativity.

Amabile contends that "people will be most creative when they feel motivate primarily by the interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself - and not by external pressures" (1989, p. 51).  Intrinsic motivation is personal.  there are no intrinsically interesting activities - there are only activities which might be interesting for a particular person at a particular point in time (1989, p. 54).  Amabile describes the hallmarks of intrinsic motivation as interest, competence, and self-determination.  She goes on to cite several studies in which creativity was enhanced under conditions of intrinsic motivation.  It turns out that extrinsic motivation will usually compel us to take the safest path, the simplest routine, or the proven algorithm.  This does not encourage innovation.  The pressure of extrinsic motivation can also cause stress, or it can cause us to prematurely criticize potential solutions.

Fans of Daniel Pink will find this to be very familiar.  His book Drive describes autonomy, mastery, and purpose as the formula for motivation.  For those not familiar with Pink's work, his TED talk is a great introduction (http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation).

Fine arts educators must be mindful of the balance between content standards and intrinsic motivation.  We must interpret the standards broadly, with the best interests of developing creative students in mind.  We must design activities and assessments with the goal of improving creative behavior.

We must also be wary of the effects of extrinsic motivation.  This is particularly dangerous in the field of music, where large-group competitions have become the measuring stick for success in many parts of the country.  These competitions may develop or promote many fine qualities in our students, but we need to be clear-eyed about the fact that individual creative thinking is probably not one of them.

How does collaboration play a part in all of this?  We can hold each other accountable to make sure we design assessments and activities that maximize intrinsic motivation. Sometimes we don't know what we don't know, and it takes an open and honest team to keep us on the path to creativity.

Let's band together to make every schoolhouse a more creative place!

References
Amabile, T. (1989). Growing up creative: Nurturing a lifetime of creativity. New York, NY: Crown Publishers.

Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.