Herbert Anna. The Pedagogy of Creativity

Routledge, 2010. — 159 p. — ISBN 041554887X, 9780415548878, 0415548861, 9780415548861, 0203855469, 9780203855461.The Pedagogy of Creativity represents a groundbreaking study linking the pedagogy of classroom creativity with psychoanalytical theories. Taking a classroom-based example of poststructuralist methodology as its starting point, Anna Herbert’s investigation explores the relationship between creativity seen in psychological activity, such as dreams, and creativity seen in the classroom, asking the following questions: What might a methodology which taps into different forms of creativity look like? Could such a methodology support current neuropsychological theories of memory and learning? What are the consequences of imaginary and symbolic orders of knowledge for the understanding of both conscious and unconscious creativity in the classroom? Exploring the ideas of a number of psychological analysts including Jacques Lacan’s four discourses, concepts of ‘the other’ and the theories of Postructuralist thinkers including Levinas, Mead and Kristeva, Herbert explains how different theories can be used to develop creativity in the classroom and surmount obstacles preventing creative environments. Clearly presenting both theoretical positions and their bearing on classroom practice, teachers at all levels will benefit from this innovative approach to creativity, as will school psychologists and all professionals interested in the links between psychoanalysis and pedagogy. Herbert clearly communicates both theoretical positions and their bearing on classroom practice. Teacher at all levels will benefit from this innovative approach to creativity, as will school psychologists and other professionals interested in the links between psychoanalysis and pedagogy.Towards a poststructuralist pedagogyWhat might Lacanian theory add to our understanding of the creative process?
Concepts and obstacles
A comparison between Freud’s and Lacan’s theory of consciousness
The Project: perception, language and memory
The mirror phase: through the looking glass of desire
A comparison between the neuropsychological and cognitive theories
Damasio and core consciousness
Gärdenfors and bodily self-awareness
Connaissance: conscious imaginary knowledgeThe symbolic order and the unconsciousLanguage and the unconscious
Lacan, language and the body: birth, the first entry into the symbolic
Freud, libido and the body: Oedipus, setting the symbolic firmly in place
The law, desire and jouissance
Jouissance and Object a: desiring what others desire!
The ego-ideal, the Subject and the Other
Knowledge and the symbolic order: savoirDreaming and the subject of creativityThe subject of dreams
Freudian dream theory: piecing together the script
Dream theory, biology and neuroscience: neurotransmitter theory, A–S theory and the cortical model
The story teller
Dreaming and desire: behind the mask of the dream
Jouissance and dreams: on eating strawberries
Creative thought and the subject
Savoir and creativity in the classroom: I think where I am not
Creativity, art and literature: methodological consequencesKnowledge, creativity and the four discoursesThe four formulas
The Master’s and the Hysteric’s discourse: excellence and desire
The Master’s discourse: theories of excellence
The Hysteric’s discourse: the object of desire
The University and the Analyst discourse: more is less
The University discourse: amassing knowledge and getting less
The Analyst’s discourse: wanting to know what the Other knows
Jouissance and creativity in the Analyst’s and Master’s discourses
Jouissance and the Signifier: Llalangue
The Master’s discourse: obtaining pleasure but little else
Desire for knowledge, desire for the lecturer: the University and Hysteric’s discourses
The University discourse: signifiers to feed the lecturer
The Hysteric’s discourse: the discourse of desireLecturing out there with the OtherPedagogy and the gaze
Pedagogy and art: what do they have in common?
Savoir: caught in the gaze of the students
A comparison between creativity seen during the lecture and creativity seen in dreams
Student questions providing a path for savoir: acceptance and prompting
Risks involved in relinquishing the pre-planned schedule
Cognitive theory, neuropsychology and the creative individual
Cognitive theory: traits, personality and modes of thought
Neuropsychological theory: the prefrontal cortex and the right hemisphere’s role in primary processesRepetition and metaphorConscious and unconscious repetition: mastery and the death drive
Conscious repetition: integration, memory and learning
Unconscious repetition: the death drive and masochism
Metaphor, cognition and memory
Language, memory and cognition
Metaphor memory and creative thought: a rose is a rose?
Beyond the pleasure principle: the traumatic dream, desire and the death drive
Repetition and the death drive
Metaphor and masochism: creativity and the symptomThe other/Other, ethics and creativity: on the other side of narcissism and aggressivenessLearning from the Other: creative listening viii Contents
The multicultural classroom: Lacan, Mead and Levinas
Listening, learning and creativity: the difference between being-for and being-with
Narcissism and the classroom
The difference between aggression and aggressivity
Desire, see-sawing and naming: the dissipation of aggression through language
Depression and ambivalence
Depression and limited mastery
Striving for recognition and failing: a cause for depressionMethodologyArt and methodology
Modern art
Writing and reading: media and films
Free association, creativity exercises, discourse analysis and deconstruction
Jack Norin’s creativity exercise
Discourse analysis and deconstruction
Climate: creative environments
Student–teacher relations and creative climate in the
four discourses