when we added MDMA oh you went up to six [Music] I have a problem I'm an artist and an art education advocate and I live in a city that has no art teachers in the elementary schools I heard gasps it's true and this is a problem because creativity matters and art teaches it that we can maintain the creative skills we all had see we were all once creative geniuses George land the general system scientist spent well he developed a creativity test for NASA and then he gave it to kindergarteners 98% of those kindergarteners scored at the genius level in terms of divergent thinking skills that's the ability to connect disparate ideas in your brain 98% that's everybody in this room wait not everybody because there's that 2% who didn't quite cut it well then he kept testing them at the age of 15 only 12% still had those genius level creative thinking skills and at the age of 24 it was down to 2% can you see why I have a problem we need to be hanging on to our creativity not losing it because we're gonna need it economically speaking in the arts account for 4.2 percent of the gross domestic product that's 730 billion dollars a year but that's just the Arts and Culture creativity is everywhere there's a creative mind behind every product we touch and every system we encounter medicine transportation your cell phone paper clips 78% of business leaders say creativity is of high importance when hiring an Emily workman of the Education Commission of the state's sites that people with creative thinking skills developed through high quality art education are better communicators they're great collaborators and they can adapt to and respect diverse ways of thinking in these divided times we need communities filled with adaptable and tolerant citizens more than ever so this isn't just my problem this is our problem an art teaches it Lois Helen and Ellen winner of the Harvard Graduate School of Education spent two years documenting researching the skills taught in a high quality art education classroom they include observation and reflection persistence risk-taking the idea that there can be multiple solutions to any given question and envisioning these are the tools in the creative thinkers toolbox I have these skills I'm trained as an artist I teach art at Chemeketa Community College and I use these skills throughout my life not just for making things but as a parent a teacher a citizen who votes and as an art education advocate and I want to share with you how I've been using my creative thinkers toolbox to try to solve our problem so my son was entering the first grade when I found out there were no art teachers in Salem Keizer elementary schools I was horrified but then I started asking questions were there ever any art teachers here yeah they were pulled out 35 years ago is there any art being taught in any elementary schools yeah some teachers feel comfortable enough with the subject matter to integrate it with their required curriculum and some schools can afford to hire an artist to come in for a lesson over the course of the year that's it I was asking questions I was researching young-hee Kim the psychologist William and Mary College defines creativity as making something new or making something better well you can't make something better until you know what already exists so I was doing my observation and research observation and reflection through meetings and readings and phone calls and interviews and one model seemed promising it's called art literacy and a few oregon school districts teach it a coordinator works for their district writes the curriculum and then trains volunteers the volunteers then go out in pairs to teach the lessons I decided I wanted to bring this to my son's school so in the summer between my son's first grade and second grade years myself and two other artists who also teach art on the college level and to have children and to other Salem Keizer elementary schools we got together and we wrote the curriculum materials this PowerPoint and then in the fall thankfully enough parents came forward at each of our schools to help teach the lessons and we've been doing this for four years now you know what's coming but it's only three lessons we teach full-time we can't do more than that that's three one-hour art lessons per year per kid and it's only three schools in a school district that has 42 elementary schools we still have a problem now I've had to do a lot of really uncomfortable things in this process I've had to actually go into you know roomfuls of fourth graders and teach art um but the biggest risks came when I realized I had to raise public awareness that's why I'm standing here going through this see kids in my son's elementary school will see me in the grocery store and let's say daddy daddy look there's my art teacher and I'll say no I am NOT your art teacher I'm a volunteer there are no art teachers but it made me realize people just don't know because 90% of Americans believe art should be taught in elementary school I think in Salem Keizer they just assume it is being taught so what I do I I lobbied officials I spoke to the I met with the superintendent's and I wrote an opinion piece for the local newspaper I got nothing no results but as Linus Pauling the dual Nobel Prize laureate once said to have a good idea you've got to have a lot of ideas so I got a little bit more creative the creativity campaign came next you might have seen these signs all over the Convention Center today [Applause] I can put one right here because creativity is everywhere these signs can be too they say creative minds created this teach kids art my plan was to put them all over an intersection in downtown Salem on the street lights on the lampposts on the building's on the garbage cans and then I asked permission and I didn't get it but I still had all the signs so the idea simply had to evolve I attended a school board meeting and I tagged the room I also developed this ongoing doors and windows campaign where I asked people to post the signs on the doors and windows of their homes cars or businesses but I got even more solutions when I reframed the question Tina Seelig at Stanford d.school teachers this method so I had been focusing on how do we get the art teachers back in the elementary schools and I reframed it to be how can we get art to kids in elementary schools or how can we teach creativity creatively time I focused on time because principals had told me time was the reason why they don't have time to teach art in elementary school that was my angry art advocate voice coming out just then did you hear that so what if we use lunch time well kids eat lunch they're watching a video of an artist and art concept and a demonstration they bring their trays back they pick up a brown bag filled with art supplies during the next week they make the project either at home or in their classroom and then bring it back for the next week's are at lunch to see what was made analyze and discuss or what if we integrate art in a new way teachers across the country they integrate art with science and literature what about PE we could combine movement based learning with performance art techniques not on like Improv Theater techniques or we could use traditional art making practices that are much more physical think Jackson Pollock strip paintings right or how Paul clay once described drawing as taking a line for a walk students can take the lines for walks all the way around their gym this is envisioning these ideas for implementation envisioning is holding something in your mind's eye to try it out to shape it I read somewhere once that a person has to be able to dream up or envision a better world before they can commit to making that change this is the point where I say I haven't been successful in making that change there are still no art teachers in Salem Keizer elementary schools but I have shown you how I'm using my tools the creative person's toolbox observation and reflection persistence risk-taking multiple solutions and envisioning to try to solve this problem but there's one other secret ingredient to making any creative idea real and that's collaboration working with others has pushed me beyond what I could possibly do or envision on my own and collaboration is going to be the key to those communities I described earlier our our community filled with tolerant and adaptable citizens creative thinkers who are willing to work together to find solutions to any problem and this is where you come in I want you to leave here today thinking about the generations coming up in their creative minds if we teach art from kindergarten our community will be more creative it's that simple so instead of allowing creative skills to dwindle through our educational years you are going to demand art in every school and vote with this in mind but this future utopian community it's not a future utopia we can all dip into our creative thinkers toolbox now and become more creative as parents as professionals as citizens after all we were all once creative geniuses and we can all be them again thank you [Music] you [Applause]