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Recently, I showed a group of students in my high school art class a film called Ma Vie En Rose (My Life in Pink), about a 7-year-old boy named Ludovic who identifies as female. Ludovic has an active imagination, but is bullied by both adults and other kids who are unnerved by his desire to wear dresses and play with dolls. The film challenged my students to broaden their understanding of gender and identity and led to a discussion about ways in which our imaginations are limited when we are forced to be who we are not. It聽reminded me of other stories in which a character is forced to choose an identity, such as the movie Divergent, based on the popular trilogy of novels by Veronica Roth.

In Divergent, a dystopian future society has been divided into five factions based on perceived virtues. Young people are forced to choose a faction as a rite of passage to becoming an adult. Tris, the story鈥檚 female hero, knows that choosing a faction might mean being cut off from family and friends forever, and wonders if she truly belongs to any one faction at all. Like Ludovic, Tris feels compelled to hide who she is, and knows that her behavior and ways of thinking might put herself and family at risk. Tris also knows that the most dangerous people in her聽society are considered those whose thinking is unrestricted and cannot be easily categorized鈥攖hose people are called divergent.

Defining Divergent Thinking

The word divergent is partly defined as 鈥渢ending to be different or develop in different directions.鈥� Divergent thinking refers to the way the mind generates ideas beyond proscribed expectations and rote thinking鈥攚hat is usually referred to thinking outside the box,聽and is often associated with creativity. Convergent thinking, on the other hand, requires one to restrict ideas to those that might be correct or the best solution to a problem.

Studies suggest that, as children, our divergence capability is high,聽and decreases dramatically as we become adults. Perhaps this is as it should be to a certain degree, and as teachers and adults we would be concerned if our middle and high school students聽extended imaginative play into everyday life in the way a聽4-year-old does. Yet many teachers at some point in their teaching career become frustrated by their students鈥� inability to think creatively, and others鈥攅xemplified by 鈥攂lame schooling itself for killing the imagination.

Divergent behavior is discouraged in school when students are scared to say or do the 鈥渨rong thing鈥� in class. This is not surprising since schools often tolerate environments in which both teachers and peer groups keep in check those who say and do things that are off-script, incorrect, or inappropriate. This system of overt convergence is enforced by a grading culture that systematically penalizes students for being 鈥渨rong,鈥� and by allowing a school environment in which students tease those who exhibit non-normative behaviors. So聽if divergent thinking is key to being creative, it becomes clear why our students find being open with their imaginations and divergent ideas inhibited.

It must be said that there are valid reasons why divergent thinking is discouraged in our classrooms. Divergent thinking treats all ideas equally regardless of context or applicability and disregards rubrics, criteria, or any process for assessment. There are also situations when divergent behavior might actually cause physical harm, such as in chemistry class or on the playground, and we expect our students to display good judgment, or convergent thinking strategies, so that they can make correct decisions.

Teachers also might find divergent thinking and behavior a challenge when students ignore directions and rules, and, if we鈥檙e honest with ourselves, display personality traits that operate outside societal norms. These non-normative students, kids like the character Ludovic, who are transgender or who identify as atheists, for example, might be considered divergent in many of our communities. It鈥檚 up to us as school administrators and teachers to ensure that good judgment extends beyond what might be considered current social norms and take into account what鈥檚 best for our students鈥櫬爏pirits, humanity, and ultimate sense of belonging.

In the Classroom: Strategies

Ideally, divergent and convergent thinking work in harmony with each other. The diagrams this relation between divergent, generative thinking and evaluative, convergent thinking. Helping our students understand these strategies and how they complement each other also encourages metacognitive learning so that students better understand their own thinking and creative abilities.

As an art teacher, my job is to foster an environment for creative work, and I believe the following five strategies might be useful for non-art teachers as well.

1.聽Reversing the question/answer paradigm:聽Problem-based learning is derived from an approach developed for training medical students in Canada but has since been used in K鈥�12 education and other project-based learning environments. The premise of it is simple: Instead of asking questions to which there is a correct answer, ask students to create the problem.

Students pose their problem by first tapping into their own wishes and goals that might have real-life results or be largely theoretical and in end in the modeling stages. Questions like 鈥淗ow can we grow vegetables without using pesticides?鈥� and聽鈥淗ow can we feed the world鈥檚 population in a sustainable way?鈥� encourage students to think divergently.

2.聽Let the music play:聽In my classroom, students serve as guest DJs and play their music when we're in the studio mode of our projects. I love the atmosphere music creates. I also聽know how 鈥渢ribal鈥� adolescents often see each other in terms of musical taste, so I introduce the guest DJ at the beginning of the term as a strategy for setting norms in the classroom in order to create an environment in which judgment of each other is deferred, restrained, and more thoughtful.

When students learn to defer judgment, the learning environment becomes open to other influences and ideas. When we鈥檙e not afraid of being immediately judged by our taste, we鈥檙e more likely to share ideas and opinions, and therefore become less afraid to be divergent in our thinking and behavior.

3.聽Inquiry-based feedback: Instead of value-based feedback, inquiry coupled with聽deep observation encourages a more open-ended and in-depth approach for evaluating students鈥� work. Students are encouraged to minimize expressing their likes and dislikes, and to first spend at least two聽minutes silently observing, and then asking questions prefixed by phrases such as, 鈥淚 noticed that _____,鈥� 鈥淲hy did you _____,鈥� and 鈥淗ow _____.鈥�

4. Encourage play and manage failure:聽When failure is framed more by reflection and iteration, and less by penalty and closure, we鈥檙e more likely to loosen up in our efforts and be less afraid to make mistakes. Then we can open up the environment for play and experimentation.

In my community art class, I prepare聽students to take risks in their projects by creating one-day exercises in which they engage with the public in a safe but unpredictable way. One example involves asking other students outside of class to have their photo taken. The scary aspect of being rejected is overcome, and students gain courage to open up and take risks. If rejection does occur, students have time to reflect and strategize in preparation for scaling up聽their ideas or projects.

5. Using art strategies: I use a few art strategies such as collage, readymade, and pareidolia to open up the divergent thinking part of the students鈥� brains. They聽become less concerned about exact interpretation and more open to poetry, metaphor, and dream imagery in general.

• : When artfully done, brings disparate images together and finds relationships based on aesthetics, absurdity, or spatial arrangements鈥攏ot their literal meaning or function in the real world. Once the images are de-coupled from their literal roles, this opens up to nonlinear thinking in general.
• : This involves taking ordinary objects and playfully renaming what they are or reimagining how they function. Marcel Duchamp had a聽famous example: taking a urinal, flipping it upside down, and calling it Fountain. I ask my students to do the same with ordinary objects around them鈥攗sing the material, shape, or alternative functions of an object, they reimagine it.
• : A phenomenon of looking at an object and finding a semblance of something else that鈥檚 not really there,聽like seeing a dragon in the shape of a cloud, or noticing that a three-prong power outlet looks like a face. I show聽students the short animated film聽 by the artist Pes, in which ordinary objects are turned into mysterious sea creatures. I then ask them to take photos of examples of pareidolia around them. They have fun reinterpreting the world.

offer the possibility of doing more than fostering a creative classroom environment鈥攖hey can also help us better understand and appreciate difference in all areas of our students鈥� lives. Young people like the fictional characters Ludovic and Tris might then find a world that鈥檚 more accepting, and we could benefit from the creative possibilities when young people are allowed to be who they are.