Speaking and Communicating Podcast

All of these research and these studies are saying, the top skills needed for our students today and going forward is critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, and yet we're not teaching those skills.

Creative thinking is one of the number one things that we need to be teaching.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host, Robert and Leila.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.

communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development.

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Now, let's get communicating with a former teacher.

Katie Trowbridge, joining us from sunny Florida, has over 20 years experience teaching.

She first taught in Chicago, and she has had so much experience that she has now created a company called curiosity to Create in order to emphasize why it's so critical to have creative and critical thinking skills.

And today, we're going to find out how she does this, how she helps parents and especially educators to raise critical thinkers.

And before I go any further, please help me welcome her to the show.

Hi, Katie.

Hello.

Thanks for having me.

So excited.

Me too.

I'm excited that you've joined us.

Like I said, I was excited to speak to another fellow teacher.

Welcome to the show.

Please introduce yourself.

Absolutely.

So Katie Trowbridge, like you said, you did a great job introducing me.

I was an English teacher for over 20 years, and now I'm CEO of curiosity to Create.

It's a nonprofit organization, and we are just passionate about helping the youth start thinking for themselves, thinking critically, creatively.

And we do that through helping parents and educators learn through what we call the Create method, which I'm sure we'll talk about.

We're certainly going to talk about that.

And the question becomes, once you retired from teaching, what made you decide that this is the path you were going to?

Well, I kind of fell into it.

I got to tell you, I love teaching.

It is a part of who I am and just pours out of me.

And so it was a tough decision.

I was not looking to leave teaching, but I was on the board of directors with a foundation called Driscoll foundation, and they did a lot of after school programming.

And I remember saying, you know, this is great that we do a lot of after school programming, but can you imagine if we were to reach teachers?

And the chairperson of the board said, well, Katie, would you like to do that?

And I went, oh, no, I'm teaching.

And I had been doing this in my classroom.

I noticed that there's this huge change in engagement in my classroom.

Kids just weren't thinking for themselves.

They weren't finding the joy in problem solving anymore.

There was this lack of finding fun in solving tough situations.

And I started to really research what was going on, and really research creativity, critical thinking, engagement.

And so I started doing a lot of this in my classroom.

So when they came to me and said, would you be interested in running this new organization called curiosity to Create?

I thought, oh, I don't really want to leave the classroom.

I love what I do.

But the more I got into this, and the more I saw what was really needed, and the more that I started thinking, wow, the impact that this could have, not just in my room 246 at April North, but what I could do to help others.

I thought, okay, I need to take the leap, and I'm going to preach about risk taking.

I need to take a risk myself, and took the leap, and here I am.

Absolutely.

When it comes to teaching a classroom, like you said, the kids weren't excited.

If you're a teacher, you receive the curriculum, and they say, okay, you're going to teach this many chapters within a certain period of time.

Right.

If you go to teaching college, do they teach you how when preparing a curriculum to incorporate the creative, critical thinking, problem-solving stuff, or is just, if you teach eighth grade, this is what you're going to teach?

Yeah, that's one of the issues that I think needs to be addressed right now is how teachers are being taught, how to teach.

That's creativity, the thinking process is not being addressed in teacher college.

And I think that that's one of the issues.

I mean, we've got a teacher shortage on our hands anyway.

Some colleges are shutting down their education departments because of the lack of students going into education.

So that is a whole issue that needs to be addressed.

So this is not something that is being taught.

And so a lot of times when they get into a classroom, they don't know how to do this.

So that's one of the issues that I'm seeing being addressed.

I'm hearing quite a bit when I'm working with educators, yes, we know this is an important skill.

I mean, you look at the research right now, what's coming out from World Forum, LinkedIn, Adobe, all of these research programs are saying, these studies are saying the top skills needed for our students today and going forward is critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, and yet we're not teaching those skills, right?

We're teaching still the content first.

There's a new study that just came out from PISA, and it says creative thinking is one of the number one things that we need to be teaching.

And the United States didn't participate in that study.

Canada came up some on the top.

Singapore, Korea, some of these great other countries came up on top.

We didn't participate.

We're lacking in those skills.

So that's one of the reasons when I talked to some of my cohorts in Canada, they put those skills first and the content comes from those skills.

We're still putting the contents first and the skills are lacking.

So those are the things that teachers are saying to me, look, we know we need it.

We just don't know how to do it.

So we've got to teach our educators and our parents how to teach those thinking skills, along with the math, the English, the science, all those skills that need to be taught.

It's interesting you mentioned Canada because one of the years I spent in South Korea, we were teaching, it was a Canadian international school, and they brought in British Columbia qualified teachers.

They introduced us to what was called the play learning system.

It was a first for me.

That whole idea of kids learn so much more, and they will absorb more English, because we were teaching English, if they learn it through playing.

And I remember the principal, but all this stuff you do by hand, that's not really back to that whole creativity idea.

Yes, absolutely.

And we talk about that a lot as well.

It's the hands-on experience.

If you look at what we love to do, even as adults, right?

We love to learn things that we care about, that we're curious about, that we want to play with.

I mean, that's the fun.

And so we are much more invested in things that we find meaning and fun doing.

That's same with the kids.

If we're doing that in our classroom, if we're playing and if we're having fun, we're learning, but we're so invested in it, it doesn't feel like learning.

It's just fun.

We're engaged and it's stick.

Yes.

It's going to stick.

And right now, engagement is so low.

We have a problem with chronic absenteeism.

Kids aren't wanting to go to school.

And because of all of this, kids aren't learning.

We're not doing well.

Well, why should we?

If school is boring, if we're not engaged, if we're not allowing, one of the things on that PISA research I mentioned, one of the things that came out is that kids say, I know I'm creative, but as soon as I get into school, I can't be creative.

That's what they believe.

They've observed the system to be that it's very narrow minded, streamlined in a certain way.

And therefore, I can't just explore.

Correct.

They can't play.

They can't explore.

They know that I have to come in, and I have to do what I'm told.

I have to do what the teacher expects of me.

I have to do well on those standardized tests.

I need to do the memorization.

I need to learn the facts.

I can't explore and learn the way I want.

Therefore, I am creative.

But I know as soon as I get into school, I have to put that aside.

I have to put that in a corner and not use my creativity and not think that way.

We have to learn as educators and as parents.

They can do both.

They can learn and be creative at the same time.

For sure.

Actually, we want them to bring their creativity to school.

But back to what you said as well, that the grading system and everything, it needs to be, there's a certain level where to kind of make life easier for the teachers.

Because if everybody brings their different creative ideas, how does the teacher in 40 minutes know who did better?

Because we have a grading system.

That's how the school system is run.

And then the other point when it comes to educators is, like I said, at the international school, they bought a lot of materials in order for us to use.

I heard that teachers struggle.

Some of the kids, they don't even have pencils.

The school supplies are very slim, and therefore, when will it even get to a point where they even buy the play door and legos and whatever it is for the classroom to encourage creativity and engagement?

Right.

Well, and I think that that's one of the myths about creativity, is that you need a lot of stuff, that creativity comes as art.

So you need the art and you need the crayons and you need the markers and you need the play dough and you need and you really don't, because really creative and critical thinking is just using your brain.

It's problem-solving.

It's what do we want to do today?

How are we going to solve it?

You don't need any materials at all.

You just need your brain.

Right.

And that's, I think, one of the big myths of we can do anything creatively.

You know, look at a recipe and think, how do we want to do this in a creative different way?

And I think that that's what's exciting about creative and critical thinking.

It can be something very simple.

We're on a playground.

Let's go on a treasure hunt.

Let's take leaves and make something different.

We have a problem in our river that's being polluted.

What are all the ways we can blank, blank, blank?

And those are the things that are creative and critical thinking.

It's the idea of let's come up with all these wonderful ideas, wild and crazy ideas.

Let's think divergently, and then let's come in and think convergently.

You don't need any materials at all.

Let's just think.

Use your brain.

So first, can I ask you to differentiate for us between creativity and critical thinking?

Because next, I want us to delve deeper into critical thinking.

Okay.

So that's a great question, and I get that a lot.

So creative and creative thinking is looking at all of the different possibilities.

Wild and crazy, let's look at all what if, what might we, how might we, right?

That is what a lot of people would come up to the brainstorming idea.

But it is novel ideas, new and novel, that fit a certain task.

So as a team, we have this problem.

We are going to think in a creative way.

What are all the different ways that we might solve this problem?

Now we have this great list, all these creative ways.

Next, we are going to critically think what actually will work.

Let's analyze it.

Let's think about it.

What realistically would actually help us solve that problem?

So creatively, we could think aliens could come down and zap the river, and instantly solve the pollution problem.

Kids could come up with some really great.

That's a creative idea.

Possibility.

Yeah, creative idea.

Possibility.

Absolutely.

Great possibility.

Critically, will that work?

Probably not, right?

We probably realistically, critically using our brains.

Creatively, great idea.

Critically, probably not, right?

So we want the wild and crazy.

Let's just let the ideas flow, defer judgments, stay open minded.

Let's take some risks.

Now we're at the critical side, and we're saying, okay, now that we have all these great ideas, let's critically look at factually, analytically, what is going to actually work.

Business-wise, it might be budget.

What do we have for resources?

What can we do with what we've been given?

So that's your difference between, then you need both.

So it's like two sides of the exact same coin.

You need the critical thinking, and you need the creative thinking.

They work together.

Right.

You start with the creative.

You just brainstorm all the ideas, put sticky notes on everything, and then you then analyze how practical it can be to execute.

That's the critical thinking part.

Right.

And what's hard is a lot of times when you're doing the creative, people go, oh no, that won't work, or oh wait, that's silly, or no.

Just wait till we get to step number two.

Wait.

Right.

Because then you're shutting people down right away.

Right.

And that's why I hear teachers telling me a lot.

Kids go, oh, that's stupid.

Oh, that's ridiculous.

You can't do that.

Then kids shut down and they won't talk.

Then people are judging.

Right.

And so we have a classroom full of students who are afraid to take risks.

Kids who are afraid because they're going to fail.

Kids are afraid that they're going to look stupid.

So then no one shares their ideas.

No one's thinking in this creative way because they don't want to look in their minds like failures or feel stupid.

And that's where we've got to really allow these classrooms to be safe places.

We're fine.

You think an alien can come down?

Great.

Yes.

And when you're in a classroom, here's what happens.

If somebody says the alien can come and press a button, I can say, probably not an alien, but I'm thinking somebody else can press a button.

I might not fully go with your idea, but you've planted a seed in me to come up with something that improvises that.

So there is no stupid idea really, because there's something it could trigger in my brain to say, oh, wait a minute, I hear you on that, but the alien idea, I'm not so sure.

But hey, how about we take the second part of your idea, and then divert it in this direction?

Right.

And that's the collaboration part.

That's so important, because we feed off each other.

Right.

Right.

We build off each other.

And so that's where that open mindedness and differing judgment just keep building off each other.

And that's that creative thinking that just keeps going and going and going and going.

And then it emerges into, okay, now let's start what will really work.

Let's be critical thinkers.

You said one of the things you teach is for kids to be empathetic.

How do you do that?

Well, it takes time and a lot of practice and a lot of feedback.

So it is that I hear you kind of like you just said, I hear you interesting idea, an alien coming down.

That's really interesting.

Why do you think that?

Right.

One of the things that happens is immediately we say, and especially in today's world, right, or what are you talking about?

It's that immediate judgment, and then people get very defensive.

They pull back, and they get very defensive about their views.

Instead of saying, that's really interesting, I hear you, I'm wondering what makes you think that?

Or why do you think that?

Or tell me more.

I'm showing that I'm interested.

I'm being very much an active listener, and I'm empathizing with you.

That's interesting.

I want to know more.

The problem is right now is we're saying, I don't agree, click, I'm defriending you.

So you just described social media.

Right.

And we're doing that in real life too.

We're sitting at a family dinner, and we're arguing, right, instead of listening.

I'm interested.

I want to hear you.

I might not agree with you, and that's okay.

I have a different opinion, but I'm empathizing.

I'm listening.

I hear you.

It's a skill that we have to practice.

As educators and as teachers, we have to say, okay, hold on.

Let's practice the skill.

Let's try phrasing it this way, instead of the way you just phrased it.

That is so crucial.

You know, at first, since coming to America, at least, I have heard of families who, at Thanksgiving, there's divisions due to politics, and then you don't speak to your family member or your uncle who likes the opposing party, whatever, for another year or something because of the disagreement.

And then COVID came, then you had, do you vaccinate or you don't vaccinate?

And then families were even more divided because we don't have what you just said anymore, which is, I had a previous guest who called it the art of persuasion, that you can disagree.

I think he used Mitt Romney and Barack Obama when they were running against each other, that you can disagree but still respect each other.

Right.

That is that empathetic viewpoint, right?

I empathize with you.

I understand you.

I hear you.

I just don't agree with you.

And that's okay.

The other thing is, I don't agree with you.

And here's why.

I will say to someone, interesting, your viewpoint is interesting.

Tell me more.

But the problem is they lack the critical thinking skills.

They don't know why.

Tell me more.

Why do you believe what you believe?

Why do you think the way you think and they don't know?

And that's what I really want to encourage people to start understanding.

Know why you think the way you think, right?

That's what I think is missing.

I keep talking about we need a thinking revolution.

We need, I'm all for, hey, listen, do your research.

You think the way you want to think.

Just know why you think the way you think.

Right.

Because if I can articulate to you that, okay, Katie, here's the reason I went down that path is because as a South African, here's where I come from, here's how I was raised, and this is the reason why I think this way about this topic.

Right.

If you gave me that chance, I would articulate it that way instead of you say, it sounds ridiculous.

Who even thinks like that?

Because this is what you're supposed to think.

And now look what I've learned about you.

The new perspective I have gained, learning about you as a South African, learning about a new culture, learning about your life.

Look at how much it's now enriched in my life.

And something that I have learned that is new.

And now I can appreciate a new perspective that I didn't know.

Thank you.

Right.

That's where we as people need to now grow, and think, and learn, and have empathy.

Right.

That's something that I've never experienced.

I don't know.

And now I have now enriched my way of thinking, and I can embrace different perspectives.

And that's why I think it's so important even in education, that we're teaching different perspectives.

We're teaching different cultures, helping students see things from other viewpoints, so that that creative and critical thinking skills, those come in, so that we can see things from other areas.

Because they grow up to be those grownups.

Exactly.

If we don't teach them.

Right.

And if we're narrow-minded and we only see our viewpoint, we only are seeing the social media feeds, what we're seeing that the computer is feeding us, and we're not experiencing other things, we're not thinking in different ways.

And so the critical thinking falls out the window.

Exactly.

And so what can parents do?

I know a lot of them are busy, they're working.

What can parents do when having conversations with their children to encourage creativity and critical thinking?

Ask questions.

The biggest thing we can do is ask questions.

Open-ended questions.

I always talk to parents, and you get these.

So what did you do at school today?

Nothing, right?

That's like the typical.

Everybody says nothing.

Nothing.

How are you today?

Do you have any homework?

No.

No.

Try, and I always encourage parents with their students to read the books that your students are reading.

So even if, let's say, they're reading The Great Gatsby, or they're reading Holes, or they're reading whatever they're reading, and Captain Underpants, read the same book with them and say, funny, I was reading this with you, and what did you think of this character?

Or what did you think of that?

Or what are you studying?

Oh, you're studying World War I?

Who's your favorite whatever?

What did you think about this?

Asking them and getting involved in what they are doing.

Getting kids to think critically, oh, what did you think of this movie?

What was your favorite part?

Why was that your favorite part?

Asking why is such a vital question.

Why did you think that?

Why?

About anything.

Watching Bluey, which I love Bluey, by the way.

Watching the cartoon Bluey and saying, why do you think Bluey did that?

Why do you think Bluey's dad reacted that way?

Those simple getting your kids just to think.

Do hard things with your kids.

Do puzzles.

Play board games.

Those simple things can go a long way to getting your kids to think.

One of the new studies that just came out talks about how people hate to think because it's too much effort.

It's just too much effort.

Even they were talking about things like playing chess.

They actually had a random sample of people they asked, and they said, I hate thinking.

I hate to think.

It's too much effort.

It's too hard to think.

But they will do it if the reward is worth it, if the outcome is worth it.

One of the things they call it is the IKEA effect, like putting together a really tough piece of furniture.

It's worth it.

It's been frustrating.

It was hard.

It was a pain, but it was worth it because now I have this beautiful piece of furniture.

Right.

Right.

So that's the thing with our kids.

It's the same thing.

I love the term productive struggle.

This was hard.

Putting together this puzzle was tough.

Or gardening was really a pain.

I didn't like it either.

But look at this beautiful garden we just created.

Parents can do those kinds of things and teachers as well.

This was a tough man.

Can you believe what we just did?

I'm so proud of us, but look at what we accomplished.

Encouraging those kinds of things.

And yeah, parents are super busy, but sitting down at dinner, going to movie and after movie, I always ask my kids on the way home in the car, what was your favorite part?

What did you like about that movie?

What didn't you like?

And why?

And why?

Tell me why.

What was your favorite part?

Why?

What was your favorite animal at the zoo and why?

Again, we just want to get them thinking.

And I would say the other thing is giving them choice.

Where do you want to go for dinner tonight?

Here are the three choices.

Or here's, we want to go on vacation.

Here are the three things that we have to do on vacation.

We want to do something that's creative.

We want to go to a beach.

We want to do something that's learning.

Make it a family decision.

Engagement.

Yes.

The reason I love why in any situation is because it stops you from making assumptions, because usually we make assumptions, and it creates a whole list of other problems from making the assumption.

So when you ask why, you even understand why the person thought that way in the first place.

Let's talk about teachers.

What last words of wisdom do you have for them in encouraging creativity and critical thinking in the classroom?

One of the biggest things that they can do is, again, getting kids to start asking questions, involving students in discussion, involving students in teamwork, and involving students in that productive struggle.

Let's do something difficult together, hands-on problem-solving.

So getting out of those worksheets and getting into, let's solve something.

And it can be anything, and getting them just to think, and going back to what we were talking about earlier, playing.

Let's figure this out together.

And honestly, I tell teachers all the time, it actually makes their jobs way more fun, and it makes it easier.

So instead of this huge, let me do this elaborate, creative lesson plan, let the kids create what they want.

How should we learn this?

We have to do this.

What do you think we should do?

How should we do it?

And that can be an awful lot of fun for a teacher, and it makes it less stressful on the teacher as well.

Now, I've seen kids come up with some incredible lesson plans where the whole class learns in really fun and exciting ways.

They're pretty amazing.

Kids are pretty amazing when you give them some responsibility.

They are.

Especially today's kids, I'm almost 50.

They're very smart.

Very smart.

Extremely smart.

Yes.

Kids today are very smart, and if given the space in order to let that out, they will blow you away.

They really will shock you.

They're amazing.

Amazing kids.

So I really think that there's a great opportunity for educators out there.

I think that we are on the cusp of doing some amazing things in education.

Right.

Actually, when you just gave that example, it reminds me of, in the workplace as well, you know how the leader of a team will say, okay, this is the outcome we're looking for.

Do you guys have any ideas on how to get there?

And everybody just starts brainstorming.

That's exactly how it is.

So being trained while at school at a young age will give you so many advantages when it comes to that.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

And that's what we need to start doing.

There shouldn't be such a big difference between what they're doing in school than when they get out into the real world.

Right.

Thank you so much, Katie.

Oh, you're so welcome.

This has been fun.

I did promise fun, and I really had fun myself.

Oh, good.

Me too.

Yes, absolutely wonderful stuff.

And before you go, please tell us where we can find you online if we want to know more about the work that you do, especially for teachers resources.

Oh, absolutely.

Right.

Yes.

curiosity to create the number two.

So curiosity to create.org.

All of our material is there, including the create method.

We have an online community.

You can find everything you need right at that website.

I did not ask you about the create method.

Please let's go through it before.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

The create method.

And again, everything is there.

And we have a new book coming out called Deeper Thinking in the Classroom, which has everything about the create method there as well.

But I really mentioned a lot about the create method, which is just curiosity and putting everything together, risk-taking, engagement, making the experience.

We talked about play.

We talked about attitude and team building.

We really went through most of it during our conversation, just not using the actual term.

So believe me, we talked about making sure kids are thinking for themselves.

Love that.

Just one last question.

Now that you mentioned risk-taking again, have you found over the years of teaching, because you've been teaching for over two decades, that kids who are risk-takers in the classroom, is there a correlation between how successful they become later in life?

Very much so.

And people think of risk-taking, they immediately think of skydiving or taking those kinds of risks.

And that's not at all what we're talking about, right?

We're not.

We're talking about creative risk-taking and being able to say, I'm going to try this in spite of the fact that I might fail.

That's the big key.

And we're so afraid in today's society of failure.

We're handing out a lot of A's.

And if you don't get an A, people think immediately that that's a failure.

And that's not how it should be, right?

It's okay to fail.

We're going to fail.

That's how we learn.

We've got to be okay with, I'm going to fall off my bike, but I know that I can get back on it.

Right, right.

Unfortunately, we have a lot of young children today who have been raised to think, I can't fall off my bike, because if I do, something horrible will happen.

And we have to change that mindset to think, it's okay, I'm going to fall, I'm going to get right back up, and I'm going to do even better next time, because that's how I learn.

I might not get 100% and that's okay, because I'm going to try again.

And so that kind of risk taking is important.

That is essentially life.

It is.

There's this nine-year-old that I'm friends with the family, and she was telling me, she said, I remember the first time my mom wrote the bar exam, and she didn't pass.

She was so sad.

She sat in the corner of her bed.

You know what I said to her?

I said, the fact that she's in the bar today tells me she didn't let that sadness make her give up, because she tried again.

Right.

I drove that point home to her.

I said, I didn't know this story about your mom, but the fact that she's a lawyer now practicing, that tells me that when that moment happened, she didn't say, I won't do this again.

Correct.

Correct.

Unfortunately, we have a lot of young people today who don't have the coping mechanisms.

They would stop.

They didn't pass, so they're going to give up.

And we've got to make sure that productive struggle of, I didn't make it, I didn't make it, I'm going to keep trying, I'm going to keep trying, and that's okay.

That's how I'm going to learn.

We've got to keep reinforcing that risk-taking.

Yeah, absolutely.

curiosity to create the number two.

Katie Trowbridge from Florida.

This has been really fun.

Thank you so much for being on our show.

Oh, thank you so much.

My absolute pleasure.

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