The Saybrook Forum

How to help schools help creative kids

There are a lot of things kids can do to get in trouble in school, and being more creative than the test they’re taking may be near the top of the list.

Overwhelmed teachers say they’re having trouble finding the time to work with creative students, and an increasingly tight regimen of standardized tests means that creativity is often punished on report cards. 
 
That’s having an impact:  according to a recent Newsweek cover story, America’s intelligence test scores are going steadily up, while our scores in creativity are going steadily down. 

That’s dangerous in several ways, the first of which is that it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re getting any smarter.  As the magazine notes, intelligence test scores tend to suffer from inflation as new generations get more used to taking the tests – it’s called the “Flynn Effect,” and it means increases in intelligence scores aren’t always increases in intelligence.

Theoretically, creativity tests should suffer from the same problem of false inflation – which makes the recent drop in creativity scores all the more disturbing. 

How disturbing?  Newsweek calls it a “Crisis in creativity,” and points out that in a global economy based on innovation, a loss in creativity is an economic disaster waiting to happen.

The health care system's blind spots make it hard to die

When we get sick ... really, really sick ... all we want to do is get better, right? 
 
Hospitals certainly think so.  But, as a recent article on hospice care in the New Yorker points out, they’re often wrong.
 
“People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives,” notes writer Atul Gawande:

“Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system’s expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what’s most important to them at the end of their lives.”
 

When it comes to the people it serves, our health care system has a lot of blind spots, says DR. Leila Kozak, and often we’re most blind to the idea that not everything has a technical fix.  “This is a huge problem,” she says.  “Most people end up dying without the comfort care and psychosocial-spiritual support they need. Ask physicians themselves, ask the nurses, they’ll tell you that the system isn’t working.”

Creating a true food democracy

No food movement can be truly sustainable if it doesn’t take the rights and needs of the people who pick, process, and prepare the food into account.

Saybrook Organizational Systems faculty member Erica Kohl-Arenas explains on Triple-Pundit.

Center for Mind-Body Medicine offers training discounts to members of the Saybrook community

The Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C., Saybrook University’s partner institution in its groundbreaking Graduate College of Mind-Body Medicine, is offering discounts on its Mind-Body Medicine Professional Training Program this October to members of the Saybrook Community.

Utilizing a small group approach, this five day program will focus on the scientific basis for mind-body medicine and explore a range of the most effective tools for self-care and stress management, including:

• meditation
• guided imagery
• biofeedback & autogenic training
• breathing & movement
• self expression through words and drawings

David Elkins named Director of Saybrook's PsyD program

Saybrook’s Graduate College of Psychology and Humanistic Studies is pleased to announce that David Elkins has been appointed director of the PsyD program.

A licensed clinical psychologist who taught at Pepperdine University for 25 years, Elkins has worked hospital, community health, and private practice settings, and was the Director of the Humanistic Psychology Center in Tustin, California.

Elkins’ background in humanistic psychology is extensive:  he serves on the board of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology and The Humanistic Psychologist;  he has served as a board member of the Association for Humanistic Psychology;  and in 1998-1999 served as president of the APA’s Division 32, Society for Humanistic Psychology.  While at Pepperdine he designed and taught the existential-humanistic psychology track of their PsyD program.  He also chaired the committee that achieved APA accreditation for the Pepperdine PsyD.

Elkins’ most recent book is Humanistic Psychology:  A Clinical Manifesto:  A Critique of Clinical Psychology and the Need for Progressive Alternatives.

Saybrook University at the APA

Members of the Saybrook community took to the American Psychological Association’s annual convention this year, presenting papers on topics ranging from the acculturation of Muslim Americans to the creative process in visual arts. 

Held August 12 – 15 in San Diego, many presentations were also attended and tweeted by members of the Saybrook Alumni Association.

A list of Saybrook students, alumni, and faculty who presented at the APA, along with their topics, is below: 

Join us to discuss "Civilizing the Economy" with Marvin Brown

When a handful of people thrive while whole industries implode and millions suffer, it is clear that something is wrong with our economy. The wealth of the few is disconnected from the misery of the many. In his new book, Civilizing the Economy, Saybrook Organizational Systems faculty member Marvin Brown traces the origin of this economics of dissociation to early capitalism, showing how this is illustrated in Adam Smith's denial of the central role of slavery in wealth creation.

In place of the Smithian economics of property, Brown proposes that we turn to the original meaning of economics as household management. He presents a new framework for the global economy that reframes its purpose as the making of provisions instead of the accumulation of property. This bold new vision establishes the civic sphere as the platform for organizing an inclusive economy and as a way to move toward a more just and sustainable world.

Marvin Brown will be speaking at Saybrook to discuss what a new economic model, based on civic life, would look like – and how we can get there.  The event is free, but reservations are required. 

EVENT INFORMATION
Thursday, September 23rd, 7PM
Free Admission.
Reservations are required.
RSVP to: Terry Hopper at (415) 394-5220 or thopper@saybrook.edu.
LOCATION
Saybrook University
747 Front Street (at Broadway)
Rollo May Library, 3rd Floor
San Francisco