When I taught Creativity last year, I had to deal with one class that was so afraid to recite. I reminded the students that discussion was at the heart of our field. Why were they so quiet?
They finally admitted that they were afraid to be wrong. They implicitly referred to an invisible audience waiting for them to fail.
“Who is this audience?” I asked.
“People,” the students shrugged.
“Who are they? What are they like? Are they really watching you?”
No response.
“Raise your hand,” I told the class, “if you want your classmates to make mistakes when they recite. If you want people to have a hard time. If you want them to look uncomfortable.”
No one raised their hands.
“That’s right,” I said. “Good people want you to succeed. Only losers want others to do badly.”
It still took a while, but the students slowly began speaking up.
This year, I have less-inhibited students, but their fear of judgment by an invisible audience plays out in another way. They preface their answers with “I’m not sure if this is correct.” They show me their work and ask, “Did I get it right?”
“Wrong question,” I told a group after it had brainstormed a point of view (POV) statement, “Always ask: Is this supported by your interview data?”
The POV is our gateway to human-centered design. It has to be written precisely so that students know how to create the appropriate intervention. It has to be authentic to the results of interviews with the target group.
“But we’re not wrong, ma’am?” a student ventured.
“Wrong question.”
“Ma’am!”
“Data!”
I have no qualms with showing annoyance when students expect to be given check marks in a class that demands logical thinking. Inquiry and curiosity are fast being traded for templates, which is no surprise for many of our students. Their training in basic education is governed by grades that are only as high as the students’ ability to get the right answer.
I’ve heard many stories from my classes. Teachers deduct points for lab results that don’t match expectations, prompting students to change their findings. Teachers rate students based on how many people like and share their work online. Teachers judge written assignments by how closely they resemble already published work.
There is so much more work in following examples rather than asking questions. When we ask who the students are creating for, they somehow circle back to making things for a grade dictated by an instructor’s whims while being careful not to make mistakes lest their invisible audience comes down to sully their reputation irreparably.
Gone is the true knowing of one’s audience through questions and with genuine curiosity. What our students are actually doing is performing for who they think is judging—not who they know is watching.
Add the threat of overuse of artificial intelligence (AI), and we are in danger of shaping a generation that seeks out rubrics, templates, and validation instead of first asking questions. Pope Leo XIV, in his address to artists, referred to it as homogenization: algorithms featuring only what we want to see, AI making only what we expect to receive.
The difference is not merely aesthetic but ontological, the Pope said. It is not only the propagation of a single style but the imposition of a single reality—instead of encouraging people to experience reality in their own way so that it can be articulated anew.
He echoed the words of Pope St. Paul VI, who also spoke to artists in 1964: “Our ministry is to make the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of the ineffable, of God, accessible and understandable—indeed, inspiring. And in this task, which translates the invisible world into accessible, intelligible forms, you are masters.”
The words still ring true today, over 60 years later, with Pope Leo adding that many are pursuing that which is indexed rather than inquiring about that which is not yet known. To extend his reasoning: our students have been taught to hide their authentic selves from an audience that doesn’t even exist while forgetting to speak to the people who do.
Last week, we wrapped up work on the POV statement and began brainstorming interventions. Most of my groups had interviewed their peers. One group, however, spoke to mallgoers and commuters who couldn’t understand why they had to pay to use the mall restroom.
The group proposed a workshop: they would bring people from different professions together and make them cooperate in modeling their ideal restroom. In the process, they would understand each other’s needs without sacrificing the feasibility of the design.
I was about to check on their final POV statement when one of the members, Lei, raised her hand.
“I know what you’re going to ask, ma’am.” She smiled widely, holding up a copy of the interview transcripts with passages underlined, “Yes, it’s in the data. They know what kind of restroom they want, but they also know that they don’t understand the problem enough.”
I couldn’t resist pointing at Lei and shouting, “Yes!”
Well done, student driven by inquiry. Carry on.
iponcedeleon@ateneo.edu