You Cannot Cover Everything

Essay 2.1

Discarding Textbooks: Learning by Doing

Original date unconfirmed · June 30, 2018 (Medium archive) · Medium

Read archived article · Source details

At an SXSWedu conference in Austin, I met Georgette Yakman, a leader and founding researcher of STEAM, an increasingly popular framework for teaching science, technology, engineering, arts, and math.

Interested to learn more, in late March, I spoke with her again about STEAM, what it actually is, and why more schools should show interest. Yakman — whose resume includes advanced degrees, honors, and positions from Virginia Polytechnic Institute — is passionate about creating a common learning language and demolishing the notion that one field of study is superior to another.

“Science teachers are given an amazing amount of clout, and science is seen as so important,” she says. “I certainly don’t deny that in any way, but within the school it creates this hierarchy of, ‘I’m better than you, my subject’s more important than yours is.’ But construction teachers, music teachers, art teachers — they use science all the time. They have to. They can’t get away from it, but they’re not often given respect by the scholastic community.”

Yakman consults with schools around the country and around the globe, helping teachers coordinate their subjects, assistance which in turn helps students discover deeper relevance in their learning. “How can we ask our kids to be future engineers when they’re . . . not studying how they could take something from the past and apply it to the future?” she says. But even within disciplines, she tells me, teachers must rethink how they try to make learning relevant and exciting. I couldn’t agree more. Times are changing, and schools need to change with them.

“We don’t teach kids to be scientists,” Yakman says. “We teach them to be linguistic learners with scientific information. And it turns them off in general from science. Most kids will tell you that a scientist looks like Bill Nye. I love Bill Nye, but he’s a white guy in a white lab coat. I know a lot of scientists and very few of them are white guys in white lab coats. The students in my programs, they do scientific discovery in real life. They investigate things that need to be investigated. They don’t always change the world, but there’s a venue for them to realize that even as young achievers, they have a voice and enough knowledge to do basic studies.”

Yakman’s remarks remind me of Tyler DeWitt, another innovative educator who also attended SXSWedu, delivering a 15-minute presentation, “Crowdteaching: A Learning Revolution.” During his standing-room-only session, DeWitt, who holds a Ph.D. in microbiology from MIT, explained an evolving movement in which thousands upon thousands of educators, from all around the world, are uploading high-quality educational content online — free of charge. In 2012, DeWitt also delivered a passionate TED talk, “Hey Science Teachers — Make it Fun,” in which he lambasts science textbooks as boring, confusing, and age-inappropriate.

“A standard high school biology textbook, I don’t know a single 14-year-old who can read that and learn anything from it,” DeWitt told me for a March 24 story I wrote, Crowdteaching: A Learning Revolution. “But textbooks that completely confuse students still get published every single year. No longer will a student have to suffer through awful textbooks that weren’t written for them. They’ll be able to go to the Internet and choose content that meets their needs.”

Yakman echoes DeWitt’s thinking, and with constantly evolving online learning tools, she sees no reason for teachers to assign textbooks — in any course. “The kids should be accessing online basic information,” she says. “School doesn’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a new set of textbooks. They can spend their money on project-based learning and the supplies that kids need, and professional development. That’s where we need to be spending our money in schools, is on our educators and on our students.”

In fact, Yakman says that for schools wishing to successfully implement STEAM, the biggest administrative challenge remains finding time for professional development and planning. More than anything, there has to be sufficient buy-in from everybody involved. This also includes understanding and placing a larger emphasis on the maker movement.

Too often, Yakman tells me, students don’t see things being made. “If they’re given a choice between a STEAM project and an iPad, they go for the STEAM project every time,” she says. “Because they all have electronics at home, but lots of kids don’t even know that when you bake a chicken, it gets gelatinous.” This sense of discovery fosters inquisitive minds, Yakman says, along with “a passion for learning that traditionally schools suck out of kids.”

Essay 2.2

How Superhero Comics Enhance Learning

2014 (earlier reporting) · Spin Education

Read archived article · Source details

Prof. James Bucky Carter has written extensively about how comics can enhance education. “A substantial, expanding body of evidence asserts that using graphic novels and comics in the classroom produces effective learning opportunities over a wide range of subjects and benefits various student populations, from hesitant readers to gifted students,” Carter writes in Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels.

When teaching American history, I love using comics to heighten engagement. In fact, when covering World War II, I ask my students to analyze the March 1941 cover of Captain America Comics #1, depicting super-soldier Steve Rogers deflecting an attack while knocking out Adolf Hitler. From there, students contemplate why for the better part of the 1940s, Captain America remained a huge success for Timely Comics, the publishing company which would evolve into Marvel Comics.

I’m curious to hear more of how Carter recommends teachers make effective use of comics in the classroom. As a first step — just as most responsible teachers do — he suggests thinking about big themes one wishes to explore during the year. Then he advises teachers to go out and see what comics or graphic novels fit those themes. In other words, Carter doesn’t suggest building an entire curriculum around comics and graphic novels.

“You don’t necessarily have to feel like you’re reshuffling your curriculum,” he tells me, as I nod in agreement. “You’re just looking for material that will help your students address those things or answer those big questions that you’re posing to them . . . If you’re exploring the issue of sacrifice, maybe go look at some comics where characters might have sacrificed themselves in one way or another.”

In fact, four years ago I ran an “unofficial” independent study with two interested students, curious to explore how superheroes personify sacrifice. I first had them read The Death of Superman, the hugely successful, bestselling 1992 storyline from DC Comics. Superman makes the ultimate sacrifice in defeating Doomsday, a crazed killing monster whose might equals (or surpasses) that of the Man of Steel. My students then read ensuing issues, narrating Superman’s return from the dead, and they soon referenced strong similarities with the Passion. In a very real sense, Superman awakened in them a genuine desire to learn more about biblical times.

I also recall how comics ignited my eagerness to learn history. As a junior in high school, I read a reprint of Iron Man’s first appearance in the March 1963 issue of Tales of Suspense. In this story, the Viet Cong capture wealthy industrialist Tony Stark. To escape, in secret Stark cobbles together his first Iron Man suit, a primitive iteration of what he will eventually create. As a 17-year-old, I knew very little about the Vietnam War, and what role America had played in the conflict. To address that deficit, I read several history books on the topic — at first, mostly to have a better understanding and appreciation of Iron Man’s origin story. Weeks later, fate would smile upon me when my history teacher assigned a research paper on the Vietnam War.

As I listen to Carter, I realize more and more that it’s not unusual for comics, even superhero comics, to instill a love of learning. “Going back to the X‑Men series, I know that [Chris] Claremont’s vocabulary certainly helped inspire my own,” Carter says. “Not everyone needs to know what a telekinetic person is, but I knew at a fairly early age. There’s a long history of comics influencing people’s vocabulary for the better, or at least not doing them any harm.”

The same holds true for Josh Elder, an award-winning graphic novelist and nationally syndicated cartoonist who, in 2009, founded Reading With Pictures (RWP), a nonprofit organization that advocates the use of comics to promote literacy and improve educational outcomes. Elder also had a difficult time in school — not so much with comprehension (his IQ tested off the charts), but with finding relevance in his studies. All of that began to change when his teachers encouraged his passion for reading comics.

“The biggest challenge is getting [students] to pay attention in the first place, getting them to give a damn,” says Elder, who also writes several titles for DC Comics, including Scribblenauts Unmasked, The Batman Strikes! and Adventures of Superman.

“Comics are a way to do that. That’s the hardest fight you have to face as a teacher. Getting them to actually understand the material once they’re actually paying attention to you and listening — that’s not as hard as getting them to pay attention in the first place.”

Carter gives me some advice. “You might be surprised who is working for Marvel or who is inking for DC or who is editing for scholastics in your state,” he says. “Even if they’re not particularly in your neighborhood, you’d be surprised how many folks are nearby.”

Essay 2.3

Using Pop and Rock to Teach History

Original date unconfirmed · July 1, 2018 (Medium archive) · Medium

Read archived article · Source details

I’m a junior at Brimmer and May, a fantastic independent school in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, excited about following song lyrics to Barry McGuire’s 1965 rendition of “Eve of Destruction.”

We’re studying the Cold War, and today I’m about to listen to one of the greatest anti-war songs ever recorded. Listen to “Eve of Destruction.”

My teacher encourages the class to sing along, and all of us are doing much more than just jamming out. We’re engaging with an amazing primary source, brought alive by the magic of sound recording. Who cares that passersby are looking at us with confused faces? We’re engaging in deep learning. And we’re having a blast.

There’s enough substance in the opening verse alone to direct an entire week with valuable discussion. And it did.

From the threat of nuclear annihilation and violent world conflict to nonsensical governmental regulations, I’m finding tremendous relevance in what I’m learning.

Seven years later, as an American history teacher myself, I “steal” from my teacher and his use of music to engage student interest. Here are some of my favorite “teaching songs” from three awesome decades.

The Roaring 1920s

Eddie Cantor (“Makin’ Whoopee”/1928): Made popular by Cantor in the 1928 musical Whoopee!, the song addresses sex and love, two major themes of the time, as well as the possibility of disillusionment and divorce. The issues Cantor sings about are authentic, but the lyrics and upbeat tone distinguish themselves from much darker songs of the 1930s.

Gene Austin (“My Blue Heaven”/1927): Written in 1924, Austin’s rendition perfectly exemplifies the “good old days” of the 1920s. This is made all the more clear when Austin sings, “What makes the world go round/Nothing but love.” Of course, I am also careful to point out that contrary to popular recollection of the period, many people, especially Black Americans and other minorities, never experienced anything close to a “blue heaven.”

The Great Depression

Billie Holiday (“Gloomy Sunday”/1941): With a melody written by Hungarian composer Rezső Seress in 1933, the song was popularized by Holiday in 1941, after Hal Kemp recorded a version with English lyrics by Sam Lewis in 1936. The lyrics refer to suicide, with Holiday singing, “Gloomy is Sunday,/With Shadows I spend it all/My heart and I/Have decided to end it all.” I can think of no better song to illustrate the sadness of the 1930s.

Judy Garland (“Over the Rainbow”/1939): Written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg for the classic movie The Wizard of Oz, no song (or movie) does a better job of demonstrating the enduring optimism of the human spirit. Playing the character of Dorothy, Garland sings, “Someday I’ll wish upon a star/Wake up where the clouds are far behind me/Where trouble melts like lemon drops/High above the chimney tops/That’s where you’ll find me.” I point out to students that shortly after the song, Dorothy ends up in the Land of Oz, and it’s no coincidence that the black-and-white film turns to color — or that happy munchkins are singing and dancing. Things have gotten better. Before I give too much away, I ask my juniors to discuss what greater message this transition reveals.

The Nifty Fifties

Bill Haley and His Comets (“Rock Around the Clock”/1954): It’s not the best Rock ’n’ Roll song, but I love how the song speaks to 1950s teen angst. Parents and authorities be damned. These kids will be rocking all day and all night. I often play this song before or after showing select scenes from Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955), starring James Dean, the original and legendary bad boy.

Elvis Presley (“Hound Dog”/1956): The King of Rock ’n’ Roll wasn’t the first person to record this song — Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton was — but his rendition took the nation by storm. I ask my students to investigate the meaning of the lyrics, which stand up as a radio-friendly insult to unfaithful lovers — especially for Thornton, an amazingly gifted singer. I then show my students a YouTube clip, highlighting the significance and controversy surrounding the King’s televised musical appearances.

Teachers, don’t shy away from having students analyze song lyrics as primary documents. I can think of few more engaging ways to help students become interested in history.

Essay 2.4

Beyond “Down With Textbooks”

January 29, 2026 · Educate. (Medium)

Read original article · Source details

Editorial date note: This essay predates Gordon S. Wood’s death on June 7, 2026; present-tense references reflect the time of writing.

I’ll concede the obvious up front… for some teachers, a textbook functions as a lifeline.

If you teach five sections of 30-plus students, follow a mandated pacing calendar, face evaluations tied to standardized tests, or are a new teacher still building content knowledge, a textbook often makes sense.

It’s predictable, aligned, and (mostly) defensible in curricular meetings. At times, it’s the only thing holding a course together when time, staffing, and policy tighten and render planning impossible.

I understand why educators, in those circumstances, covet that kind of support. But we need to be honest about the real price — beyond absurdly expensive hardcover publications. Textbooks prioritize coverage over depth, and they rarely cultivate curiosity or deep thinking. If you have the freedom to choose something better — especially in English or history — choose it. Even when that choice demands more work, select materials that meet students where they are and invite them to read, reason, and write.

When structure becomes surrender

More than a decade ago, I wrote “Down With Textbooks” for The Atlantic, arguing that heavy reliance on textbooks drains interest — even from the most intrinsically motivated students. The textbook’s sheer size also tempts teachers and students alike to confuse coverage with learning. As far as content goes, I favor depth over breadth.

As much as I admire Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Eric Foner, the seventh AP edition of Give Me Liberty!: An American History exceeds 1,000 pages. Even the so-called “brief” high school edition — printed on smaller pages and one I assigned earlier in my career — still stretches beyond 900. Can we honestly expect students to remain engaged, even with careful sectioning and built-in supports?

That tension surprised me when I interviewed Foner in 2014. At the time, I held his textbook in high regard, largely because of my admiration for his scholarship. Yet Foner spoke forcefully against the very instructional practices his AP tome (and many others) so often supports — especially the emphasis on multiple-choice testing.

I will concede (and even celebrate) that the AP United States History exam improved its multiple-choice section after the 2014–15 redesign, which pushed students toward more analytical thinking rather than sheer rote memorization. Still, there are limits to how much any multiple-choice assessment can be dressed up; it remains a pig in lipstick.

This tension between assessment design and classroom reality helps explain why many historians remain sympathetic to the constraints high school teachers face.

“I respect what high school teachers do enormously,” Foner told me. “They have a much harder job than we do at the college level.”

He emphasized the importance of students’ knowing historical facts — without having those facts drilled into them — and criticized what he called the nation’s ongoing “testing mania.” Multiple-choice exams, he argued, fail to measure genuine historical understanding.

The question lingered: Why write a textbook that so often serves the system over students — or, in this case, the College Board? I never asked. As a newer teacher speaking with one of America’s most venerated historians, I hesitated.

I still do not presume to know. But based on our conversation then and occasional email exchanges since, I believe Foner aimed to help less knowledgeable teachers do the best they can for their students. His textbook offers scaffolding, and whatever its limits, I have no doubt his misgivings remain genuine.

In 2021, when he joined a Zoom meeting with my American history students while the pandemic still raged, Foner seemed to double down on his views.

“I don’t much like standardized tests, especially for history,” Foner said. “Maybe for math, where there is a correct answer along with [many] incorrect answer[s]. But in history, so much of it is interpretation. Questions that can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’ are pretty unimportant questions.”

Standardized tests, Foner continued, encourage teaching to the test rather than teaching students how to think critically, creatively, and independently about the past.

In 2013, I interviewed James Loewen, the famous author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, well before his death in 2021. Textbooks then were beginning to run slightly shorter, but they still felt too long — and far too dull.

“The most boring course aims at the best students,” Loewen told me. “This is refreshing, in a way, because usually [in] most subjects [we] teach the so-called slow students in a boring way, and we get the interested students writing poetry or doing something fascinating. But not in the case of history.”

Too many teachers, Loewen argued, champion memorization of disconnected factoids — what he called “twigs” — instead of helping students see “the forest for the trees.” “Twigs are perfectly good,” he said, “but if you just sit there and teach them twigs, then you bore them to death.”

I still agree. Textbooks tend to present the past as settled, even though historical interpretation constantly shifts. They flatten conflict into consensus, replace argument with tidy summary, and narrow the story into something top-down and power-centered. For teenagers, they feel less like invitations than obstacles.

In my Atlantic essay, I wrote, “Nothing destroys student interest faster and more completely than a heavy reliance on textbooks.” I also included a line that still makes some educators wince: textbooks can become “a crutch for teachers who don’t know history — or the historian’s craft.”

I didn’t intend that as a moral judgment. I meant it as a description of succumbing to a temptation. Textbooks, after all, feel safe. The problem isn’t just that textbooks exist — or even that teachers rely on them. It’s that the alternatives are often designed with adults in mind, not adolescents.

The Promise of No Textbook

For five years, I assigned Gordon Wood’s The American Revolution: A History. Wood wrote the book with high school readers explicitly in mind. I wanted it to work. I needed it to work. It still didn’t do the trick.

Saying that pains me. I adore Gordon Wood. I think extraordinarily highly of his work. He is, without question, a giant in the field. Few historians have done more to clarify the ideological and social consequences of the American Revolution, and fewer still have tried — deliberately and repeatedly — to speak beyond their peers.

But my students didn’t experience Wood as a giant. They experienced him as dense.

A lot of excellent “popular” history quietly assumes background knowledge that many sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds simply don’t have yet. Educators rarely notice the scaffolding they carry around in their own heads. Teenagers feel every missing bit.

Those gaps don’t just produce confusion. They produce resentment. Students begin to equate “serious history” with feeling stupid, and the discipline gets blamed for a mismatch the student didn’t create.

With Wood, the pattern stayed consistent. Students could underline passages. They could cull vocabulary. They could summarize sections when prompted. But many struggled to answer the question that actually matters in a history classroom: What is Wood arguing right now, in this chapter — and how does he know?

I slowed the pace and intervened constantly. The feedback never really changed: Wood’s prose felt packed, my students said, hard to hold onto.

It would have been easy to blame smart devices, shortened attention spans, or the general noise of contemporary adolescence. Those pressures are real. But lowering expectations has never interested me. The answer, I came to realize, wasn’t to dilute rigor. It was to relocate it.

Instead of grading whether students could survive a dense chapter, I quickly shifted toward grading whether they could think like historians with what they read. I prioritized argumentative writing grounded in evidence, seminar discussion that rewarded reasoning over recall, and primary-source analysis that required students to source, corroborate, and contextualize. The results improved, but they never proved transformative.

Ironically, Wood himself articulated the problem better than most academics ever have.

In a 2017 interview with me, focused on President Trump’s misunderstanding of the past, Wood acknowledged what specialization had done to historical writing. Academic history, he told me, had become “so quasi-scientific that articles appearing in journals are unintelligible to a lay audience.”

My students have taught me that clarity, for them, must be deliberately constructed from what they consume; otherwise, my expectations don’t come to fruition. History textbooks and monographs — almost always written for an adult audience with preexisting knowledge — rarely provide that clarity on their own.

All of this shows, I hope, a commitment to inviting my students to think and engage in healthy struggle with appropriate material. It rests on my strong belief that young people rise when the work asks them to reason rather than merely endure.

In my new curriculum for next year, I put in the work to meet my juniors in American history where they are. I replaced Wood with Martha Brockenbrough’s Alexander Hamilton, Revolutionary — a biography written by a young adult novelist, but deliberately crafted with high school readers in mind.

In a recent conversation, Brockenbrough put into words what my students had been trying to tell me for years.

“The context that’s necessary to understand history and to connect to it is essential,” she said, “and it’s often missing in books written for adult readers.”

That resonated with me because it names the hidden prerequisite too many of us pretend students already have: a map.

It also resonated with my students because it validates their experience. Confusion doesn’t always mean lack of effort. Sometimes it means the book never opened the door.

Brockenbrough rejects the common fear that accessibility cheapens substance. “For me, the emotional impact of stuff that you would write for a teenager is exactly the same as the emotional impact for adult,” she said, “but to make it accessible, to open that door, you just provide the context.”

In other words, teachers shouldn’t lower the ceiling (our expectations). We should build the stairs.

Brockenbrough also framed an uncomfortable truth about education.

“We don’t need to package things and teach them for the test because ultimately that kind of learning is forgettable,” she said. “The way we should teach kids to learn is to love to learn and to be curious and to be rewarded for their curiosity.”

That sounded like my classroom on its best days, when students argue because they care, not because they want points and a higher grade.

And when Brockenbrough reminded me that “history is made by people just like us living their lives and making choices,” she handed me the exact standard I want for my students’ writing: less summary, more analysis.

This isn’t a retreat. I still want students to engage in serious learning and form arguments grounded in cause and effect. I just want them to climb that mountain with appropriate footing.

If you have the option, consider ditching the textbook, choosing instead monographs or books, and devising courses that match your students’ needs and engage their curiosity. In an ideal world, the person best positioned to decide what content to assign is you, not administrators, outside consultants, or companies.

And yes, I’ll concede again that sometimes a textbook still makes sense. Some classrooms need that spine — even with talented, knowledgeable teachers — because the system demands it.

But even in those settings, my tactics stay the same: when students can access the text, the learning changes. They stop reading to “get through it” and start reading to figure something out.

Discussion improves with more voices, stronger claims, and real counterclaims, and that energy spreads. Students’ writing gets sharper, questions improve, and students start to see history less as an answer key and more as an argument they’re invited to enter.

That’s my hope.

Essay 2.5

Can Teachers Think Outside of the Box?

Original date unconfirmed · June 25, 2018 (Medium archive) · Medium

Read archived article · Source details

More than ever, educators are expected to foster creativity in the classroom — and to use emerging technology and pedagogical trends to do so. Whatever else is involved in this endeavor (and there’s a whole lot), I fear too few teachers know what creativity actually is, much less how to foster it.

With this in mind, I recently read a short but illuminating piece by Ronald A. Beghetto and James C. Kaufman, Fundamentals of Creativity: Five insights can help educators nurture student creativity in ways that enhance academic learning. “Education policy makers are increasingly advocating including student creativity in the curriculum,” the authors write. “But without a clear understanding of the nature of creativity itself, such well-meaning advocacy may do more harm than good; educators may experience calls for teaching creativity as just another guilt-inducing addition to an already-overwhelming set of curricular demands.”

Try as they might, teachers throw up their hands in despair because neither they nor their administrators know how to define creativity, or how to make it work in a rigid system, one which favors playing it safe over risk-taking and discovery. Only after a summer of reading about creativity did I realize that “creativity” encompasses an entire academic field; and, as it turns out, it’s not a mysterious or difficult quality to define or measure.

To gain deeper insight, I spoke with Kaufman, a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut, in the Neag School of Education. He tells me that educators often think of creativity as the ability to “think outside the box,” and to come up with new ideas. Those are aspects of creativity, but there is a lot more to it. He says, “It’s funny because one of the stereotypes is that you can’t define creativity, but the researchers have done a pretty decent job of it, actually.”

In fact, most scholars agree that creativity involves the combination of originality and task appropriateness. Kaufman explains how this might apply to a classroom setting: “If you are teaching in the language arts, you need to have the creativity take place within the context of . . . teaching grammar,” he explains. “There are different ways that creativity can be expressed, but it still needs to follow a basic structure and things still need to get done.”

Kaufman visited one school where a math teacher used “Dance, Dance Revolution” to teach about patterns. Unfortunately, a new principal axed the idea, likely out of fear that the activity was unproductive. This reeks of ignorance from what I think are well-meaning administrators, who want to retain a one-size-fits-all strict and orderly learning environment. In my experience, creativity is messy, especially in the classroom.

Even if you have an administrator who doesn’t value creativity, either from teachers or students, this doesn’t mean game over. “You can create as safe an environment as possible, [so] you can model risk‑taking and not necessarily risk‑taking like risking your job,” Kaufman explains, noting that teachers could give students wider choice on which questions to answer, and how to answer them. But Kaufman also gives me another piece of advice, which I take to heart: “Risk looking stupid in front of your students.” I often go one better by admitting failure, and then modeling how to get back up. I talk about my shortcomings and how I plan to learn and recover from them. It’s human to be creative and to fail — and students need to know as much.

Similarly, I want my students to know that it’s okay to fail, and that I want them to try new and daring things. I can’t think of one successful person, however defined, who got to where she is without learning from failure. More still, I fear that a child’s receiving good marks or high praise will encourage him always to play it safe. For that reason, more than any other, I dislike external motivators like grades and awards.

I ask Kaufman for his thoughts: “There’s a lot of people out there that say extrinsic motivation kills creativity, and gold stars, or check marks, or praise will just crush students’ creativity. There’s certainly some truth in that, but what some researchers found is that if you make sure the students know that you want them to be creative, rewards don’t hurt as badly.”

Kaufman encourages more teachers to learn about creativity, and what it actually means. “I could write a book about cheese, but that doesn’t mean I know anything about cheese,” he tells me, noting that some of the creativity consultants that schools rely on are well trained, but some are just people who call themselves “creativity consultants.”

“Do most teachers know what creativity is as we would define it? Do they know the things that would nurture it or hinder it? How to measure it? Probably not any more than any smart professional,” Kaufman says. To help address this issue, read Kaufman’s work, including his book, Creativity 101, one of the best I’ve read on the subject.