Hey gang! John here. As you know, here at EMC² Learning Michael and I are all about creativity. And today, I’d like to take you inside of the creative process that inspires the type of work that we do here for teachers and students around the world.
Let’s start with a story…
One of my favorite parables about creative work comes from David Bayles and Ted Orland’s Art & Fear:
“[A] ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality…
Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity… while the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”
You can picture it, right? The dusty studio. The piles of pots. The bathroom scale. The crash course in learning by doing. I remember reading that story for the first time and thinking YES! There’s something so freeing in its message — a reminder that perfection isn’t the path to mastery. Practice is.
So imagine my surprise a few years back when I cracked open James Clear’s Atomic Habits (absolute must-read, by the way) and found the exact same parable… except this time, it was set in a photography studio. And this time, the author had actual names to back up his claim.
ON THE FIRST DAY of class, Jerry Uelsmann, a professor at the University of Florida, divided his film photography students into two groups…
Wait… what?
Turns out, the story is real — and the real-world origin was a photography class. Bayles and Orland just swapped in ceramics to help broaden the metaphor. And honestly? That detail makes the story even better. Because it means the lesson holds true no matter the medium.
The timeless art of Pottery.
The delicate craft of old school Photography.
The newfangled frontier of… Prompt engineering?!?!
Which brings me to a strange and unexpectedly illuminating experience with a little viral trend that’s been sweeping across social media:
A.I.-Generated Action Figures.
Prompt. Tweak. Repeat. (And Repeat Again.)
When I first saw this trend on my social media feed — custom “blister pack” action figures designed using A.I. tools — I was intrigued. I thought it might be fun to try making one for myself. But what started as a whimsical experiment quickly became something more: a deep dive into the art of prompt engineering.
Like, actually making these bad boys look good? That took a ton of work.
So, like any self-respecting scientist, I decided to volunteer myself as the test subject for this little experiment. I stared by uploading a reference photo of myself, and writing a quick prompt that asked ChatGPT to create a photorealistic looking action figure of this handsome fella based on the reference image I’d provided.
And boy howdy, did things not go the way that I had planned.
The first few drafts looked… off. The faces were warped. The backgrounds were funky. The accessories were wrong or totally misspelled. It was one cracked pot after another.
But with each iteration, I got better.
I revised prompts.
I fine-tuned my descriptions.
I made clearer decisions about lighting, texture, spacing, and framing.
I even reworded things to better match the visual language of collectible toy design.
What looked like “just typing” to a casual observer was actually a masterclass in metacognitive revision, artistic direction, and trial-and-error learning.
And honestly? That’s the part nobody tells you about A.I.: Doing it well takes a ton of thought. Because when it was all said and done…
This Wasn’t Cheating. It Was Craft.
Critics are quick to dismiss AI-generated content as “unoriginal” or “lazy.” But as any educator knows: creativity isn’t just about what you make. It’s about how you make it.
This silly little action figure? It forced me to slow down. To develop an eye for detail. To fail, and reflect, and try again. It invited me to play — not mindlessly, but purposefully.
And isn’t that exactly what we want for our students?
Whether they’re remixing classic texts, experimenting with design, or just exploring the potential of AI tools under teacher supervision — we’re not training kids to be perfect.
We’re training them to practice.
Which leads me to the point: This isn’t about shiny toys or gimmicky tech. It’s about building the habit of thoughtful experimentation — and giving students the structure, freedom, and feedback they need to make something that’s not just “good enough,” but actually good.
The Takeaways
By the end of the project, here’s what I learned:
- Process > Product
The best work doesn’t come from chasing perfection — it comes from showing up again and again, making little tweaks along the way. - Becoming > Being
Mastery isn’t a moment. It’s a mindset. A willingness to play, to fail, and to grow. - Technique > Technology
A.I. didn’t make this great. My dogged persistence in the use of A.I. did. The tool was only as strong as the process I brought to it.
In fact, we loved this process so much that we built a plug-and-play version of the entire experience to help teachers bring it to life with their students. It’s available now to all EMC² Learning members and comes complete with:
- Step-by-step teacher instructions
- Student-friendly prompt suggestions
- Tons of visual examples
- Built-in reflection and revision checkpoints
Whether your students are revisiting Shakespeare or researching the Civil War, this activity challenges them to play with purpose — acknowledging the truth that real learning is often pretty messy, but combining content knowledge with creativity helps us to craft all kinds of durable thinking skills in the process.
Because when the work is rooted in reflection, the product gets better. And when students have the courage to try again? That’s when the real magic happens—one cracked pot at a time.
The activities featured in this blog post are just a handful of the 900+ resources available and on their way to arrive shortly in the EMC² Learning library. This entire library is available to all members with an active Engagement Engineer or Engagement Engineer PLUS account, and is included with your annual site membership. We hope you’ll consider joining us as an Engagement Engineer to unlock a full year of site access. For complete details including our exclusive limited time offer for annual site membership, click here.