Posts Tagged ‘
creativity ’
Here’s my bottom line: The most important task of a school leader is to embrace the challenge of having a clear and shared vision of equitable outcomes for all students. It is the democratic principle of fairness upon which our country is founded and the basis for truly changing the achievement gaps that now prevail.
With the recent news that only 66% of Oregon students graduate high school, it’s clear that this vision does not “just happen.” It has to be owned and shared by the whole school community. It must be intentional, planned, implemented and supported to be sustainable. It must be evident every day, every week and every month in every classroom. All students, teachers and parents need to know and own a common vision of outcomes at their school. What must each student know and be able to do when he/she graduates? When this is clear and held dear, there is a true school spirit.
All students come from somewhere special, each with different backgrounds, different experiences and different circumstances. The whole of their differences is the beautiful mosaic of school. And when they come through the school doors, they are in a place where equity can happen. But there must be a roadmap for success for each student in each classroom across these differences.
Teachers must lead the way for the students. They must know their students well, understanding them across all their differences. They must ask the question: What does it take for a student to enter a school at one level of achievement, move forward, and then graduate with the highest potential achievement? That’s the daily challenge of teaching, at every level.
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Category:
education achievement gap, equity, student achievement, student success, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies |
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Tags: achievement gap, at risk students, classroom tactics, creativity, education reform, inspiration, learning styles, reflection, student achievement, student engagement, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies
One of the questions I posed last week to my fourth graders was, “If I’m a carnivore, do I need plants?” Some said yes and some no.
I spend a good deal of time teaching kids how to convince with facts and polite discussion. They sit in teams, put heads together and work out their issues. The yes people proved their point to the no people. We don’t always have smooth discussions and feelings sometimes get hurt. We work on it—a lot. Kids learn that they can stand down from an initial idea when faced with proof and not lose face. Some of the phrases we use are “That’s a good idea, but have you thought about…”
Yes, civility and debate need to be explicitly taught as does critical thinking.
When one kid declared that, “We are all in this together,” after our food web discussion, it made me think of the remarks that I often hear about educational issues. One argument in particular strikes me time and again: the one about how public education generates no money so it should bear the brunt of the economic crisis while corporations should have a lesser tax burden because they drive the economy. Obviously, these people have not reflected on the interdependence of the public and private sector, just as some of my students at first didn’t see the connection between individual members of a food web.
I wonder if across our nation, we are reaping the harvest of a generation that wasn’t asked to dig deeply to find connections. The inability to debate civilly quite possibly stems from inadequate training in school, the result of sitting in rows and competitively trying to get the highest score on tests that have no gray areas. Our curricula have always tended to stress superficial knowledge of lots of subjects at the expense of in-depth collaborative analysis.
The good news is that there is a move to develop an American public that is more thoughtful. Educators at all levels currently use “larger questions” to teach higher level thinking through content. Just last week we debated whether Capt. Meriwether Lewis was a good leader, which prompted a search for direct evidence. And it’s not just me—it’s happening in many classrooms. A current national push for high school graduation requirements to include community service will develop a generation that also looks beyond themselves.
In Oregon, we have developed testing that now necessitates that kids think critically. In fourth grade, students are asked to write a multi-paragraph paper in order to pass the writing test. Writing takes considerable logical thinking to organize and stamina to produce. New this year in elementary school math, we now have three tested areas where kids need to show a truly deep understanding of the topic. Gone are the days when success on standardized tests solely involved memorizing the algorithm to answer a computation problem.
While today people may look exclusively at test scores and think that public schools are failing, many of us are thinking more deeply about what defines success in our schools. We are aiming for higher standards. We work to develop a generation of superior thinkers who will debate logically and civilly, and who will in turn respect the contributions of all individuals in our society.
Category:
education reform, student achievement, student success, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies |
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Tags: classroom tactics, collaborative culture, creativity, education reform, inspiration, reflection, student achievement, student engagement, teaching strategies
“All children are born artists. The problem is to remain artist as we grow up.” ~Picasso
Ken Robinson agrees, “We don’t grow into creativity; we grow out of it. Kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they’ll have a go. They’re not frightened of being wrong.” But something happens that shuts down this inherent spark. Robinson claims the classroom is to blame for crushing creativity saying, “We are now running national education where mistakes are the worst things you can make.” Listening to his bold interpretations, I cannot help but nod along with his words. Because yes, a magical quality exists within children—the willingness to try, to step into the unknown, to create from scratch—that allows creativity to thrive, and yet somehow, somewhere, it disappears.
Too many classrooms suck the creative spark out of children—suffocating with standards and structure, judging on numbers and ranking with letters—merely equipping students with the tools necessary to obtain the “correct” answer using minimal time, effort, and resources. While this may be optimal for industry—high accuracy and efficiency—it’s far from preparing students for who they can be: innovative, collaborative, authentic, critical-thinking intellectuals and creators.
But the story doesn’t end here, for the crushing of creativity is not confined to classroom walls. No. It’s contagious and running rampant throughout all levels of education in America. Teachers, administrators, board members, union representatives, educational leaders… we all face that fear of making a mistake, which drives us to choose the shortest, simplest, most familiar, most likely to be “right” route. We do what’s been done before—because it’s safe. (more…)
Category:
education reform, student success, teacher advocacy, teaching strategies |
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Tags: classroom tactics, collaborative culture, creativity, education agenda, education reform, innovation, inspiration, learning styles, student engagement, teacher frustration
