Sir Ken Robinson defines creativity as “the process of having original ideas
that create value”. He reiterates that it is a process and not a
random act of inspiration, and that it needs to prove its worth. He points out that creativity is not the opposite to formality – instead a
mixture of discipline and space to innovate are required. Robinson contends that
“creativity is as important as literacy and should be treated as
such.” Our schools are currently designed, like he said, in a
hierarchy, in which specific skills, namely math and languages, are
valued over others.
Sir Robinson mentioned a couple reasons why
having this hierarchy is ridiculous:
The purpose of education shouldn't be to get into college.
Believe in high standards does not mean education has to be standardized.
We don't need to reform education -- we need to transform it.
Creativity is a part of not apart from intelligence.
We don't grow in to creativity, we get educated out of it. One of the reasons why an academic hierarchy is ultimately futile is because people cannot accurately assign value to skills that may or may not be valuable in 30, 20, or even 10 years. If we cannot accurately assess what skills children will need for the future- how can we place a value or emphasis on any particular skill now? Sir Robinson further ridiculed the stress we place on children to be right and not make mistakes. Children, and people in general, need to be willing to make mistakes in order to create an innovation. In fact, some of the most well-known products (penicillin, coca-cola, etc) are the results of what was initially a 'mistake.' This all-out rejection of mistakes stifles creativity, perhaps, more than any one factor in our schools and in society.
By finding new ways to praise children’s efforts and ideas, and less ways to assess them on their mistakes, we will embrace the initiative to rethink the fundamental ways we educate children in the context of their endlessly, vast capabilities.
There are several points in Arne's Duncan's speech of which I dissent, however the overarching purpose: a plead to realize the urgency through which educational reformation must take place, is immediately and timelessly relevant.
“By almost any standard,” Duncan told a Columbia University audience of students, teachers, and faculty, “many if not most of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st century classroom.” While this statement is unequivocally true, Duncan's failure to state what specific component is 'mediocre' renders the potential effectiveness of the statement itself-at best mediocre. The abstractness of this earlier, 'mediocrity' claim is indicative of the circumlocutory speech that merely calls for, rather than offers a solution. Duncan does, however, reference what he considers 'pristine' models of schools of education. The shared characteristic that contributes to each of these programs' effectiveness is the central emphasis of a practicum or field experience.
To this end, I consider myself blessed to be a part of an equally propitious program- Mississippi Teacher Corps. Being able to immediately introduce the practical components of 'Advanced Methods in English' to my seventh grade class only two days after receiving instruction, both actualizes coursework and prevents instruction from becoming at all theoretical. Taking this course in preparation, rather than in conjunction with teaching would not have rendered the same lucrative advantage.
In especially the 21st century, teacher roles and responsibilities are ever-more demanding. At a time when teachers are required to not only instruct, but moreover be TST coordinators, committee coordinators, parent-teacher coordinators, behavior incentive activity coordinators, academic and behavior interventionists, as well as psychologists and/or (at times) social workers, not to mention literacy and exceptional education specialists - preparation today needs to require students to teach while receiving training. Preparation should include training in how to differentiate instruction and how to provide advisory services to students. The best training in this type of individualized education is not conceptual, but rather requires the teacher to regularly implement and actualize differentiated instructional practices with each of their students.
Critics of teacher preparation programs say that current teacher-training programs are too heavily steeped in theory and not useful in the classroom. They say that those who teach in schools of education are clueless about how to reach children with dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, Asperger’s syndrome or other learning challenges. To this end, Duncan understands that the only way to evaluate a teacher-training program is to look at how the teachers perform once in the classroom; the only way to do that is to measure how the students are doing.
With so much scrutiny aimed at measuring student performance from kindergarten to high school, many education schools never get around to asking the high-stakes questions about how well teachers are doing in their profession, where they received their training, how much they learned, and what can be improved. Until we start scrutinizing this part of the process, and look at who is teaching the teachers, we’ll never empower students to reach their academic potential and create a workforce that is globally competitive.
though i think arne duncan's speech on "teacher colleges" was pretty well-crafted, i don't know if i truly still understand the concept of a teacher's college. before i get into explaining why perhaps the most important thing could be to fund these institutions, i think i need to see if i actually believe in what they are aimed at doing.
I have mixed thoughts about Arne Duncan's feelings on schools of education. I agree with him that schools of education need to add rigor (I'm so sick of hearing that word used at work, but it does apply here). There's obviously some truth to the idea that schools of ed are a joke. To that end, I support the general idea of measuring effectiveness of various individual programs and shutting down those that do not produce effective classroom teachers.
I also agree with his point that teacher preparation programs need to include more hands-on practical training with feedback from veteran teachers as mentors. I would go a step further, though--those mentors need to come from a teaching background in the type of community where their apprentice teachers will be teaching. In other words, education professors who have never taught in a critical-needs school should not be evaluating student-teachers working in such a school. If there's anything I've realized in the last few months, it's that my high school bears no relation to the school where I work--it's a completely different environment, with different challenges. So if student-teachers are to get good feedback, it needs to come from a professor who has already gone through the same experiences to the greatest degree possible.
I'm more skeptical of Duncan's argument that content-area knowledge needs to be a prioritiy in schools of education. Now, I know that I was fortunate to receive both a K-12 and a college education that were better than most. But I wasn't an English major in college, and I still don't feel that my problems in the classroom stem from a lack of knowleldge within my subject area. Perhaps if I were teaching English III or IV, where students are reading novels, or another subject area, like history or science, where the focus is on content as much as skills, I would feel differently. But as it is, I would benefit far more from a course on how to teach reading skills than a literature seminar on various American novels.
My main concern with Duncan's argument, though, is that his emphasis on data analysis--which I absolutely agree is a valuable tool--may lead to the kind of focus on standardized tests that is causing me to tear my hair out every day. He's talking about data analysis on two levels. One, within the individual classroom. This I agree with--using data analysis to assess how well the students are grasping particular objectives, for example. But I'm concerned about the other data collection purpose--to compare performance across classrooms. This can only be accomplished through standardized testing. And that's why I have a problem with it. Teaching to a test is dangerous not only because teachers risk teaching concepts in so specialized a way that they have little meaning outside that particular test, but because it's so hard to make it interesting and engaging for students. And it is really, really stressful. Is there no other way to differentiate between good and bad teachers?
Oh, what I wouldn't give right now to be an MTC alum, happily sitting at a table at Bofield's, in this very video.
TWO DAYS.
Anyway.
Like everyone else, I loved Pete's speech. What an accurate summary of everything I feel on a daily basis. I laughed out loud at the line about Things I Would Rather Do/Have Done to Me Than Teach. For the past few weeks, it has been getting harder and harder to get out of bed and go to work. Lately, I feel like I've been having to put in an unusual amount of mental effort to get excited about my lessons. It's always nice to be reminded that that's just part of the deal.
His story of speaking at the funeral of one of his students was very humbling. First, it was so clear how important this student was to Pete, and how devastating her death was. I do care about my kids, but I don't know if I've had the kind of impact on them that Pete must have had to be asked to speak at his student's funerals. An honor you would never wish on anyone.
Laughter and tears aside, the real insight of Pete's speech is something that I know a lot of us have been thinking about lately--how just plain hard teaching is, and how it doesn't necessarily reward hard work. As Pete said, sometimes you work really hard, and it just blows up in your face. I've already had this experience numerous times this semester--I planned a great lesson, I killed myself to get a particular assignment graded quickly, and the kids don't respond or even notice. So many of us MTC-ers are classic overachievers, good at everything we do. And we see success as a function of hard work. But that just doesn't work with teaching. It's hard to have daily failures, and nowhere to hide when you do. So it's nice to be told by someone who has done this for two years that we are doing something, even if it doesn't look like it.
One last thing: as all the inside jokes (and laughter in response) show, this is one hell of a bonding experience. I think my favorite part of the video was just imagining our class in the same place in a year and a half. I'm so happy to be going through this with such a good bunch.
Terrance Buckner is a teenager from Brooklyn and a graduate of the mothshop which seems to be some sort of creativity workshop where people get together and tell stories and read poems and the like. Anyway Terrance decided to share with an audience at the moth shop his experience of persecution when he first admitted he was gay to his family and classmates. Terrance tells a story where he admits to his mother that he is gay(because he feels she needs to know) and his brother finds out. His brother pronounces this the next day at school and people start questioning Terrance on his sexuality, to which Terrance admits he is homosexual. He then faces ridicule from friends and classmates and gets jumped after school. The next day Terrance decides to stand up to the bullies symbolically by wearing his "skinny" pants, sending the message that the bullying was not going to defeat him. In the end, Terrance feels he has won because he didn't let the bullying change who he was.
The story as a whole was a pretty stereotypical gay bullying story and its too bad that it happened. Unfortunately apart of being homosexual is being different(in terms of sexuality) from most of the population and kids pick on other kids who they deem as "different" or "wierd". Even though homosexuality is far more accepted now than it was in the past, the very nature that homosexuals make up a relatively small percentage of the population means that gay kids will always receive some ridicule or persecution from the peers, although this decreases with age.
As far as the story's relationship to teaching and education I suppose the moral of the story is to know who to trust, don't gossip, don't ruffle feathers, and always be yourself. Don't ever let others' negativity prevent you from being who you are and becoming the best person you can be.
The Rita Bender discussion was very interesting. First of all, I am absolubtely fascinated with American history. My grandfather was a civil war buff and collected old civil war antiques and would show me them from time to time. He also kept extensive historical data on my ancestors. He actually wrote a book documenting family trees and biographies on every ancestor of mine dating back seven generations. So needless to say, I was immediately hooked when given the opportunity to view actual excerpts from historically used textbooks. Its' so much better to recieve information from a primary source, and you really got to learn a lot about Mississippi culture at the time by viewing those documents. It's one thing to hear about past racial attitudes, but its quite another to actually be able to hold and view original documents of the time. Its' easy to see how so many people of the time grew up with racial bias as it was being blatanly taught in schools and without black and white school integration it was easy for the ideas expressed in the book to be accepted without question. Also the damage that the text may have had to the psyche of black schoolchildren is forseeable.
The questions in the essay contest also highlight significant racial bias and it was eye opening that that was being ingrained in Mississippi youth in the 1950's. Overall, the documents taught me more about Mississippi's racial history than anything I have heard since arriving. Again this goes back to being given actual education documents that were ditributed in the past to Mississippians.
The discussion itself was less educational than the historical documents and turned into more of a heated regional battle among MTC'ers with native northerners making broad unfair generalizations about the south and native southerners making unfair broad generalizations about New England.
The day concluded with an argument about whether a teacher who was teaching in a predominantly black school who had a stuffed monkey in her room was an ignorant racist(or something to that extent). Honestly I think we should be past the point where anyone associates black people with monkeys and I think the idea that someone would make that association was completely lost on the teacher. I don't think it was a big deal either way, but if it bothered one of the parents then it should be removed so the class can move on.
No, it doesn’t have to. No matter how constrained a teacher is, I’ve determined that school does not have to be a creativity killer. To apply some ancient, wise words (2 Corinthians 4:8-9): “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; … struck down, but not destroyed.” In other words, NCLB and the obsessive, accountability-driven administrative directives it begets cannot single-handedly kill creativity in the classroom. Sure, state tests “stigmatize failure,” as Ken Robinson states. Teachers, though, do not have to stigmatize failure.
Take a measure as simple as rewarding students for non-academic feats, for instance. Awarding Student of the Month to the most spirit-lifting comedian in the classroom validates him as much as a good grade. Teacher-initiated rewards address and negate Robinson’s contention that school only the intellectual successes at school are the winners. He contends that “the whole purpose of public education …is to produce university professors. … We shouldn’t hold them up as the highest form of achievement…they live in their heads.” Nay! The purpose of school is to make something productive out of young peoples minds and hours. Sure, there are ugly class wars circling around how those minds and hours are spent. But ideally, school is for producing more productive (emotionally, spiritually, vocationally --- not merely intellectually) members of society. School is where students have training wheels for how to function as adults. It’s a mini-society. I think Robinson would be a huge fan to Rousseau’s anti-social, child-centered vision of education. Unfortunately, as pastoral and sweet as this vision is, it falls short of what humans were created for: to serve and better each other.
No, schools do not “squander” the innate creativity in children wholesale, as Robinson overconfidently asserts. Schools are the environment in which time is set aside for creativity to be required. Without the structure of school, creativity wilts. Robinson is right to point out the paradoxical nature of creativity, such as that we do not mature into creativity, but rather we outgrow it, but he misses this important paradox about it: creativity needs structure just like fire needs oxygen. Without the push and the constraint to fuel creativity, or the probing questions of the teacher, or the small encouraging remarks along the way to the final creative product, a child’s creativity will be stifled. Also, in a school functioning properly, in which reading aloud and extolling reading should be a daily activity, the imagination will find no lack.
As to Robinson’s allusion to Picasso’s quote that we grow out of creativity, neither do I fully agree with this. Older children (teens) can use colors, tweak words, arrange sounds, plan projects and papers and speak more eloquently and purposefully than their younger counterparts. Who has the authority to say that creativity with more direction and eruditeness is somehow weaker than the innocent creativity that streams from a little mind? Classifying creativity in an hierarchy (eerily akin to what NCLB test standards do—classify schools and student achievement) and judging creativity as “the production of something both original and useful” (paraphrase) is rather utilitarian itself. Robinson defines creativity to uptightly, I’m afraid.
The Tunica River Park affords a host of opportunities for people who are seeking to understand the historical importance of the Mississippi River's usage from its beginnings with the Native Americans and conquistadors up through it's present-day significance as a major channel for transporting goods and individuals through the American midwest. In an ideal world my students would be able to visit the park and take advantage of the plethora of exhibits and time periods featured at the museum. However, structuring this time to maximize my students' learning must be undertaken carefully so that my students get the full effect of the academic experience of the Tunica River Park and do not simply view the excursion as pointless field trip.
Some of the before school activities that I could have my students complete are:
1) Completing a KWL chart to document students' knowledge prior to visiting the Tunic River Park
2) Researching the history of the Mississippi River and how it has been used in the past by disparate groups
3) Visiting a local river (i.e. the Yazoo River) and having students read about its historic regional significance
Some of the activities I could have my students complete while they are at the Tunic River Park are:
1) Creating a timeline to document the settling of the area around the Mississippi River
2) Describing the work of major figures who settles or worked along the Mississippi River
3) Formulating a schedule for other groups of students to complete a walking tour of the park on their own visit
Some of the activities I could have my students complete after their visit to the Tunica River Park include:
1) Finishing their KWL chart by filling in five things they learned from their visit to the Tunica River Park
2) Developing a community service project to spread the word throughout the Delta about the river's import
3) Writing a persuasive letter to a member of Congress urging them to allot money for sharing the river's history
When teaching in the districts that MTC places us in, tangible success is often hard to come by. Failure seems to be what is constantly in our face as we think of all the things that our students are doing besides learning, all the places that our students will likely end up besides college, and all the classroom management issues we face that make us want to roll over and call out sick. Every. Single. Day. Still, it's in the little things that teachers anywhere but especially in "critical needs" districts must focus on to maintain drive and focus and continue doing what too many others have deemed highly improbable or flatly impossible for centuries: educating poor Blacks.
In many of these districts MTC teachers teach in standardized tests are seen as foreboding signs of eminent doom and embarrassment. In these places, teaching "to the test" is often resorted to as the means through which educational salvation is reached. Teaching to the test is one thing but when you're in a school environment where, from day one, what's communicated to teachers is that teaching to the test is the ONLY thing, well then you're at KIPP. On some level this is understandable as testing determines so much at charter schools like KIPP from our enrollment to our ability to woo private funders to the very renewal of our charter with the state of Arkansas. However, I cannot help but shake my philosophical belief that I have more important life skills to teach my students than finding equivalent fractions and answering multiple choice items using process of elimination.
In any event, our big state test in Arkansas is called the ACTAAP or the Benchmark Exam. KIPP Delta in Helena has some of the highest test scores in the state at the middle school and high school levels. Last year, 94% of our 7th graders at KIPP Delta scored proficient or advanced on the mathematics Benchmark Exam compared to 66% of 7th graders statewide and only 33% of students in Helena-West Helena's regular public school system. What makes this even more remarkable to many is that our school is 99% Black, 99% free/reduced lunch, and in the heart of dilapidated downtown Helena close by local housing projects, gang territory, drugs, and prostitution. Last year's 7th grade math teacher who got these results was so successful that she has been given the green light to found her own school which will be opening in Blytheville, Arkansas in the fall of 2010 as a new KIPP middle school. She's only a year older than me. The venerable 7th grade math slot was thus available when I applied to KIPP this past spring and who teaches this course with the districtwide spotlight on it now?: me. The Black, hood guy from Harvard with two years of (social studies) teaching experience who's a few credits away from a master's degree in education.
Anyway, to my success story. In preparation for the end-of-the-year Benchmark Exam we take practice Benchmark Exams every month. We chart the progress of our students and use the practice Benchmark Exams to target particular students and skills for remediation and re-teaching. Results are scrutinized for hours on end at the individual, school, and district levels. It is highly nerve-wrecking to see where your students are at month-by-month and to know that the results will be known almost immediately by your peers and superiors and reflect your quality as a teacher. Lovely. In any event, the first practice Benchmark Exam we took was in late September. We took a second one two weeks ago in late October and although the success or failure of my students on the September exam could largely be attributed to what my students came into 7th grade knowing, my school director was clear in communicating that the October exam's results would be all my own.
Much to my surprise and the surprise of many a colleague, I'm sure, not only did my students' scores increase from the first to the second practice Benchmark Exam but these were the only scores that increased in any grade level, in any subject area at the entire school. Fifth, sixth, and eighth grade math scores went down. Fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade literacy scores went down. Fifth, sixth, seventh, and eight grade reading scores went down. Fifth and seventh grade science scores went down (we don't do sixth and eighth grade science testing). ONLY 7TH GRADE MATH SCORES WENT UP!!! I was elated when I saw the numbers displayed on the dry erase board at our faculty meeting the night we stayed at school until 10 p.m. grading exams and inputting results on our district network for more scrutiny. When looking at the individual students and their performances from the first to the second practice Benchmark Exam, I also noticed that most of the students whose scores increased were taught by me and not by the more experienced and better respected 8th grade math teacher who takes 15 of my 7th graders into his algebra class each day.
That's wassup. Right?
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