Do you value
creativity? I am thinking about whether creativity is grown or stifled in our
school system today. I want my answer to
be that things are changing. That creativity was stifled, but now we have seen
the error of our ways and we are now fostering creativity. I want to see that
because I value creativity so much. Then I read and listen to what the experts
say creativity is and I don’t know that schools have come as far and I like to
think they have.
I grew up with an
artist for a mother. She had the whole garage in the first house that I can
remember, and later, no matter where we lived, there was always an art studio
of some form. Her grown up art was what
I measured myself against, and I generally came up wanting. So I drew a lot of
tornadoes with her pricey art chalk. I couldn't mess up a tornado. I didn't want
to mess up, or make something ugly. At that point I was only willing to venture
out so far with what I tried. Fast forward a couple decades, I still can’t draw
an eye or nose or mouth that I am happy with, but I have found that I have an
inner artist that needs to be let out. So, I make things. I make scarves, shirts,
take photographs, make beautiful learning activities and art crafts for little
scouts.
In school, I find
ways to develop these not-art creative outlets for my students. There is always
a mix of students in 5th grade. Those who are confident in their
creativeness, those who have a set person/symbol that they repetitively draw,
and those that give up before they start. Just like there are students who struggle with
reading, there are those who struggle with creative thought. Then there are
those who are like I was as a child, the creativeness is there, but they are afraid
of the failure.
They all need a
few similar things in the school setting. They need a goal. Why are they being creative?
They need guidelines. How will they know when they have been successful in
their creativity? Then they need to know how it fits together, which may or may
not tie very closely back to the goal. This comes in the setting up of the performance,
the rubric for grading, and continual discussion while they are working so that
they do not get lost in the creating and lose sight of their original goal.
So, when I zoom in
and look at my classroom and think, “Is creativity valued and grown?” I know
the answer is yes. I will even allow for a certain amount of logical creativity
when students are answering questions that appear to have a correct answer (My
Teacher Edition has THE ANSWER). I try to not be stuck to one answer, but
rather be open to their thought process. Sometimes we agree, sometimes I learn,
and sometimes they need to go back and reread the facts to see their errors.
What about the
district as a whole? Again, I would have to say yes, creativity is growing.
Common Core and standardize tests are important, but not viewed as the only
thing. Teachers are being encouraged to give students learning opportunities
that require them to create their own solutions.
Backing this up
one step more to state and national levels, and then I take a pause. If I am to
believe the news, and what I hear from teachers in other districts, at these
levels creativity is not being nurtured. I would not say it is being squashed,
but it is not being grown. At these
levels, standardize tests and benchmarks are the important numbers. Creativity
is hard to put into a objective grading rubric, so it falls by the wayside.
The Common Core standards
focus on language arts and mathematics, which is a trend the world over. Sir
Ken Robinson tells us it has been true since the inception of public schooling
and its rise with industrialization. These skills were valued in the workplace,
so they drove education. The standards
do also address the remaining content areas, but there is always a hierarchy
with language arts and math at the top. The work place is now changing. We do
not live in a recently industrialized world any more. There are creative jobs
for artist, dancers, game designers, and even professional skateboarders.
School leaders
need to ask, “What kind of adult citizen will they be as a result of the
learning they did in our schools?” When students are only focused on testing
they learn to fear mistakes. Nothing is worse than being wrong. How helpful is
that as adults? If you fear being wrong, you never want to be wrong, so you must
be right, and you will hold on to your choices with a death grip. Well that is
not good. Adults make mistakes, and we need to be able to learn from them and make
better future choices. Schools need to take part in showing young children how
to make mistakes that they learn from and then continue to grow.
There are a number
of tools that can be used to make creativity in the classroom easier. For
teaching students, videos found on Discoveryeducation.com
and YouTube are good sources. They can
open students up to information in new ways. YouTube can also have “How To”
videos that can be helpful. Students are able to explore on their won with so
many of the new educational websites. Some sites like FunBrain make learning so much fun the
kids don’t even notice it. One of my favorite games of the year for Social
Studies is found here: LawCraft. Students were creating laws to real world problems, and having the best time
doing it.
Software, like Microsoft
Word and PowerPoint, can help students take ideas and make them look appealing.
If they know they want a bacon picture to make a math game, but don’t know how
to draw it, they can use the software to find the image and set it up with the
graphics that they need. Prezi takes this a
step further with the ability to move and interact with the presentation. There
are super online sites to help with this as well. I love the comics that students can make on makebeliefscomix
Here again they can have ideas, but not need to make a person that they are
happy with. The graphics are all built in. They just need to supply the ideas
to make it work. The wide world of the internet alone, with its ability to
access information with a few key strokes, opens up student’s confidence in
their creativity just by being a resource for questions I haven’t thought of
yet. Way to be my support team Google!
Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?. (2007, January 6). YouTube. Retrieved July 15, 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
No comments:
Post a Comment