As a teacher, I am expected to be creative. And yet, I'm not. I am a rule following, color in the lines type of person. I love to cook. I can follow a recipe with the best of them, but I cannot invent my own recipe. Baking is perfect. There is nothing to invent. And yet I wonder--what if I had spent more time in dance and drama classes? Would I have accessed a different part of my brain that would allow me to think outside the box?
For years I worked at a charter school where the students had access to "specials classes." While my students were at dance, drama, art, Spanish, PE, or music I met with my colleagues to design lessons and analyze data. The company behind this charter school was onto something. Just as Sir Ken Robinson tells us in "How School Kills Creativity" that there is a hierarchy in the subjects and the arts are at the bottom, my school was helping to put them in the forefront. And kids were succeeding. "Creativity is as important as literacy and should be taught as such." This quote from Robinson is, I think, spot on. More schools should be sitting up and taking note of the diverse talents in our students and celebrating those talents. I think this is especially true in the infancy of Common Core. If we are truly teaching our students to be critical thinkers, don't they also have to learn to think outside the box? Shouldn't they also learn to overcome the "functional fixedness" that Dan Pink describes. Look at the candle problem, and think--how can you pin the candle to the wall so that it doesn't drip on the table? At first I didn't see the solution. I was stuck thinking I had to use the tools just as they are. But what about that box holding the tacks? Can it hold anything else?
So for people like me, are incentives the way to go? Not if you listen to what Dan Pink has to say. Incentives often backfire and reduce output. Exactly the opposite of what they are intended to do. It's the age old dilemma of intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation. How do we get students to do what we want them to do and convince them it was their idea? A few companies have come up with ways for this to happen by allowing their employees more control over their time management, area of focus, and schedule. What if we did this in our classrooms? Would student engagement increase? Would time on task increase? Would our classrooms have a happier, more relaxed feel about them?
Louis Mobley was onto something when he recognized that people needed permission to be wrong. He knew that his employees needed the opportunity to face frustration and take chances in order to learn new things and be creative. This is a trait we see in children that gradually dissipates as they get older. We need to be sure we have a learning environment that encourages our students to take risks. Think about the possibilities!
I wasn't taught creativity in school. I was as Robinson describes, educated from the waist up. I love to be with people who look at problems from another angle, any angle that I haven't thought of. It inspires me to think that maybe, one day, I will think to tack the box to the wall to catch the wax.
For years I worked at a charter school where the students had access to "specials classes." While my students were at dance, drama, art, Spanish, PE, or music I met with my colleagues to design lessons and analyze data. The company behind this charter school was onto something. Just as Sir Ken Robinson tells us in "How School Kills Creativity" that there is a hierarchy in the subjects and the arts are at the bottom, my school was helping to put them in the forefront. And kids were succeeding. "Creativity is as important as literacy and should be taught as such." This quote from Robinson is, I think, spot on. More schools should be sitting up and taking note of the diverse talents in our students and celebrating those talents. I think this is especially true in the infancy of Common Core. If we are truly teaching our students to be critical thinkers, don't they also have to learn to think outside the box? Shouldn't they also learn to overcome the "functional fixedness" that Dan Pink describes. Look at the candle problem, and think--how can you pin the candle to the wall so that it doesn't drip on the table? At first I didn't see the solution. I was stuck thinking I had to use the tools just as they are. But what about that box holding the tacks? Can it hold anything else?
So for people like me, are incentives the way to go? Not if you listen to what Dan Pink has to say. Incentives often backfire and reduce output. Exactly the opposite of what they are intended to do. It's the age old dilemma of intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation. How do we get students to do what we want them to do and convince them it was their idea? A few companies have come up with ways for this to happen by allowing their employees more control over their time management, area of focus, and schedule. What if we did this in our classrooms? Would student engagement increase? Would time on task increase? Would our classrooms have a happier, more relaxed feel about them?
Louis Mobley was onto something when he recognized that people needed permission to be wrong. He knew that his employees needed the opportunity to face frustration and take chances in order to learn new things and be creative. This is a trait we see in children that gradually dissipates as they get older. We need to be sure we have a learning environment that encourages our students to take risks. Think about the possibilities!
I wasn't taught creativity in school. I was as Robinson describes, educated from the waist up. I love to be with people who look at problems from another angle, any angle that I haven't thought of. It inspires me to think that maybe, one day, I will think to tack the box to the wall to catch the wax.