Artistic Thinking Week Three/ Enrichment

Artistic Thinking: Week Three,  NewsWeek Article Read and Reflect

" When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’”   I recall being alarmed years ago when I learned of this. I have to also chuckle at the "creativity training".  That said, it may very well be where a good deal of American education is finding itself.

     Creativity is not the property of art.  Its is inherent to LIFE.  Educators need to stop lumping that and other amazing human traits into the ARTS basket.  They say that a chain s only as strong as its weakest link.  I would venture to say that where creativity is concerned, it will only thrive as intensely in a classroom to the degree the teacher recognizes, embraces and lives it.  That is true in ALL classrooms.  There are some incredibly creative science/language arts/math/history/art teachers in the world working there proverbial tails off while there is a disproportionately lager amount who do not believe they are creative and that will be attended too in the arts.  Further, many art teachers believe they are creative when in actuality, they are not as creative as they think.

"Researchers say creativity should be taken out of the art room and put into homeroom. The argument that we can’t teach creativity because kids already have too much to learn is a false trade-off. Creativity isn’t about freedom from concrete facts. Rather, fact-finding and deep research are vital stages in the creative process. Scholars argue that current curriculum standards can still be met, if taught in a different way."

     Creativity is NOT a what, its a HOW.  It comes from with in.  When a teacher recognizes the creative process in a student, they nurture it.  Let it grow and inspire wonder and investigation.  So what if it deviates from the curriculum?  How many people remember what was in a curriculum 20 years later? If teachers have to use a standardized curriculum, that curriculum should serve as a jumping off point.  “When creative children have a supportive teacher—someone tolerant of unconventional answers, occasional disruptions, or detours of curiosity—they tend to excel. When they don’t, they tend to underperform and drop out of high school or don’t finish college at high rates.”

     The National Inventors Hall of Fame School is a good example of this and the project they did with their fifth graders....  The standards and curriculum become pieces to weave into larger ideas and projects. "You never see our kids saying, ‘I’ll never use this so I don’t need to learn it,’ ” says school administrator Maryann Wolowiec. “Instead, kids ask, ‘Do we have to leave school now?’ ” Two weeks ago, when the school received its results on the state’s achievement test, principal Traci Buckner was moved to tears. The raw scores indicate that, in its first year, the school has already become one of the top three schools in Akron, despite having open enrollment by lottery and 42 percent of its students living in poverty." Real life context.  Connecting learning to life.  It requires flexibility on the teachers and schools part... But isn't flexibility a trait that can serve us all for the unknown ahead of us?   There is only right now.  We can not prepare kids for a concrete future because everything changes so quickly (like the way they move through and use technology).  Perhaps in this way technology can serve them, and again I see maybe I need to examine that thought some....(for the positives of technology)

     I tell my students they should question EVERYTHING.  Question me, what they're learning, why it matters etc. Check it out.  Dig deep, and while your asking us "why?", ask yourself why you're asking.  Goes both ways....  ;)