Remember When School Looked Fun?

I guess I haven't finished addressing my concerns about the lack of children's art and original projects being displayed on the walls of some school hallways and classrooms. This noticeable, sterile trend has been bothering me. Not simply because it devalues the very thing that children actually value, but it devalues creativity in education as being at least nominally acknowledged.
It's very uneducated, in my opinion.

A comment by a kindergarten teacher not too long ago is what concerned me. She had mentioned that a supervisor had told kindergarten teachers she didn't want to see artsy type of work on the walls - only "real" work like writing and numbers. But the real work of five-year-olds is cutting and pasting and drawing in preparation for doing writing and numbers!

What would these supervisors who dictate what's going up on classroom walls think of the Texas elementary principal who didn't allow ANY pre-made imagery to be put up in place of teacher or student-made. Teachers didn't run to the teacher supply store when it came time to change the the bulletin boards. Every classroom and hallway display was handmade -- created from scratch to be visually stimulating and appealing.

Sure it was demanding, but the students and teachers were cocooned in an environment that celebrated creativity as an integral part of academic life. They saw the thought-process made evident. I only wish I could have seen the distinct visual impact of this building. I heard about it from a teacher who taught there when I complimented her very cool bulletin board. Of course, she'd saved all the pieces to pull out when needed year after year.

My belief is those children were far more engaged than the kids spending their days gazing at slick posters they could never hope to reproduce, never seeing peer-created art work to learn from, ignoring walls of never-ending word lists, or trying to jumpstart their bored brains to find something new and interesting to contemplate in the steady diet of bland adult-generated worksheets they're given to consume -- color or fill in the blanks. Again, the lowest level of learning and engagement. A definite creative disconnect.

Children learn a great deal from seeing child-produced artwork and projects.

Listen to an Expert on Teaching Creativity in the Schools

I felt very vindicated when I first stumbled upon Sir Ken Robinson's talks about creativity and education and human development. He's now living in Santa Monica, and has done consulting work with the Getty. You'd think I'd have plenty of opportunity to hear him in person. My guess is, he'll probably become more prominent on the US education stage with an administration change.

Robinson's thrust is that creativity and the arts were shunted aside due to the education system's hierarchy of math, science, and literacy teaching as the main ingredients of the industrial revolution of the 19th century. We at the bottom of the hierarchy already know that. But that old model is failing before our eyes as degrees become useless for promising job security. Robinson's definition of creativity is "original ideas that have value." Might there be room for such a concept in our children's school day?

I have had a dickens of a time trying to get the link to this talk working. This is the correct address, but in case it doesn't work, try pasting the address into your browser. Excerpts are on You Tube and TED, so you can also go through Google to find Sir Ken Robinson's talks.

It's worth hearing what Robinson has to say on the topic of creativity teaching in the schools. Not only is he quite a humorous speaker, but he's got some substantial credibility. He's responsible for helping England, Singapore, South Korea, and now China reinvent their education systems for the 21st century. He has plenty to say about the ailing US system as well.


http://www.ted.org/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Creativity in the Age of Accountability

Here's a link to a published article I wrote that parents and educators should find helpful. If you're interested in ways to increase the teaching of creativity in school, I included several that aren't expensive or difficult to do. We just need to redefine exactly what a balanced education looks like!

http://www.caisca.org

When you get to the site, click on Publications. Go to Faculty. My article is found in the Late Spring 2008 edition. Look for "Creativity in the Age of Accountability," which begins on page 6. As it's in a PDF file, you can't download just my article alone. But there's wonderfully creative applications written by other educators as well. This is a publication authored by teachers who gave workshops for their peers.

If this link isn't working when you click on it directly, copy and paste it into the browser above. I can't access the publications through Firefox. However, I can read them in Explorer.

If you'd like me to send you the publication directly, please email me at twcheney@gmail. com.