Teach the history of baseball, beginning with Abner Doubleday and the impact of cricket and imperialism. Have a test.
Starting with the Negro leagues and the early barnstorming teams,
assign students to memorize facts and figures about each player. Have a
test.
Rank the class on who did well on the first two tests, and allow
these students to memorize even more statistics about baseball players.
Make sure to give equal time to players in Japan and the Dominican
Republic. Send the students whodidn’t do as well to spend time with a
lesser teacher, but assign them similar work, just over a longer time
frame. Have a test.
Sometime in the future, do a field trip and go to a baseball
game. Make sure no one has a good time.If there’s time, let kids throw a
baseball around during recess.
Obviously, there are plenty of kids (and adults) who know far
more about baseball than anyone could imagine knowing. And none of them
learned it this way.
The industrialized, scalable, testable solution is almost never the best way to generate exceptional learning.
“My starting point is
that everyone has huge creative capacities as a natural result of being a human
being, The challenge is to develop them.”
--Sir Ken Robinson, Author
and Creativity Guru
At a recent staff party, a young staffer—call her Alisa--challenged
me on my views on education and creativity. Alisa was dubious that schools
could scale up creativity among the masses of students. “I don’t believe that the vast majority of
people are capable of creativity,” she argued. “Most people need a basic education
just so they can get by. Given my background (born in Russia), I’m suspicious
of all utopian claims.”
It was a fair challenge. After all, while there are numerous
examples of instilling cultures of creativity in particular schools, it’s never
been done in an entire American school system. How do we know that Alisa is
wrong that such a shift is unattainable?
Let’s take a look at the evidence:
Children are
creative. Several studies show that vast majorities of children start off
creative and gradually become less creative as they get older. Ken Robinson,
among others, suggests that the rigid, one-size-fits-all education system
routinely kills creativity. Skeptics like Alisa might argue, however, that the
loss of creativity is a natural if regrettable by-product of the
brain’s maturing control functions. Perhaps. But how much of that
childhood creativity must be lost? Longitudinal studies show that learning environments
that promote imaginative play are associated with enhanced creativity later in
life. In an interview with Barbara Walters, the founders of Google cite their
creativity-inducing Montessori education as a major factor in their success. Evidence clearly suggests that we can
preserve some creativity.
Some schools are
creative. Numerous alternative schools have successfully inculcated
creativity. San Diego-based High Tech High, for example, utilizes a
project-based learning approach that seeks to turn its diverse student body
into “savvy, creative, quick-thinking adults and professionals in a modern
world.” The school's students, many of whom are economically disadvantaged, not only produce highly creative projects way beyond what you'd see from students at typical schools, but virtually all get into college.
Again, Alisa might argue that while High Tech High may be a model of excellence, it relies on a charismatic leader
at the helm, hand-picked teachers predisposed to such an environment and more motivated
parents, all necessary conditions for success. There’s no reason to believe,
she might argue, that such schools can be brought to scale. But even if not every
school can attain the level of excellence of a High Tech High, I don't see why we can't
develop a school model that is far better than the current system at bringing out creativity. Finland, for example, has created a school
system that places a much higher premium on creativity than school systems in
other industrialized nations. There's no reason that it can't be done here too.
Some societies are creative.
According to the book "Start-up Nation," Israel, for a combination of cultural and
structural reasons, leads the world in start-ups on a per capita basis. It has
more companies listed on NASDAQ than all European countries combined and more
global venture capital entering the country per person than any other country. Its
Middle Eastern neighbors, by contrast, have stifled the creativity
of their populations. The UN-commissioned Arab Human Development Report in 2002
asserted that Arab societies are being held back by a lack of political
freedom, subjugation of women and “an isolation from the world of ideas that
stifles creativity.” If nothing else, freedom is a necessary condition of creativity, and societies, history shows, can be made more free.
Yet even among democratic societies there are major
differences in creative output. Education scholar Yong Zhao points to the link between societies with rigid education systems that rely heavily on
standardization, and lack of entrepreneurship. “Correlational analyses show a
statistically significant negative relationship between test scores in math,
reading, and sciences and aspects of entrepreneurship,” he said. This suggests
that more rigid social and educational systems allow less room for creative
pursuits and produce less creative kids and adults.
Alisa might counter that if Americans are already more
creative than the citizens of the vast majority of countries, why mess with success? Be that as it may, we are not creative enough to assure prosperity in the 21st century. With the growth in international
competition and the automation of tasks once performed by humans, our remaining competitive
advantage is our ability to separate
ourselves though innovation. We will sink or swim on our ability to become more
creative.
While Ken Robinson
may be right that everyone possesses the ability to be creative, it’s safe to
say that not everyone is capable of being creative in equal measure any more
than everyone is capable of doing math or playing the violin at the same level. There’s
no reason, however, for creativity to remain as rare of a human trait as webbed feet. That we are not all
capable of being Picasso or Einstein or Steve Jobs does not mean the average
person cannot become far more creative than she is today and that we cannot
increase society’s total creative output.
Alisa is justifiably doubtful about building a creativity utopia, but
such realism should not deter us from aspiring to a better dystopia. We can
become much more creative.
Dina, age 11, is not doing well in school. She has been
getting C’s and D’s in her divergent thinking classes and, despite all of her
hard work, received a disappointing C+ in science. Her project on plant life showed, according to
Mr. Riley, “little original thinking.” Mr. Riley said, “It’s meticulous, but
hundreds of kids have done something similar.” Dina is losing her confidence
and feels inferior to the majority of kids who are much more creative.
Dina attends the Simon Academy for Creativity which, like
nearly every other school in the country, focuses on creativity and divergent
thinking. Despite being superb at math, reading and memorizing factoids, Dina is
forced to attend a traditional creativity school. The one alternative school in
the district that focuses on competency in math, science, reading and writing
is too far from Dina’s home and costs a hefty $18,000 per year.
Dina has always felt out of place at school. While the other
kids are bouncing off the walls, Dina sits still at a desk (a special accomodation), waiting for
instructions from the teacher. Going all the way back to first grade, Dina’s
teachers expressed concern about her “lethargy.”
“All she seems to want to do
is sit down and read, while many of the other kids are running around the
class, learning by doing,” observed Mrs. Weller. “Dina also has a strong need
to receive instruction and is not sufficiently self-directed.”
Now that Dina’s in middle school, the school suggests that
Dina take a battery of psychological tests to determine if she has a learning
disability.
After the testing, the school psychologist, Dr. Schmidt,
called a meeting with Dina’s parents for 3 PM, showing up late as usual. “The
good news is that Dina has a wonderful working memory, which is undoubtedly an
asset. But the tests also indicate that Dina is a classic case of Creativity
Deficit Disorder or CDD. Have you seen the new movie on Jackie Robinson?” Dr
Schmidt interrupted himself. “Oh, yes, back to Dina. The excessive control
functioning in her brain often makes Dina unavailable for learning and is
holding her back academically.”
“Among the many questions Dina was asked on the test was how
many uses she could think of a hard-boiled egg and a spoon. Dina could only
think of 14, which was significantly below the average of 21, putting her at
the 35th percentile in Creativity Quotient (CQ). These numbers suggest Dina is
an at risk child,” he stated. “The test also revealed a glitch in her
conceptual understanding of ideas. While Dina scored in the 96th percentile in
short-term memory, she scored much lower in critical thinking. Because school
is so much more focused on critical thinking than memorization, this is going
to hurt Dina’s performance on tests.”
“What can we do about it?” Dina’s parents asked. “Well,
fortunately, there’s a new medication out called Freeal, which relaxes the
prefrontal brain systems, and allows for more creativity and less self-editing.
While we can’t mandate that she take it, I can say from experience that it will
make her a much better student. I think it’s important that Dina catch up with
her peers, lest she develop an inferiority complex. Also, these learning
difficulties, unaddressed, will, as she goes into the world of work, make it hard for Dina to start her
own company and innovate.”
“Dina’s pediatrician prescribed similar meds once before and
Dina does not like the way she feels on them,” her mother said. “It makes her
feel out of control.”
Dr Schmidt assured her that Freeal has fewer side effects
than previous medications. “Teachers are seeing immediate results. Normally
quiet kids are now calling out. Several of the CDD kids are finally able to
come up with original ideas and are doing much better in school.”
Dina’s parents sat down together to discuss Dina’s
predicament. “I can’t stand that the school is so one-size-fits-all,” her mom
says in frustration. “This world still needs line managers, and I can’t imagine
anyone better cut out for that work than Dina.” Her dad counters that “ultimately
Dina has to adapt to the existing system. We all do. She needs to go to
creativity college if she is going to start her own company someday. Let’s ask
her to try the Freeal.”
