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Creative Schools: A Review

7/2/2015

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We are officially knee-deep into summer. July tends to mark the transition out of the slothful period of recovery from the previous school year into the inspired period of optimistically planning the next school year. It is during this phase that I sunk into reading Ken Robinson’s latest book, Creative Schools.

Many educators know Robinson from his popular 2006 TED talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” which has been viewed more than 33 million times. Some of us have even had the good fortune to attend one of his keynotes at an educational conference (I saw him a few years back at NCTE and still chuckle over some of his witty one-liners). Yet, somehow overlooked is his longstanding record as an educational researcher, writer, and reformer. He has been “in education,” as it were, for 40 years; he holds a PhD in Education, was a professor of Education at the University of Warwick, UK, and has written countless articles and books on cultivating creativity in schools. Heck, in 2003, he was even knighted by the Queen of England for his service to the arts. Suffice it to say, Sir Ken is an authority on transforming education. 

In Creative Schools, he addresses the paradox of teaching and learning in a standards-obsessed system that touts a desire to mold unique and creative students. Through a series of case studies of educators and institutions that are transforming the way that they “do school,” Robinson makes the case for bold and courageous change. “The challenge,” he writes, “is not to fix the system but to change it; not to reform it but to transform it. The great irony in the current malaise in education is that we actually know what works. We just don’t do it on a wide enough scale. We are in a position as never before to use our creative and technological resources to change that.”

Robinson’s opening chapters acknowledge that now is a time of great tension within the education community: tension between teachers who would sooner do anything except “teach to the test” and Washington bureaucrats who are embarrassed by the consistently low rankings American students score on international exams; between traditional teachers who question the rush toward technology in the classroom and their colleagues who think that understanding how to employ technology with purpose is a prerequisite for meaningful participation in contemporary society; between the antiquated arrangement of our public schools as the last remnant of an industrial factory model (complete with division of labor and factory-reminiscent bells) and a workforce that demands imagination and ingenuity.

These tensions have had a deleterious effect on the status of education today. Robinson contends: “Most industrial processes generate huge amounts of waste and low-value by-products. So does education. As we’ve seen, they include dropping out, disengagement, low self-esteem, and limited employment opportunities for those who don’t succeed, or whose talents are not valued in the system.” The solution to these problems (or perhaps more accurately, the solutions) is the focus of the remaining chapters of the book.

At the heart of Creative Schools is a call to action, hollered from the rooftops of schools that are doing something very right. He highlights the innovations of alternative learning environments like the North Star center and Minddrive, as well as the good work of leaders who transform learning within an existing system, like Dr. Laurie Barron of Smokey Road Middle School and Richard Gerver of Grange Primary School. He deconstructs what works at places like High Tech High School, a charter school in San Diego, where one of the first things to go were the bells. And he leaves readers with a lingering sense of purpose, established from even the first pages of the book: “Revolutions,” Robinson argues, “don’t wait for legislation. They emerge from what people do at the ground level. Education doesn’t happen in the committee rooms of the legislatures or in the rhetoric of politicians. It’s what goes on between learners and teachers in actual schools. If you’re a teacher, for your students you are the system. If you’re a school principal, for your community you are the system. If you’re a policymaker, for the schools you control you are the system.” 

As far as I’m concerned, that strikes me as best news in this book. Because it’s summer, I’m pumped, and that’s a system I can change.

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#MakeSchoolDifferent

5/7/2015

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I've been lurking on the #makeschooldifferent challenge for a few days now, really enjoying watching colleagues in my PLN post their lists of five things we need to change in order to, well, make school different (and, by extension, better). There's a lot of open, honest thinking going on out there in the twittosphere, and at the risk of jumping up on the collective soapbox, I'm going to add my five. I love that this challenge encourages us to share *not* what others may want to hear, but what we think must be said. Below are five of so many. 

When it comes to education, we need to stop pretending...
  1. that expecting kids to learn challenging stuff at seven in the morning is reasonable, or even productive. Let's pay attention to research on human development and acknowledge that teens need later starts to learn and grow.
  2. that expecting teachers to thoughtfully hone their craft through just a few days of lecture-based professional development is enough. We need ongoing opportunities for meaningful PD - time set aside in our work day (not added on top of it) to be in conversation with colleagues, administrators, and outside experts. The more we are in dialogue with one another, the more likely we are to move toward a more authentic, interdisciplinary approach to teaching and learning.
  3. that teachers can grow in isolation. My door is always open - as are many of the doors down the hall. Let's get administrators and colleagues in our classrooms to observe and discuss so that evaluations are based on more than just hearsay, and more importantly, so that we can learn from each other. I'd love feedback on my lessons beyond what my students give me.
  4. that piling on a boatload of homework is an effective way to extend our class periods and expand our courses. It's not fair to students. Sure, some may wonder what on earth kids will do when they get home from school; but then again, I don't want my students judging me for flopping on the couch after a long day and zoning out to NCIS reruns. Let's bring free time and family time back.
  5. that technology is the be-all-end-all OR the enemy. Let's use it to connect kids with meaningful audiences outside of the walls of our classrooms. Let's use it to foster collaboration among students, and clear communication between teachers and kids. Let's use it to make our feedback more personalized and more timely. It's a tool. Let's use it well.

True to the genre of the Internet Challenge, I'm naming five awesome educators (all from KCI MERIT - woot! woot!) who I would love to have weigh in on the question: Diane Main, Roni Habib, Karl L-S, Lisa Highfill, and Lisa DeLapo (Sorry if you already did it and I missed your tweets. Retweet 'em!). This challenge came my way from Jen Roberts. You can read her post here. The original challenge came from from Scott McCloud, who has compiled a bunch of responses here.

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