To my educator friends: when we are confronted by colleagues who feel that drill, rote memorization, and standardized testing is the default position for education reform, we need to make them read this article:
The Creativity Crisis on Newsweek.com
Read the whole article but here’s a clip to consider the scope of the problem…
Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
stepwinder
Hexxus007,
This article is terrific. It expands upon the argument I’ve had to make with greater frequency. I teach in a private school with parents increasingly bent on a facts and figures approach, at younger and younger ages. I thought it remarkable when the Chinese educators noted that they were moving toward our old (creative) model, while we were moving toward their old (rote) model. I couldn’t agree more. I see it with the parents of 3-year olds who wish for homework; I see it with the movement toward Kumon and other outside drills. This, in a Montessori school! I plan to address this in our parent meetings this year. I will use the article to help.
Thanks!
Hobbes21
I have to tell you this helped our discussion at the Academy too. I had used a quote from Nick Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” and the discussion quickly turned to how smart (or not) we are… the next generation especially. What I appreciated a good deal about this article is that it focused on what we’re doing with what we know. How we’re using it… not just what facts (or what kind) we’re piling up in our heads or in the clouds.
That’s a reference to cloud computing there, Hexx. Don’t want to confuse the luddite brain.
