The Loss of Creativity and Innovation

"If school's function is to create the workers we need to fuel our economy, we need to change school, because the workers we need have changed as well."

-Seth Godin

If you have been within ten feet of me this last month,  you've been subject to the rant I've been on about standardize testing and the loss of creativity, innovation and critical thinking skills in our education system.

Specifically, I've been ranting about how my 8th grader will need to pass a standardize test for the high school to allow her to not repeat Algebra I as a freshman.   For someone with a history of weak test taking, the fact that my daughter needs to show a year's worth of knowledge on a single day, on a single test seems obsurd to me.  To further my frustration, I learned that the high school only requires the private school kids to take this test and not the public school kids.

So I've been ranting about how this is exactly what's wrong with our education system and how a single standardize test isn't the only way for a child to show proof of knowledge.  Isn't proof of knowledge what we are looking for regardless of the method used to identify it?  For some, this is like saying the sky isn't blue.

It didn't help that I saw Sir Ken Robinson speak this month on how our education system is based on utility and linearity with the assumption that we can predict the single best path for all. "We've designed a system that kills the discovery of talents and passion.  A system that alienates students.  No wonder they drop out," says Sir Ken

It didn't help that Seth Godin published a 30,000 word manifesto, Stop Stealing Dreams, pointing out that the public school system was designed during the industrial revolution to churn out good factory workers.  He also points out that the multiple choice test was designed during a crises in World War I when the male factory workers enlisted in masses.  The government needed a temporary and effecient way to sort immigrant students and quickly assign them slots in the factories.  The creator of the multiple choice test says this about the methodology he developed, "This is a test of lower order thinking for the low orders."

It didn't help that the other week, at Partnership for Excellence, when asked what keeps her up at night, that the women on the panel representing the Health Careers Collaborative stated, "Employers comments that we've lost a generation of people with critical thinking skills."

It didn't help that an expert on early childhood education for low income families told me that she is seeing a wave of low income kids being medicated in schools.  Unfortunately, this is not always because they have true issues requiring medication, but instead these kid's behavioral problems are due to unresolved social and emotional trauma from their home lives.  Kids are being medicated to fit into the system because the system isn't flexible enough to fit their needs.


So it's been a month of ranting and what have I learned from it?


TAKE-AWAY #1:

My loss of sleep about my own daughter turned out for not.  The public high school made the sane decision to not standardize test the private school kids as the sole determinant of their math placement.  Thank you for renewing my faith.  However, if she had bombed the test, which many capable kids did last year, I would have fought tooth and nail that the results of the test were not an accurate proof of knowledge.  Every time I push back on the system for my own daughter, I am pushing back on the system for other children who don't have an engaged (okay, sometimes too engaged) parent to do it for them.


TAKE-AWAY #2:

I imagine my battles aren't over.  However, I have been impressed with the high school's talk about creating different pathways for kids.  I am proud of them for seeing that there is no singular utilitarian pathway for every kid and success lies in providing multiple pathways.  For this reason, you will see me donating my time to supporting the existence of these different pathways with programs like MAD and VADA.


TAKE-AWAY #3:

I need to push myself to think outside of the box.  I am naturally a linear, in the box thinker and yes, the school system was just perfect for me.  However, without creativity and innovation we wouldn't have people thinking like the biomedical engineers in my last post, who are creating innovative solutions to health issues in developing countries.  I am also reminded of a post I did a year ago where I realized we need creative and innovative thinkers to find solutions to gobal development issues, not factory workers.

TAKE-AWAY #4:

As for the lower income kids being alienated from the system or being medicated to fit the system, my heart bleeds for them.  I continue to have faith in early childhood education programs, like Storyteller.  I truly believe being ready for kindergarten, as shown on the Cradle to Career Roadmap, including being socially and emotionally ready, is the single first critical benchmark on the path to college.