Abstract
We will not succeed in navigating the complex environment of the future by peering relentlessly into a rear view mirror. To do so, we would be out of our minds.
So begins a thought-provoking book by Sir Kenneth Robinson, Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative (2nd edition, 2011). And that book, and my students’ reactions to it, informs my thinking as I write.
Change is a complex and conflicting issue. On one hand, as a culture we seem to be enamored with change. Products and services are advertised as faster, smaller, bigger, brighter, and trendier. Newer appears to equal better, at least within the advertising world. But another part of us seems to crave stability and to resist changing the familiar. We are invested in the status quo, even if we do like our technological baubles, bells, and whistles to be new and cutting edge. Particularly difficult, at least from the perspective of those involved in teacher preparation, is the challenge of changing entire schools, either our own universities or the K–12 settings in which our students teach.
Whether this challenge is viewed from a micro or macro level, it is a thorny issue. On an individual teacher level, how do we teach our students to use teaching strategies that differ from the ones with which they were taught? Those models appear to be so ingrained that, as we all know, it takes enormous, concerted effort for students to revert to the model they choose rather than the learned and practiced ones that seems to be playing continually in their heads. And that’s a relatively small change. On an institutional level, how do we change the direction schools are going, assuming that we think that direction could use some modification?
Schools are supposed to remain stable, to conform to the status quo. One of the stated purposes of public education is to pass on the culture to the next generation. So how do we balance forward-thinking while still passing on the culture of the past? And, while we’re at it, exactly what culture do we attempt to pass on? Individual states make concerted stabs at maintaining the status quo for all students, emphasizing uniformity through established curricula and the development of tests to verify that everyone achieves those curricula. Robinson and many others, however, contend that this process leads us in exactly the wrong direction.
I certainly do not pretend to have answers to the big questions: Where are schools headed? What is the effect of high-stakes testing on the long-term learning of our children? The structure of today’s Public Schools (with capital letters) is based on the model established in the 18th and 19th centuries with an agrarian economy and communication limited by geography. Is that still the best model for today? Is chronological age the best way to group children? Is it wise to isolate individual subjects like music? How can we separate the development of individuals’ teaching/learning process from a popular vote (i.e., state legislatures which pass educational laws seemingly without a clear understanding of how a particular regulation might collaterally affect the teaching/learning process)? And anyone reading this probably will be able to list his or her own important questions and concerns. I am not even certain that these are the right questions. The most consequential question may be: Who is going to be prepared to evaluate and modify our current system? Clearly, all these questions and many others will need to be addressed by the generation of educators we are preparing today. How do these students learn to deal with change?
One personal experience has set me on this path considering the factors that affect how students deal with change. In a graduate seminar in the semester just completed, we read Robinson’s Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. It’s a stimulating book, includes many references to icons of Western philosophy, and is particularly engaging because the author inserts bits of witty, dry humor/wisdom on occasion. His premise is that “creativity is the greatest gift of human intelligence” and our schools are educating the creativity out of children. The older they get, the less creative and innovative they become. That premise, of course, speaks directly to the importance of arts education. It’s not the only book on the topic by any means, but it is presented in such a way that his arguments are most compelling.
What was most notable about this seminar to me personally was the strong student reaction to the topic. For whatever reason, this book and the ensuing discussion spurred on deep enthusiasm (unprecedented in my personal experience) for examining our profession. Perhaps most important, we should consider how the material first came available to the students. Although I personally acquire information most frequently and certainly most deeply from reading words, my students initially seemed to be most engaged by visuals. You may have experienced this same phenomenon. Case in point: There are several summaries of Robinson’s ideas on YouTube. Some of them simply show Robinson speaking to a crowd (he’s a dynamic speaker and the audience seemed completely engaged in his ideas). For example, there are several versions of his 2006 speech to the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design: Ideas Worth Spreading) Conference in Monterey, California, and from his 2008 acceptance speech of the RSA Benjamin Franklin medal. This recognition is awarded by the Royal Society of the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, a group with the stated purpose of “bringing great ideas to global audiences.” I first found his ideas in a print description of the 2011 revision of his book, Out of Our Minds. This, however, is not how my students intersected with his ideas. They encountered him via video and the video then inspired them to read the book (either in print or digital form).
Of the several Robinson videos available, my students found some much more compelling than others. Notably, in addition to videos of Robinson’s speeches, another video format is a whiteboard animation of his speech by RSA Animate. The audio consists of the identical words, actually spoken by Robinson, with added animation. This is the video that fired the imaginations of my students, so much so that we watched it at the opening class and, by request, watched it again as a group as closure to the semester. If you are not familiar with whiteboard or Ken Robinson, I encourage you to view and contemplate this video: Ken Robinson Changing Educational Paradigms: http://www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg#p/u/4/zDZFcDGpL4U. This particular YouTube entry has been viewed 6.2 million times as I write, so it is very possible that you have seen it, and I am simply catching up. But the ideas, and especially the ways they are presented, appear to be most significant. Perhaps indeed, as Marshall McLuhan famously opined 47 years ago, “the medium is the message” (Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, 1964).
One caveat: What I am writing is nested completely within my own experience and many of you may have considered these points well ahead of me. But I can only speak from my own history, and so will make no attempt to broaden these ideas to others’ situations. The reader will need to decide for himself/herself about appropriate transfers. The often used research phrase, “results should be generalized with caution,” certainly applies.
What I found personally remarkable was how this particular video affected my students. Discussion was intense and highly participatory. Calls for action were frequent. And the final products for the semester were different from others in my now many years of higher education experience. In keeping with the topic of the book I wanted to encourage creativity in final projects and so attempted to define “final project” more broadly by offering a series of options. One option, of course, included writing a traditional paper. Not one student chose that option, despite its familiarity. Other suggestions included a video, a collaborative creative project, a whiteboard presentation, or another student-designed, instructor-approved project based on topics related to the class readings. Many of the resulting final project choices were most interesting as well as unexpected. Some included
A collaborative video asking selected people in the music building how changes in education could occur;
A “This I Believe” personal audio statement about the teaching/learning of creativity modeled after the National Public Radio ongoing series, This I Believe (begun in 1951 by Edward R. Murrow http://www.npr.org/series/4538138/this-i-believe);
A collaborative paper examining online versions of and author reactions to the exemplary schools mentioned in the book, in an effort to identify schools which are currently structured to encourage creative thinking/learning;
An edited video of a poster placed in a prominent place in the student union. The poster read: “Creativity is . . .” followed by much blank space and access to colored markers. The student videoed those who wrote/drew on the poster as well as the unsolicited reactions of people who wandered by.
Another student, an instructor at an area community college, created a video documenting the changes in his students as he moved the desks into new positions in an effort to encourage more student interaction and less teacher-centered lecture. This particular teacher, basing his ideas on both Robinson and Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning by Marc Prensky (2010), believes that simply changing the configuration of the room has transformed the way students react in his classes, and thus invigorated his personal enthusiasm for teaching.
So the final projects were varied, elaborate, and time consuming. This is a 1-hour course and I wouldn’t have assigned anything remotely this extensive for a 1-hour credit. So the depth of effort speaks to the intensity and interest with which the students interacted with the material. One further event may have influenced the level of interaction. I purposefully tried to stay out of the discussion (often unsuccessfully, I’ve been known to talk a lot). I asked them simply to bring something with them to class each week, a notable quote from the book, a personal question, and/or a video based on something read in the book. Students, on their own initiative, created a Facebook page for the class so they could share comments. And share comments they did . . . from the book, from other unassigned books, from videos, and from their own thoughts. And they continue to share ideas, even if the class is over.
These results have been truly inspiring to me personally. Our future as a profession is in good hands if these are the kind of thoughtful, influential teachers who will be in charge. And, personally, I have learned a powerful lesson about the value of giving up control by structuring the class and then stepping back. I can hardly wait to see how this group will respond to the next book we will read together. I’m now choosing the book for next semester, with a video component, of course. Out of Our Minds will be a hard act to follow.