Does Standardized Education Kill U.S. Creativity?
Hi loyal readers,
It took many months of researching, percolating and writing to finish my educational piece on education, standardization, creativity and imagination. A special thanks to the fabulous commenters who suggested books and shared their own experiences with the world’s educational systems.
Here’s the link to The MetroWest Daily News if you’d like to read it. For those that prefer to stay on this site, I’ve pasted a few choice paragraphs:
“America does not need to standardize its youth. It needs to encourage creative risk-taking and self-reliance. Our economy has stalled because adults do not have enough imagination to visualize new ways way to solve old problems. Our compulsory educational system asks us to don blinders and fixate on answers.
It’s time for America to birth a new educational adventure, one that releases children from age-segregated confinement so they can contribute in a meaningful way to their communities.”
I mentioned my theory on a well-known blog and the author disagreed. The author believes our present education/schooling/testing makes us more well rounded.
Interesting counterpoint. I’ve long wondered about children needing to be well-rounded and who defines such a term. I didn’t get into one college because the admissions counselor said, “You’re not well rounded enough.” I liked to write, read, craft, explore, sing, play piano, laugh, create messes and gallop my horse through the woods. Organized sports I wanted nothing to do with. Standardized tests would have killed me. On this blog, I’ve written about being a rhomboid and liking it.
If we all gravitate toward different things and have different talents and different strengths, can we be well rounded without taking on activities that do not interest us — or is this good for us? I’m starting to see a slight trend in college admissions away from well rounded to well unrounded. Some have given SAT scores the boot. Others admit more and more home schooled children.
It’s the adult version of Simon Says – colleges wanted well-rounded kids based on some arbitrary criteria, then high schools started churning out kids to match the criteria. Pretty soon every kid looks like every other kid and no one stands out because they’re all well rounded. Organized sports – check. Community volunteering – check. Good grades – check. Good standardized test scores – check. After school job – check. Teen coalition member – check. Plays musical instrument – check. Starred in theater production – check.
Was Albert Einstein well rounded? Not sure, but something tells me no. What might have happened to him if he’d been ordered to spend less time working on physics and more on acting?
What does it mean if a ritzy community’s kids score high on standardized tests? I know real estate agents point to it as a positive buying feature, but I wonder about that. To score high on those tests, you have to be giving up individualism somewhere else. To me, they measure conformity to the status quo. The children need to be convinced to buy into the testing system or they’d all rebel. But they’re not given the freedom to rebel. Has any school asked the kids what they think about the testing and if they’d like to continue?
No. Kids have few rights, which strikes me as increasingly strange in a democracy and probably accounts for much of the depression that strikes this age group. You’re in waiting mode for a long time while other folks “get you ready” to do something. The majority of new ideas come from the young. If we’ve got them locked up for 12 years, forcing them to conform, at a minimum, we lose a lot of those good ideas.
What really impressed me were the folks who dropped out of school and went on to kick-ass in life. Richard Branson left high school at 16. Giselle Bundchen at 14. Mark Twain at 11. Thomas Edison at 12. Henry Ford, a bit of rural education then off to be an apprentice. I’ve worked with many multiple-degree folks who couldn’t get any life traction. They seemed stuck in the waiting and waiting and waiting groove they got into during K-12.
I see the US economy faltering because we’ve tested imagination out of folks and the old industries no longer require such a pivotal role. Your thoughts on anything mentioned above? Pro/con compulsory education? Loss of creativity?
Thx, G.
p.s. I don’t trash folks with different viewpoints. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been scolded with, “You’re wrong” or “This comparison isn’t valid” when I expressed a different opinion.
RSS
Hi Giulietta! 🙂
Wow, you’ve said so well something that’s been in the back of my mind for a while… I was homeschooled, so was fortunate that I didn’t get put into a standardized school system – although the curriculum I had to follow was still pretty standardized. 😉 The education system has become one of my “pet peeves” and something I often wonder, “How can I help to change this?”
I’m up in Canada, but it’s really not much different up here. We are still standardizing the creativity out of kids, as you so well put it. And it scares and worries me. What’s going to happen to these kids when they become adults? People complain about the state of “kids these days”, but who is it that’s creating them that way?
I really resonated with what you said about kids having few rights and being in waiting mode for years and years…
The question I keep coming back to for myself is, “How can I make a difference, how can I help to bring about change in this system?”
And I’m thrilled to hear people like you speaking up about it and writing educational pieces about it! 🙂 🙂
Hi Jess,
Great to meet a homeschooler!
Well, you can start writing about your own experiences. Even a book. Or open an after school creativity center? A post on your blog?
Do you have a local paper in your area of Canada to send columns to? There’s this misperception that homeschooled kids are weird. After writing my piece it occurred to me that I haven’t heard of any homeschooled children going on shooting rampages. Maybe some do. Not aware of them.
Try and work on some new models for education and even meet with public school officials. They’re supposed to listen to everyone.
I’ve got a hybrid idea where kids spend some time in school and some time in the community and some time as apprentices.
Thx, G.
Hey G., what a great article and post. Re-tweeted with gusto.
I remember watching TED presentation online about education. The speaker’s point was that programs that accentuate organic rather than manufactured learning consistently produce children that do better in every measurable way: creativity, problem solving, confidence and self-esteem, and even on those nasty, standardized test scores.
And the great part about organic models and curriculum is that they’ve been proven to work in home and public school settings (where they’re generally saved for the best and worst students – go figure).
Thanks Michael!
I could have written five articles on what I discovered.
Organic sounds really healthy – in eating and learning. You’re so right about the manufactured learning. We set these bizarre, insane learning quotas, patterns and timetables – probably so some dude in a corner office has a job.
One thing I cannot understand is why snow days need to be made up. If it’s a contractual problem, fix the contracts. Kids can learn organically by stomping around in the snow.
Most of it appears to be about breaking the human spirit, so you’ll be eager to sit at yet another desk for the next 30 years. Or shop in windowless malls.
Enjoyed your comment as always! G.
Great post on an ongoing hot-button subject and I know many parents of school-age kids would agree with you. I can’t imagine school reform getting enacted to our satisfaction any time soon so, apart from relying on progressive school board members and activist educators who dedicate themselves to improving the schooling experience of these kids the best way they know how, parents like me will, in the meantime, have to rely on extra-curricular stimulation and education for our children from other sources outside of the school. I think parents who are engaged in their parenting already do this without much prodding. But still, I completely agree that the value of standardized testing is questionable and school reform is of supreme importance.
Hi Belinda,
Ed folks love to talk about the need for reform and then refuse to confront it because it means they might lose their jobs. The reform or complete redo will need to come from someone outside that group. I do see parents trying to give their kids exposure to creativity through after school programs. I’d love to see it weaved throughout the day rather than a drip here and there!
Art, music and theater get cut first because those classes provide more freedom and opportunities to use their imaginations. That’s not wanted in an obedience model.
Many thanks for piping in! G.
Giulietta, You know where I stand on this subject – with you all the way. This educational conformity is blatantly obvious in the products and attitudes being churned out through the public school system.
Interesting that just in the past two days, I’ve read other blog posts on this subject so it looks like there is some concern for what is going on. One on http://www.bornstoryteller.wordpress.com “Creativity in education” starts with the quote, “Creativity is as important in education as literacy.” That supports your message that not all kids should have to conform to a standardized set of organized activities. It boosted my hopes to hear that some colleges are now not looking for the well-rounded students but are also interested in the unrounded. About time they stop turning children into dumbed down masses who zombie-like will do and think whatever they are told.
I wish that – apart from Richard Branson – you had mentioned a few other current successful High School dropouts. In this country, I doubt that anyone younger than 50 or 60 would make it without at least that or the equivalent whereas elsewhere, some (uneducated) entrepreneurs are taking on the world.
Hi Penelope,
Will take a look at the link. My
thinking” research for my column started about six years ago when I picked up my first JT Gatto book. It’s interested how I accepted the current ed model as the truth until someone suggested it might not be. Then my brain opened up to lots of new ides.
I’ve read that back before we dumbed down the schools, children in the eighth grade read the equivalent of today’s college materials. Am going to take a leap here and say that perhaps today’s college dropouts equal the elem/high school dropouts of years ago.
Here’s a link to famous dropouts.
http://www.angelfire.com/stars4/lists/dropouts.html
Got lots of names on there – quite a few under 50. Yes, it’s probably harder to dropout today because the truancy laws are tougher and it’s hard to disappear with the Internet, etc.
The five most famous college dropouts are
Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Ted Turner.
Thx! G.