<p>We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school.</p>
<p>Sounds to me as if she is objecting to the fill in the bubble, memorize and regurgitate, non critical thinking, none higher ordered thinking, non engaged type of learning that quite frankly schools have to make a real effort in order not to succumb completely to it. The Texas public school system’s constantly changing but ever the same benchmark testing (taaks, taaks, taas, toots, twits, whatever) has every teacher who would truly love to get kids excited about real learning, pulling their hair out in frustration at having to “teach to the test.”</p>
<p>Having taught fine arts at the elementary level for several years I will testify that this is a valid and distressing concern. </p>
<p>The state has the schools so frantic to make sure they pass all the marks that when they test for certain subjects, they pull all the teachers in other subject matters off of their regular curriculum and make them all prepare every student in the school for that subject matter test. Mastery of core curriculum is essential of course, but ditching all the arts (for those schools still providing arts, sigh) and every kind of learning method other than filling in bubbles, will indeed produce exactly that non critically and non creatively thinking, automaton type of student that I think she is objecting to.</p>
<p>I am one in a large number of educators who also object to this unfortunate end result of over emphasis on standardized testing. I realize there is a place for it in the educational system (we’ve all read the justifications, no need to repeat here) but when schools have to sacrifice opportunities for creative learning and thinking then the system starts defeating it’s own purpose.</p>
<p>An education should be about being able to think, not just reciting the information put in front of them for 12 years - most people would at least give lip service to being in agreement with that, but somehow a lot of school districts aren’t doing much to ensure that it happens. My daughter’s school district does, I believe, have a few administrators who are on board with this, but not all are, and the state accreditation system directly rewards schools that ditch everything else in favor of producing students who can fill in those bubbles right, even if they can’t come up with a single original thought.</p>
<p>If that’s what she was alluding to, (I acknowledge if that was the case she was very broad in her approach) I have to say I agree. Some students might be, by their inborn character traits, the type to rebel and be creative anyway despite the system - she gives the example of the kids who doodle in class - but someone whose natural temperament was very compliant could conceivably never seek any thing that the school didn’t tell them they wanted. I could see how they would feel bitter in that case - they worked hard at doing exactly what the system wanted of them, and it turns out that what the system wanted of them was more for the benefit of the system, not the individual.</p>
<p>I think that’s what she was getting at, and if so, I have to say I agree. It’s not about not working hard or not being interested in the work; it’s about the system rewarding the kids who excel at filling in the bubbles, and not rewarding the creative thinkers.</p>
<p>I disagree that it’s not the school’s job to encourage and foster creative thinking. On the contrary I think it’s a tragic failure that they aren’t, and I cannot understand why someone would think that it’s the school’s responsibility to see that they know math and English and history facts, but somehow not their responsibility to also foster “thinking outside the box” skills. In real life, I have very seldom had problems I had to solve that came with a tidy little multiple choice answer sheet. I’ve had to figure out not only the answers but the questions too. If she’s concerned that many schools aren’t doing what they should to make students able to do that, she’s right. Those kinds of abilities are the ones needed to make profound and important advances for humanity and civilization.</p>
<p>The basic tools, the part they can spout back, matter also. The engineers who solve problems that vex society, use math as a language, but they have to have the creative spark going on inside in order to know what they want to say with that language. And how much more productive would our society be if even the so called “drones” in their cubicles were empowered to use creative problem solving skills - there is no person in society who could not contribute more in that case.</p>
<p>She may not know the answer to it; she’s just a kid: having been involved in the arts and arts learning for the past 30 years, I feel that there is an answer to this, and it’s not anything we don’t already know. It’s just that we aren’t doing it in all of our schools.</p>
<p>edit: also, curriculums which foster the higher ordered thinking skills find students doing better even in the regurgitation type learning; when you grow the brain and get those synapses firing, it has plenty of benefits that even someone who finds no point in fostering creativity (it blows my mind anyone would think that but some apparently do) would find desirable.</p>