So What? A reflection on growth directions

I've taken in a lot of new information and ideas this week, but nothing quite resonated with me as much as Ken Robinson's Ted Talk on changing education paradigms.  In class I saw  his talk that was edited down with very helpful illustrations, but once I got back home I went in search of the full video, and found this speech posing the question: "Does education kill creativity?"

Coincidentally I am taking a psychology course this semester as well, and there was a tiny tidbit that connected in a very disturbing way.  In learning about behavioral psychology we were assigned a video about Twin Studies that briefly mentioned the fact that we are growing ever closer to a future where parents can choose what genes to eliminate from their child, including the gene that creates a predisposition for bipolar personality disorder. I'll explain how the two are connected, but first a little on what I learned about the foundation of our academic system.

In Ken Robinson's speech he argues that as we grow older we are taught to live inside our heads, and slightly to one side. We have an educational system that doesn't treat creativity with the same status as literacy, although it is just as crucial.  Our education system is built on teaching people how to think vertically vs. laterally. This type of thinking works great for math and certain sciences, but completely ignoring lateral thinking leaves people unable to try different things, see different outcomes, and ultimately being afraid to fail.  Historically our school system is built with the premise that the very worst thing you can do is to make a mistake.

Public education systems were conceived in the intellectual culture of the enlightenment and the economic circumstances of the industrial revolution in the middle of the 19th century.
At this time, in the enlightenment period, certain types of deductive reasoning and knowledge were equated with intelligence. This established the traditional basis of what subjects we consider "Academic" (Such as literature, math, sciences, etc.)

As we get closer to present day we see these same values in place - importance placed on "Academic" Subjects and creativity and the arts being mostly ignored and left behind. When you hear about public school budgets being cut, those are usually the first to go.

The big issue is that, while this system does work really well for a few, it leaves many different types of people believing that their skills are not important, and that they are not good enough. We see certain traits of hyperactivity, or the inability to think without moving around, and we end up medicating our children.  We're holding children to standards set in an entirely different world - one that wasn't so constantly bright, interactive and stimulating. They are bombarded with billboards, tv ads, music, and laser focused media, and then we wonder why they can't focus on educational curriculum that were conceived 100 years ago, and that aren't engaging their personality types on any level.

It is not a radical or new idea that creativity and the arts are extraordinarily important in today's world, but regardless of the research, evidence and ideas being there, change can be really hard.  But it is important, right now, more than ever.  I mentioned earlier the video that described the not-so-distant future that will enable parents to selectively remove genes from their unborn child's DNA. The one example given was the gene that predisposes a person to bipolar personality disorder. This doesn't mean that if you eliminate the gene you eliminate the disorder, but it greatly reduces the risk of your child developing it. It seems like a clear cut win for science - until you learn that there is a link between the bipolar disorder and creativity. Suddenly you recognize the trade off. You eliminate the risk of the disorder, but at what cost?

For me, the scary take away is that we are at risk right now of losing creativity in our society. We're not educating people on the importance of the arts and creativeness, we aren't demonstrating personal and cultural value to those things in our school system, and consequently we are imparting the overall message that those things may be fun, but really aren't that important.

Now our students will grow up to be parents and have kids of their own - in the not-so-distant future where they may be given the option to reduce the risk of a personality disorder in exchange for giving up a trait that, unfortunately, they grew up being taught wasn't all that important. A trait that was medicated out of them, and a trait that they were told would "never land them a good job."

It's not that far fetched to say that creativity is at risk of becoming endangered. The world has many great artists that are revered and will be forever remembered, from ancient past to present day.  How many artists already have been victims of our current education  hierarchy?  How many will be victims of gene selection as an indirect result of the message we send about the importance of creativity?

The answer to those very important questions depends on one other - what are we going to do about it?

History of Education

9/16/15

 

After reading an overview on the history of education - from ancient Greece to near present day, I’ve found several things that completely took me off guard.

The first piece of information that I didn’t expect came from the system in Ancient Greece. I learned that females and slaves were not allowed to attend school, which wasn’t in itself surprising, but they could receive tutoring for the purpose of home-schooling the young children under their care. It’s extremely difficult to imagine that a society that holds debates in such high regard would maintain a system that seemingly acknowledges a woman’s ability to not only learn but also teach the same concepts as anyone else, yet denies them the rights to education. The denial of education makes sense when you’re talking about human slavery because information is power - and obviously these societies do not want their slaves to have power. Despite this, I can’t help but wonder how it was decided what was taught to women and slaves and what was restricted. Were they only allowed to learn basic concepts? Could they be educated to the same extent that a 5 year old would for example, but no further?  This is definitely a topic I would like to explore more, but my initial research is producing a lot of conflicting information. For now I’ll move on to the next topic.

The second fact, or maybe person, that surprised me most was Thomas Jefferson. I had no prior knowledge of his role on the shift of the school curriculum away from bibles, church theology, latin and greek, into more traditional academics such as science and math. There is a very persistent patriotic myth that America was “founded as a Christian country” and I often see posts on Facebook and other websites claiming that the government is extracting God from schools, and that their child should be allowed to pray because this was America.

So I was very surprised to learn, having only been exposed to the ‘patriotic’ idea put forth in Facebook memes and chain e-mails, that one of the founding fathers played a major role in shifting school curriculums away from religion.

Not only that, but Jefferson also believed that democracy works when all people have access to the same education. Since he believed that all people had the same potential for acquiring knowledge, making schooling accessible to everyone would create an educated population where representatives could be appointed (since everyone is, supposedly, of similar intellect) to run the country.

To me this means that our basic educational functions in America are flawed because the availability of quality education varies so greatly based on region, income class, race, and so many other factors. We are not providing equal education to all American citizens, whether it be students who are too poor to go to college or even urban schools that don’t get the funding they need. Students may have access to a paper that says they’ve completed high school, but even that does not necessarily mean education. According to a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education and National Institute of Literacy that I found inline,19% of high school graduates graduate without the ability read.

With this new knowledge that at least one of our founding fathers drafted the constitution based on the idea that our country would provide it’s citizens with equal educational opportunities makes me realize what a critical role education is playing in the growth or decay of our country.  And it absolutely makes sense. For democracy to work the way it intended, there needs to be an educated and informed population.  

The most shocking thing of all was the realization that from Ancient Greece through to today, we still are not providing education equally to everybody. I haven’t found my answer yet as to exactly what the viewpoint was in Ancient Greece, but it is clear that for Modern America we’ve known quite literally since the beginning that one major component to a working and functioning society and government is equal access to education. We can look back at Ancient Greece and talk about how awful it was for them to deny education to a specific ‘lower’ class of people - but I’d hope that doing so would result in us looking at present day selves and recognizing that we are committing the same terrible act, only under different circumstances.

Teaching as Autobiography Reflection

My elementary school years were split evenly between two schools. The first school I attended was in Richfield, Minnesota, which is a suburb just outside of Minneapolis.

Last week in class we did an exercise where we had to write down the names of all the teachers we remember, and it got me thinking about one particular moment with my second grade teacher in Richfield. In class we had reading groups, and based on what group the teacher decided we were in, we had a different book assigned to us. I remember it felt like the different reading groups were ranked based on how well you could read. The kids that I thought were in the lower reading groups were assigned picture books, which they read in a small group with the teacher. The rest of the class did assignments at our desks. Each group would meet in a small group with the teacher during class, but it seemed well known among the class that the better readers were assigned harder books to read at home. I remember being in the top reading group, being assigned Mr. Poppers Penguins. I got home to do my reading of the book, but couldn't make it past past the first few pages. I kept getting stuck on the word vacuum. I would lose my place, have to restart, then get stuck on another word and forget what I read. Then I would repeat that process. Over the weeks I pretended as if I had read the assigned chapters, until we were required to have read the whole book. I hadn't even started it. The teacher kept asking if I finished the book over the course of a few days, reminding me that I was the only one in my group who hadn't finished the book. The rest of the group was ready to move onto the next book. One week the teacher seemed really upset with me for not having finished it, and I broke down crying in class. I Admitted that I couldn't finish the reading. I felt ashamed and not good enough, and I saw the look of shock on my teacher's face. I don't think she was aware of how much I struggling, that I hadn't read any of the book, and that I was so embarrassed. I was placed in a reading group below that one, which I did well in. But I remembered my teacher based on that memory. Why did she publicly call me out for not having finished the book? Was it right for her to put us in ranked reading groups that other students knew about? In the Teaching as Autobiography by Nieto we read last week, the author talks about inspiring or wounding a life as a teacher, and that it's important to confront your identity. I definitively felt wounded by the experience with my teacher, but I got over it. Now that I reflect on it from the perspective as a future teacher, I begin to wonder about how the teacher must of felt. She was clearly shocked when I burst out into tears in class and I can't help but wonder if that moment had as strong of an effect on her as it did on me.