(Disclaimer of bias: I adore Sir Ken Robinson. I have zero ability to be objective. I will gush.)
There are groups all over the world having this conversation - about how we develop systems of education that are faithful to the talents of our children. Around the world, this is happening in the face of a political headwind.
We all have some deep talents, and there is a need for education to develop them and provide access to them.
Politicians of all parties seem to take the view that education is a form of preparation for something that happens later on. It's like a holding camp for the jobs market. This is how they became so focused on the need to raise academic standards and lead to the downgrading of vocational programs. Society depends on people pulling on the rope together, but our education systems have come focused on competition for political reasons.
"I'd rather have an electrician rewire my house than a man with a PhD in electrical engineering." The unemployment rate would be lower if we didn't tell kids they had to reach a level above of what they want to do to contribute to the world.
"If you design a system to promote certain abilities and downgrade others, don't be surprised when that happens."
All grandparents think that their grandchild is the smartest, most beautiful, wonderful child that ever was born. However, like every other child, each is a human being, who grows and depends on resources to live. As humans, we have curiosity and have desires to create culture and change the world rather than adapt to it.
Speaking multiple languages doesn't mean you are linguistically gifted. It has to do with your background and environment. There is a natural capacity that the environment develops. Nobody teaches you to speak. You couldn't teach it if you wanted to because you don't know how you do it either. They learn to speak because they want to and because they can. Learning is natural.
Learning is the natural process of acquiring new skills and understanding, and it is a gift of nature (God).
We have education systems because
- there are things that are important to us culturally and want to make sure kids don't miss them.
- there are some things we want kids to learn that are to difficult to learn left to their own devices.
A school is a community of learners, where people come together to learn with and from each other.
Video showing extreme enthusiasm - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzry8ATXvX0&disable_polymer=true
All kids love to learn, but many have a problem with education and school because of the pressures inherent in the system that have been caused for political reasons. Humans have a sense of enthusiasm and enchantment in discovery and learning. That joy of learning should impel learning.
We fall for the lie that if you do well on tests you will get better jobs and live happier lives. It used to be true, but it is not anymore. We need forms of education that fit the way the world really is.
Technology has utterly transformed every aspect of childhood, from work to play. Kids are rarely outside. By the time a child is 7, he has spent two years in front of a screen and one year of that time alone with the screen.
After contracting polio, he was sent to a special needs school for the physically disabled. He was at school with people who had cerebral palsy, partial blindness, heart problems, etc. None of the children thought anything about it. They didn't see each other in terms of disability. A boy with CP sat next to him who had very clear thinking, but the lack of muscle control kept him from speaking well. He wrote with his feet and had excellent penmanship.
Reflecting on his childhood as he was writing recently, he had this thought. "If you have a narrow view of ability, you have a broad view of disability. Our education systems are structured around a narrow view of ability." People probably have abilities that you don't notice just because you aren't looking for them. We have to broaden our view of ability, intelligence, and creativity rather than compliance and linear skill development.
Capacity is different from ability. You may have the capacity to play the cello, speak multiple languages, or be a master of calligraphy but not have the ability to do it because no one ever taught you. If you don't find the thing you love and are good at, you will get through the day; but you won't really enjoy it.
There is a difference between physical energy and spiritual energy. You can be exhilarated in your spirit while being physically exhausted when you are doing something you love. You get energy from doing the things you love. People are like that too. There are people whose energy you sync with, and you fall in love with them. You just love being with them. There are people drain the energy from you.
Paul McCartney and George Harrison's music teacher didn't think either of them had any particular musical ability. He had half the Beatles in his class and missed it. Elvis wasn't allowed in the glee club because they said he would ruin their sound.
"The aim of education is to enable students to understand the world around them and the talents within them so that they can become fulfilled individuals and active, compassionate citizens."(Personal note: This is a secularized statement that perfectly aligns with the GRACE Vision Statement: Students at GRACE Christian School will be grounded in God’s Word and challenged to achieve academic excellence as they prepare to use their gifts and abilities effectively to follow God’s plan for their lives.)
Human talent is highly diverse. Life is organic, not linear. Every life is unique and unrepeatable. We need a broad enough curriculum to let them find their talents. (I have never met anyone who doesn't have special needs. There are just some that are more obvious. It's in the nature of human beings to have special needs.)
"To be born at all is a miracle, so what are you going to do with your life?" - Dahli Lama
Every one of us bears the imprint of humanity, but we all bear it differently. People settle for too little. At a time when we are better off than any other time in history, the most prevalent condition among people is depression. We must create conditions for human growth.
You can raise the value of education without raising the status of teachers. Politicians are focused on the curriculum rather than the teachers.
Wikipedia shows us that knowledge is a shared fabric and shows what people can do when they collaborate. There's never been anything like it.
"I don't know. I've never thought about that. What do you think?" - Dahli Lama (Great teachers are great learners, and they ask others to teach them.)
Concurrent Sessions C
Part 1 - 10,000-Hour Myth: Lessons From Child Prodigies (Young Children) - Ellen Winner, PhD
The Anti-Talent View
- "Every child is born with the capcity for becoming richly musical so long as he or she is brought up properly. There is no inborn talent for music ability." - Sinichi Suzuki
- Ericsson believes that deliberate practice can lead to high achievement in any domain. It must be designed to improve performance, structured, effortful, and motivate by improvement, not enjoyment.
- Ericsson's study was based on 40 people divided into 4 groups. Because the highest two groups practiced more than the bottom two groups, it was concluded that there was a direct correlation between practice and expertise. Correlation is not causation, and the method is flawed scientifically. Perhaps innate proclivity (talent) motivates more practice.
Evidence for Drawing Talent: Early Skill and Rage to Master
- Practice is necessary, but it is not sufficient for greatness. There are individual differences innate to the human being.
- Prodigies are precocious and learn rapidly. The come to you already with greater skill. You can't tear them away from their domain. They have an intense desire to master that skill. They tend to make discoveries on their own with little scaffolding from adults.
- Realistic drawing studies of young children show early skill is shown prior to practice in some kids.
These were drawn by two different 3-year-olds.
These are drawn by the same child as he aged. The first one was at 4 years, 7 months. The others were drawn at 6.
These were drawn by the same child at 3, 4, and 6.
Experimental Evidence for Talent
- To sight-read music, while playing the piano, you must look at the notes ahead while playing the current notes. This involves working memory. Experiments measured working memory in children using span tests. It was found that deliberate practice led to better sight-reading skill but that working memory predicted sight-reading skills regardless of the amount of deliberate practice. Therefore, working memory can limit ultimate attainment.
- Gobet and Campitelli studied 104 chess players. Assessed the deliberate practice hours and whether they had reached Grand Master level. They found that deliberate practice accounted for 34% variance in national rating. In the 34 that had achieved Grand Master level, the average practice time was about 11000 hours, but the range was from 3016 to 23608 hours. Some in the study spent 25000 hours without reaching Grand Master level.
- Deliberate practice is harder to measure in some fields than others.
- One of the problems with the deliberate practice studies is that they are looking at people who are already elite. You need a random sample to get an accurate view.
Is Talent in Drawing a Splinter Skill?
- Prodigy study: Drake and Winner - 12 drawing prodigies who achieved realism 2 years ahead of their peers were compared to a control group of typical drawers. They were given IQ tests and visual-spatial tests. IQ was not correlated to artistic skill. There were two areas in which the artists visual-spacial skills were better or faster, but not all. They did not find the underlying core capacity that might lead to realistic drawing talent.
Potential Dangers of the Anti-Talent View
- Drive and talent are associated, not learned.
- Parental pressure cannot replace or overcome rage to master.
- If the child doesn't achieve, the implication is that the child just didn't work hard enough.
An argument among attendees about whether gifted kids could be gifted in domain-specific or domain-general areas. Suggestions that parents might not be able to influence because of kids resistance, so a parent could enlist a peer as a stealth strategy.
Part 2 - Fantastic Failures: How Learning from Great Minds Can Help Students Reach Their Potential - Luke Reynolds, PhD
- We are so deeply interested in our students' success that we might be failing them.
- When a student fails, how do you respond? You should help them figure out how to go deeper and examine the causes.
- Told a story about a movie making him believe that people who drove vans were killers. Kids can get wrong ideas in our head without even knowing it. It is sometimes necessary to unlearn things that we have deeply ingrained in our minds.
- "I want you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through, no matter what." - Atticus Finch
- Start with your passion and what causes a creative burst, and you will walk right into any standard a state can devise. If you start with the standards, you might not ever get through to the passion.
- For the kid who feels like they don't belong, the goal of education is telling them that they do belong.
- Christopher Reeve's wife gave him the will to live after his accident when she said, "You're still you, and I love you."
- Charles Dutton took a book of African American plays into solitary confinement with him while he was in prison. He said "I found my humanity in that cell and I was a changed man when I got out." He asked the guards if he could start a theater group in prison and kept asking until they let him do it. Upon release, he went to Yale and then Broadway, movies, and television. Perhaps, if he had read these plays and gotten him involved in acting in school, he might not have ended up in that cell.
- JK Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers. They thought Harry Potter was too weird a concept and didn't know how they would market it. The agent who took her on told her children's books don't make a lot of money. Bloomsbury's editor brought it home planned to reject it as well, but her daughter started reading it. She told her mom, "If you don't publish that book, I'll never speak to you again."
- You should have high standards for all kids, but you have to walk through it with them through the context of their life. Join them where they are to get them to the standard.
- How do you want to be measured? When kids talk about you ten years from now, what do you want them to say? Measure others in that way, too.
- Don't get so distracted by data that you forget the authenticity of learning. It's not always measurable.
- If you can find a way to make a paper or speech on something a kid likes, you can accomplish the same skills without making them hate or fear it. Find ways to reduce pressure on kids.
- When you ask kids to tell you a story, they don't get scared about public speaking. They are achieving all the elements you would have on your rubric, but there's no fear and loathing because they don't see it as a big deal. (Personal Note to Kellie: I will change my rubric a bit for next year's element speeches. On the delivery part, I will change PVLEGS to how natural the delivery is to encourage them to be themselves or personify the element naturally.)
- You can reach any standard with creative methods. If you are with your kids in the store, and you need 11 things (standard), you can say to your kids, "Aliens are coming to destroy the earth. These are the 11 items we need." (method) The more creative the method, the less pressur the kids will feel.
Concurrent Sessions D
Part 1 - The Science of Innovation: Overcoming Obstacles to Creativity in Your Classroom - Anthony J. McCaffrey, PhD
All his students have been diagnosed with some sort of learning impairment.
uPuzzles (Universal puzzles) can be adapted to any subject matter.
Show a doodle and ask what they see.
When asking people to solve a puzzle, it is difficult to get people to break out of the common use of an object to see how else it could be used. Asking students to break those objects down into descriptions of their parts might help them see it in a different way.
When asking people to design something new, they often get fixed on making variations to already established things. If you are asked to design a new candle, you will probably only change color, size, scent, or shape. You should focus on what other people have overlooked.
Design puzzles in such a way that the solution includes a feature that is commonly overlooked.
The brain hates nonsense. It wants to make sense of what it sees and hears. Nonsense makes the brain work hard. Sometimes it needs clues, which is why it often becomes clear when someone else says what it is.
Three degrees of separation among concepts.
Example: Brick and Banana - A brick can be used to make a building. A supermarket is a kind of building. Supermarkets sell bananas. You can do this with vocabulary words in any subject (e.g. Mitosis and Basketball)
Noun-Sense (leads to metaphorical meaning)
Take any two nouns and have students tell what they could mean. (e.g. Diamond messages, Stake puddle, Dictionary treatment, Jello marriage, Drama mitosis)
Memes and Themes
Show a common meme and have kids write the words based on the material.
Strange Line
Give students a strange sentence (He met himself just yesterday.) and ask them to come up with the scenario. When you present a text, before reading it, give students an interesting line. Ask them what they think it means with no background or context. (To be or not to be. That is the question.) Then, when they are reading, they can find out what it really means.
Complete the Famous Saying
Ask not what your country can do for you . . .
One small step for man . . .
Then, compare their answers to the real answer.
How did that happen?
Give two unrelated sentences. (The king is dead. The evergreen trees are flourishing.) Ask students to give a narrative chain of events to get from one to the other. If you do it in history, you can use something like "Chauffer takes a wrong turn. Sixteen million people died." They fill in the details of how WWI started. In Biology, you could use "The sun is shining. People can breathe."
Making Headlines
Give a news story or historical event. Have kids write the headline. You could then look at real headlines from the time.
Group Creativity - Brainstorming in groups is not very effective. Extroverts dominate, and they speak differently depending on who is in the room that they want to impress or don't want to be embarrassed in front of. Brainstorm alone first. Come together to share ideas. Don't brainstorm together.
Shoevolution
Give students a collection of pictures of shoes. Ask them to design a new shoe with aspects of two others. Show the new shoes as a new collection of pictures. Then, have them do it again with the second set of shoes. Discuss adaptations.
Brainswarming
Put goal at the top and resources at the bottom. Figure out where the things can come together to find the solution.
Automaticity is the enemy of creativity. It is an important neural process for everyday living, like why you can sit in a chair without fear, but it stops you from having new ideas of what to do with that chair. To overcome automaticity,
No comments:
Post a Comment