Nitty-Gritty

Grit. It's a word that is thrown around quite often in the world of education. It's the word of the moment. Despite its recent pop culture explosion, grit is a concept I buy into wholeheartedly. Here's why.

Grit is the single most predictive factor of success, as told by Angela Duckworth and her research with the University of Pennsylvania. Despite this, Grit is something typically overlooked in the American public school system.  From what I've observed, the bulk of what we value as educators, is "accuracy, correctness." This mindset not only shortchanges students, but also reduces the educational process. Students who frequently get the answers right are often missing this essential life skill. There will be a time when these students don't know the answer and don't know how to find it.

I've often heard this tale in Algebra 1. Students sailed through elementary and middle school math with A's, then by midyear in Algebra 1, they are lost. They don't know how to study for math, because they never had to. Frequently, this snowballs into lower math grades, feelings of frustration,  and most significantly, a lack of willingness to put in the time and effort needed to learn the material.  

"The other behavior that seems to explain why grit is a marker of future success is deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is the sort of practice experts to do improve...In the National Spelling Bee, for example, gritty finalists log more hours of deliberate practice, and this time uniquely predicts final ranking whereas less effortful and more pleasurable forms of practice do not" (Duckworth). It is obvious, for long-term goals which demand a continued practice and attention to skill, grittier individuals will exceed their peers. The question becomes, how do we instill grit in our students? Is it inborn or is it something that can be cultivated over time? In my classroom, there are small adjustments I've made in an effort to promote grit. 

First, an assignment is never truly considered "done." I put a grade in the system, return work to my classes, but students can revise and rewrite to their hearts' content.  I see no problem with allowing a student multiple opportunities to improve his/her work. As long as this continued effort doesn't interfere with the class period at hand, there are no problems. Second, in a question and answer session, I try not to move on when I hear the answer I want;  I probe, inquire further, and encourage students to challenge each other's thoughts.  There is often a "right answer," but why not push the student to think further?  The word "elaborate" works wonders in a class discussion. Lastly, a major project that requires precision and time is a unique approach to promoting grit. Last year, my students completed a large mural based on the work of Sol Lewitt.  Although it was "easy" work, it was evident that most honors students did not have the grit to master the product. They were impatient, hasty, and made simple mistakes because of their lack of sustained effort and precision. Large-scale projects like this are messy and ambitious to implement and manage, but the student perspective that can be gained is unparalleled. In any classroom, designing assignments that require slow work and precision is a great way to harness grit.

The willingness to struggle through a seemingly impossible task is not only an academic skill, it is a life skill. Character is built in moments of frustration, anger, and failure...moments which often evade our brightest students until they reach high school, or for some, college. It's not to say that there is no merit in positive reinforcement, there absolutely is, but the stamina that comes from sustained effort and the momentum it builds has a decisively more substantial impact on a student's life. Motivation is often what eludes so many of our students and promoting gritty activities can help build true, intrinsic motivation which lasts and extends beyond the classroom walls. Whether through a job application process, a difficult time with family, or a time-consuming project, grit makes navigating demanding tasks much easier. 

The idea may seem trendy, but the heart of this dogma is at the core of American culture. As LaBoeuf said in True Grit, "You'll find I go ahead with what I start."

"The Duckworth Lab." Research Statement. University of Pennsylvania, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

"True Grit" (1969). IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

Creating Relevancy through Meaning and Metaphor

“In a world of fixed future, life is an infinite corridor of rooms, one room lit at each moment, the next room dark but prepared. We walk from room to room, look into the room that is lit, the present moment, then walk on. We do not know the rooms ahead, but we know we cannot change them. We are spectators of our lives.”

“In a world without future, each moment is the end of the world.”

-Alan Lightman, from Einstein’s Dreams

Exercises in metaphor pervade our history, whether it is Sir Isaac Newton’s revelations concerning the physics of our universe from his experience with a small apple, or Christ’s ability to paint parables for his disciples that illuminated the word of God. Metaphors allow us to explain the sometimes unexplainable, as the early mythologies were less religiously intended as opposed to a necessary way to explain the terrifyingly inexplicable events that surrounded early man, such as bolts of electricity falling from the sky.  In his excellent novel, Einstein’s Dreams, Astrophysicist and Creative Writing professor Alan Lightman imagines the dreams of Albert Einstein.  The dreams are not mathematical equations or a blank slate blackboard filled with calculations and diagrams.  The dreams he imagines are the dreams of worlds.  The worlds all vary in one fundamental way, the role that Time plays in them.  In one, he imagines time as a fixed point, in another, a flock of birds.  He then observes the way that people react in those worlds: What would they love? What would they fear? These nightly meditations eventually lead him to his truth, that to understand how time works in our world, he merely needs to observe how the people around him behave. Like his non-fictional counterparts, this Einstein has learned through the power of metaphor, and a strong reliance on the learning principle of Meaning.

Meaning requires an emphasis on bringing relevant and engaging experiences to students. “The more meaningful or relevant the task or application of information is to the students’ work, the easier it is to learn. The teacher may make explicit reference to students’ personal experiences as a link to connecting content with the students’ lives or they may actually simulate the experience in the learning activity” (DBTC).  In the public school classroom, now more than ever, the diverse populations of students that enter our doors bring with them a multitude of different attitudes, experiences, beliefs and feelings about school.  The typical schema that we expect students to have, schema that represents a more culturally exclusive time, no longer exists in all our students.  For many teachers, the response to this inability to guarantee what students are bringing to the classroom, causes them to simply start over, treating the students as blank slates.  The prolonged effects of this “Episodic View of Reality” (Feuerstein, Feuerstein, Falik, and Rand, 2006) can have devastating long term consequences. A better, more ethical way to combat the diverse schema that students are bringing to the classroom, is to provide meaningful, metaphorical anchor experiences at the start of units, that will pre-load metaphorical and experiential schema for later reference, building relevant and usable meaning into the lessons that follow.

One issue brought forth when meaning is not addressed in the classroom is that there is little to no transfer of skills from class-to-class, or, more insidiously, from grade-to-grade. The episodic view is the result of a lack of connection that the student feels toward the subject matter.  In short, their education is something that is being done to them, not something that they are actively participating in. In some colleges, “Anchored Instruction” is being used to ground certain instructional practices in relevant life experiences.  In this case, a Computer Learning class, where students were learning how to use technology, was paired with a teaching and learning class that used the students own struggles as a basis for studying instruction.  A study of the experiment concluded that ““Evidence from other research projects suggests that a specific emphasis on analyzing similarities and differences among problem situations and on bridging new area of application facilitates the degree to which spontaneous transfer occurs” (Cognition and Technology Group, 1990).” by providing the students with a relevant and meaningful basis for discussion, they were more likely to retain, and later use, the skills they were introduced to.

Another anchor activity our district was introduced to recently was the Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment program.  Based on the theory and research of Reuven Feuerstein, the program consists of simple instruments, such as recognizing pattern, or connecting dots, that are seemingly unrelated to content area studies. “Organization of Dots engages children in projecting virtual relationships in an amorphous cloud of dots to form specific geometrical forms. The resulting products must conform to given forms and sizes in changing spatial orientation. The exercises become progressively complex as the child gradually overcomes the challenges of conservation, representation, and precision” (Ben-Hur, 2006). As you bring the students through the instruments however, it becomes a metaphorical discussion regarding learning styles in general, that can be applied into almost any situation.  To teach us how to use the instruments, we were first tasked with completing them, and the frustration and learning that occurred even in the adults, was eye-opening, and empathy inducing.  We have used this experience with classes of all levels, and it has myriad connections that we continue to reference throughout the year.  Without providing this anchor experience, our ability to tap into relevance and meaning would be greatly diminished.

The ability to create transfer across grades is important, but it can be even more powerful when it is planned through the use of interdisciplinary anchors. The answer is that children learn by mobilizing their innate capacities to meet everyday challenges they perceive as meaningful. Skills and concepts are most often learned as tools to meet present demands rather than as facts to be memorized today in hopes of application tomorrow. Further, daily life is not separated into academic disciplines or divided into discrete time units; instead, the environment presents problems that one must address in an interdisciplinary, free-flowing way, usually in collaboration with peers and mentors” (Barab and Landa, 1997). By connecting experiences and metaphors that breach into different subject area, we increase the capacity for meaningful experiences, that also privilege the concept of transfer simultaneously. Again, the created meaning becomes a common reference point that teachers can refer back to in order to help students facilitate learning.

Lightman’s Einstein envisions a world where time is fixed, and everything that will happen is already known by the people that inhabit it. He describes this life as a series of rooms, with the absence of choice, its inhabitants serving only as “spectator’s in their lives”. Without meaning, a child’s education must feel this way. The student who is tasked with navigating these rooms, only to move onto the next, truly comes to believe as well that each day is “the end of the world.”  We must as teachers be sure to provide relevant  and meaningful experiences for our students.  We must help them to see that they have agency and choice, and we must create for them, reference points that they can use to put their education in the context of their own lives.  Short of taking them around the world, and covering all of the potential references they may need in our diverse curriculum, we can still produce metaphorical anchors that can be used to help students bring a common experience and schema to their day-to-day learning lives.

References

Barab, S., & Landa, A. Designing Effective Interdisciplinary Anchors. How Children Learn,54, 52-55.

Ben-Hur, M. (2006, December 1). Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment-BASIC. . Retrieved , from http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/Instrumental%20Enrichment/hur3.htm

Feuerstein, Feuerstein, Falik, and Rand (2006), Creating and Enhancing Cognitive Modifiability:  The Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment Program, ICELP Publications

Principles of Learning. (n.d.). . Retrieved July 11, 2014, from http://d20uo2axdbh83k.cloudfront.net/20140516/950b5968383aac0612b95267241b6fbb.pd

Saphier, J., & Gower, R. R. (1997). The skillful teacher: building your teaching skills (5th ed.). Acton, Mass.: Research for Better Teaching.

Vanderbilt, Cognition and Technology Group. a. Anchored Instruction and Its Relationship to Situated Cognition.Educational Researcher, 2-10.

Writer's Workshop Conferencing Tips

My class workshop/studio focuses on 3 major "Process" papers, with additional supplementary papers that emphasize full student choice.  The following are tips for conferencing with students during the supplementary paper process, but they have direct applications for conferencing in general with students as well.

The supplemental papers can cover a very wide range of genre, lengths, and subjects.  Frequent conferencing, particularly on the front-end of the paper, is key to student success.  The following is a brief overview of the path students might take through the supplemental paper process.

I.               Topic/Genre Generation

a.     The main issue at the beginning of the process is helping students to face the “white page.”  This can often be a daunting task, especially for students who may not consider themselves writers.  The most important question to ask the students during conferences at this point, is whether their topic or genre interests them.  Failure to attach themselves to a topic of importance will doom the product to failure, as it will neither engage the students, nor make their writing exciting and valid.

b.     “But it’s Hard!”: Allow students to flounder here.  There is no rush to find a topic, and it may take students time to make a decision.  This is the best time to give students a chance to explore their desires, wants, and interests.  Do not confuse a student struggling at this point with a student “not doing,” give them the time they need to find something worth saying.

II.             Outline/Planning

a.     This step will be different according to genre and topic (as well as the student’s level).  Remember to gauge the steps in a way that is authentic and meaningful, not simply arbitrary.

b.     Start Small, Go Big:  Remember that planning is the act of creating a paper’s skeleton.  We will add the muscle and skin later, but now we need a strong foundation.  The outline and planning provides this.  Allow students to create plans that help them to look at the document as a whole, and help them to see all of the moving parts, before we ask them to compose.

c.     No One Way:  Use your knowledge of the individual students to determine what steps you’d like them to consider in their plan.  Make sure that they also have authorship in these plans, and that they understand each step, and why they are doing them. Without the buy-in, the paper will end up being for you, and not for them.

III.           Text Generation

a.     The Simplest Step:  Get out of their way and let them write.  Let them write for extended periods of time, and stress the need for getting everything down, not simply the bare minimum.

b.     The More the Better:  Writing is sculpture, we start with a large chunk of rock, and we will eventually cut away from it and shape it to our desires.  Text generation is building the rock.  There must be enough to cut away from when we’re done, so urge students to write as much as possible.

c.     No Arbitrary Rules:  Don’t tell the students that paragraph must be a certain length.  It isn’t true.  Don’t tell them that a persuasive essay is five paragraphs.  It isn’t true.  Don’t tell them that you must provide a counter-point in every argument.  It isn’t true.  Avoid any type of arbitrary rule that is not indicative of authentic writing, and certainly don’t tell them that there are writing rules, which are in fact designed by you to guarantee certain types of outcomes.

IV.           Drafting/Editing

a.     Once the student has generated the requisite amount of text, they should begin a typed draft.  Students should be cognizant of self-editing during this process, but understand that this is not relegated to getting rid of the red and green “squigglies.” Before they begin a formal, “hard edit” they should print the document, which will force them to look at the paper in a different way.

b.     Don’t Overwhelm:  When editing a printed piece, resist the urge to correct every mistake.  Odds are that this will result in a paper filled with red marks.  Rather, read the piece looking for a pattern of errors.  Once you recognize the pattern, stop reading the document, bring the pattern to the student’s attention, and teach a mini-lesson if necessary.  Ask the student to go forward through the remainder of the document and find other examples of this mistake, and have them corrected when they bring it back to you.  If the student is recognizing the mistake, great!  If not, re-teach accordingly.  Try not to mark for more than three areas of improvement per draft, as this will allow the student to manage the drafting and editing process.

V.             Publishing/Performance

a.     Make sure students know that they are not simply writing for their teacher.  By requiring the students to either publish or perform their work, it forces them to take pride in their endeavors, and to write for themselves. The added pressure of “getting it right” falls on them, and placing the writing in the public arena is a powerful motivator.

Things to Remember:  these  papers are about creating buy-in, and opening up students to a writing life, where self-expression is sought and encouraged.  As teachers, we can provide individualized instruction that is student-directed, and still cover the curriculum requirements we are responsible for.  For formal, class-wide pieces, we can still have process-driven papers, but supplementary papers can allow additional opportunities for individual growth.

Talking about Poetry with Middle School Students

  As my classroom begins to roll over into full workshop for the rest of the year, I know that many of my students will be attempting poetry, many for the first time.  It's important as teachers that we have authentic discussions with students surrounding our expectations.  Middle school students generally come into poetry with similar misconceptions or issues.  Here is a list of the most common:

-       -Poetry has “No Rules”

-       -Poetry must rhyme

-       -Poetry must be short

-       -Poems must be on a serious topic

-       -Poetry should be difficult to understand or vague

-       -Poetry only needs to make sense to the writer

None of these things are true, and helping writers through these assumptions is key to getting them to write poetry well.  There are a few general ways you can attack these conceptions, and create a more meaningful and authentic experience for children.

1.     Poetry is not Anarchy:  As with any other piece of prose, poetry must be created with intent behind it.  This intent can be shown through many different ways, but unless the student is writing poetry that purposefully assaults the conventions of Standard English, poetry should be grammatically and conventionally sound.  This is the most common mistake kids make when starting middle school poetics.  To address this, have he students redraft their work in paragraph form, or ask them to compose in this manner.   This will allow them to make sure that the poem follows standard conventions without confusing them in terms of line breaks.

2.     Poetry is written for Performance:  Poetry has historically been a spoken art form.  As such, the use of commas and periods in the poem must be used with intent, directing the reader as to how the poem should sound when read aloud.  This is also an opportunity to teach mini-lessons around the use of Alliteration, Assonance, Metrics, and Rhyme (although these are higher level concepts).

3.     Poetry is not from Concentrate:  A poem is as long as it “needs” to be.  In some cases, this is predetermined, as in Sonnets or Villanelles.  Other poems have their length determined by subject alone.  In either situation, the economy and functionality of words is paramount.  There should not be any words or phrases that amount to excess baggage, and students should be able to justify why things are included on the page.

4.     Poetry is not all Dirges:  Neruda wrote about fruit and salt, Whitman and Ginsberg wrote about their bodies, and Bukowski wrote about his own depravity.  There are no “set” topics for poetry, the desire to write alone is the key, the need to capture, to “Name the World.”  If the student wants to create a Haiku, make sure they research the form, understand the subtleties it provides, and not focus on the fact that it is only 3 lines. Choosing a topic is important, but not limited to what we would typically define as “momentous” or life altering events.  A good poem adds grace to the mundane, meaning to normalcy.

  This post is as yet unfinished, what would you add to it?  What issues do you see when students attempt poetry?

Portal Flash Learning: Part 2

Portal Flash Learning: Part 2

After the initial class, with it’s focus on “Learning” as its theme, the next two classes focused on “Collaboration” and “Communication”.  The class continued to use the free Flash version of Portal to accomplish this.

For the day on “Collaboration” the students were asked to find a partner and log in to their computers.  The game requires the your left hand operates the keyboard, which controls player movements, while the right hand controls the mouse, which is used to place portals in the testing room.

It is physically impossible to negotiate any of the puzzles without using both hands.

With their partner, students were instructed that only one partner could control one device.  One player could operate the keyboard, and the other could operate the mouse.  This task was also buttressed by three of our class rules, which they were asked to reflect on when they began playing.

The rules were as follows:

1.     My Words Matter

2.     I have a Voice, I will Use it

3.     We can’t do it Alone.

As expected, this caused a great deal of frustration, but eventually, they began to figure out a series of commands that they could use to accomplish their goals.  We ended with another discussion around the parallels between this activity, and the group work they are usually assigned in school.

The third and final day focused on “Communication”.  The students were asked to find a different partner from the previous class, and again log in to the game.  When they began however, I told them that they would not be allowed to talk or write directions to one another.

After 30 minutes of this, I began to allow them to write or draw as a way of communicating, and at the end of class, I allowed them to begin speaking.

Many of the students felt that this was extremely beneficial, as the silence in the room, and the need for forced listening that non-verbal communication created, actually made things easier.

We are currently starting a paper that will begin to address the overall experience and its efficacy.

Here is the prompt:

The Portal Flash Unit

Did you find this unit to be of value? Is it something that should be taught again in the future?

Think about the three themes:

1.     Day One: Learning

2.     Day Two: Collaboration

3.     Day Three: Communication

You will write a paragraph/section on each of these themes.  Each paragraph/section should answer and discuss the following questions:

·      How did the game address this theme?

·      Was it effective in teaching you about the theme as it relates to you?

·      Why should it be taught again next year, or why should it not be taught?

Portal Flash Learning Lesson

Now that the first few setup lessons have been completed, we are moving into some of the experiential learning that will shape the class.  Since the main thrust of the class is to break students out of their typical assumptions about what “school” can be, I wanted to provide an initial experience that was seemingly as far from these assumptions as possible.

The students were asked to log into their computers and run a Google search on “Portal Flash”.  This should bring up multiple accessible links to the game, Portal: The Flash Version.  The Flash version of the popular game Portal was not made by the developer, Valve, and is free on various Flash sites on the internet.  Unlike the console and PC version, the Flash version offers physics based puzzles in a 2-dimensional environment.  The puzzle require “portals” to be placed to allow the player to find a pathway to an exit.  As the game progresses, the puzzles get more difficult, and start introducing variables that affect the player’s ability to easily pass through the game.

When we began playing, I set up a few rules.  Students were told that their goal was to get to the highest level that they could, but that they could not ask me questions about the game, or I would simply reply with a question.  I told them that they could use the tools available to them such as Youtube or Wiki’s, to help them through.

Then I sat back and observed the chaos.

Invariably, even the most accomplished gamers in the class hit a wall, a point where they could no longer breeze through the levels without pausing to think, or ask questions of their classmates.  Here was where the game began to provide gold.

Kids became frustrated, agitated, excited.  They clicked the mouse too hard, or squirmed in their seat as the character fell into a pit or was incinerated on a laser floor.  They were animated, began asking questions of one another, furiously searched Youtube for the best walkthrough videos.

They were engaged in the truest sense of the word, despite the difficulty.

The students continued to play through to the lunch break, and when they returned, we started talking.  I asked the following 4 questions, giving them time to write their responses prior to sharing.

1.     What were the difficulties you faced during the game?

2.     How did you deal with these difficulties?

3.     How was this experience different from your idea of what “school” is supposed to be?

4.     What have you learned about learning, or how you learn best?

The discussion went well, with most of the students explaining the benefit of doing it themselves, and of not being given answers.  They said that there was a sense of accomplishment when they finished a level on their own.  Simply saying these things to my students would have paled in comparison to having them complete the activity first.  They need the experience of learning outside of what they have been conditioned to believe it is.

I was struck by some of the student responses in other avenues.  When a lecture is occurring, or they are being asked to participate in activities that “feel” like “school”, my students are constantly asking to get a drink or go to the bathroom.  During the 80 minute block, over 2 different classes, not a single student asked to leave for any reason.  I’m not surprised by this at all.

We need to think about how we can demonstrate LEARNING in our classrooms, not simply explain to our student’s why it is important.    The more we can begin to understand that learning is something that is happening within these children AT ALL TIMES, the more we need to be cognizant of the worthiness of the tasks we ask them to do.  Is it simply busy work?  Are we just padding a grade book? Justifying our own existence?

Take some time to try the game yourself.  What emotions does it elicit in you?  How do you deal with frustration and failure?  How do you manage a lack of ability or control in something as simple as a two-dimensional computer game?

What can you learn about your student’s educational lives from it?  

Log on, and get uncomfortable.

Fast Food Education Nation

“Education is being strangled persistently by the culture of standardized testing.  The irony is that these tests are not raising standards except in some very particular areas and at the expense of most of what really matters in education.

    To get a perspective on this, compare the processes of quality assurance in education with those in an entirely different field- catering.  In the restaurant business, there are two distinct models of quality assurance.  The first is the fast-food model.  In this model, the quality of the food is guaranteed, because it is all standardized.  The fast-food chains specify exactly what should be on the menu in all their outlets.  They specify what should be on the burgers or nuggets, the oil in which they should be fried, the exact bun in which they should be served, how the fries should be made, what should be in the drinks, and exactly how they should be served.  They specify how the room should be decorated and what the staff should wear.  Everything is standardized.  It's often dreadful and bad for you.  Some forms of fast food are contributing to the massive explosion of obesity and diabetes across the world.  But at least the quality is guaranteed.

   The other model of quality assurance in catering is the Michelin guide.  In this model, the guides establish specific criteria for excellence, but they do not say how the particular restaurants should meet these criteria. They don't say what should be on the menu, what the staff should wear, or how the rooms should be decorated.  All of that is at the discretion of the individual restaurant.  The guides simply establish criteria, and it is up to every restaurant to meet them in whatever way they see best.  They are then judged not to some impersonal standard, but by assessments of experts who know what they are looking for and what a great restaurant is actually like.  The result is that every Michelin restaurant is terrific.  And they are all unique and different from each other.

  One of the essential problems for education is that most countries subject their schools to the fast-food model of quality assurance when they should be adopting the Michelin model instead.  The future in education is not in standardizing but in customizing; not in promoting groupthink and "deindividuation" but in cultivating the real depth and dynamism of human abilities of every sort.”

-From “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything”, by Sir Ken Robinson

I’m thinking about the balancing act that teachers are being forced to play these days, especially the good ones.  It seems we’ve moved into an era where we need to go underground.  The attacks on the profession have created a false accountability that is more political than effective.  Good teachers are forced to whisper about the progressive individualization they employ in their classes, or face possible public scrutiny.  Bad teachers embrace the calls for standardization because it is easier to implement, and is in their eyes, more easily defended.

As the stakes become higher, and pressure is mounted, we see a desire to return to more draconian practices in the classrooms.  The need to pass standardized tests as a district, by its very definition, robs the individual of his or her rights as a learner.  We need more analogies like Robinson’s.  We need to get the information out there that our students DESERVE a personalized education. 

It is not frivolity, it is not a pipe dream, it is not a lofty goal to be attained.  It is their RIGHT. 

Everything we do to posture and squirm around this fundamental truth will only delay the inevitable.  We can change the system to make it work for our students, or we can allow outside forces to declare our regressive system a failure, and shape it to their interests, whatever those may be.  As teachers, I believe that we are the protectors of our students; we got into this to make a difference in their lives.  What better difference could we make than to hand them a system that they deserve?

There is a change coming, and it’s up to us to get in front of it before the cynics among us unintentionally damage it beyond repair.  That greasy burger is not good for you, even though it’s cheap and fast.  Try not to choke on it.

Design Loops and American Idol

Teaching students to be creative is often seen as a difficult thing.  We feel the need as teachers to direct this process as a way of better controlling outcomes so that they are more easily measurable.  We create specific rubrics that tell students how many points will be lost for certain infractions, we create arbitrary rules to guide the types of products that we will be comfortable putting a number grade on.  Not surprisingly, this approach rarely leads to inspired work; rather, it only creates compliance.

I fell into creativity as a result of my perceived isolation as a child.  I was looking for a way to express myself in ways that could communicate my feelings in ways that I seemed unable.  Poetry was something that I learned outside of “school”, and that I did almost exclusively in my “free time”.  It would be anathema to bring what I was doing into a classroom, because it wouldn’t be mine any longer.

After college, I enrolled (read; Lucked Into) an MFA program in Poetry.  The writing workshop was the first time that my art was being judged in authentic ways, by like-minded individuals.  The worth of what I was doing became paramount, and the criticism I received (believe me there was plenty of it) was easy for me to accept, I knew I had work to do.

Courtesy 19 Entertainment, FreeMantleMedia

When I watch television now, and I see the rash of reality shows that deal with talent competitions, I’m often struck by how they represent the opposite of the true creative process.  Shows like American Idol and Project Runway create challenges for the competitors, whether it’s designing Women’s Outerwear using only Twizzlers, or picking the right song to perform on Barry Manilow Week.  The constraints that are placed on the competitors are often arbitrary and strange, and the critiques that are given are usually equally disturbing.  There is a certain amount of anger in the judges, they seem to feel a strong need to put everything into two distinct categories.  The performance or piece is either the best thing they have ever seen/heard, or a complete disaster that requires the shaming of the player.  Putting forth an effort that the judges deem to be poor, almost always results in them becoming seemingly offended at the contestant.

Notice here that I don’t say Artist.  They are players or competitors only.  The irony is that they are competing for a title that is supposed to verify that they are in fact, true artists.  Let us for a few seconds look at the track records of some of these so-called winners.  American Idol, considered the premiere singing competition in the world, has been miserable in its supposed aim, finding talented individuals that will become stars.  In 11 seasons, the show has produced only 3 contestants that have arguable staying power.  Likewise, Project Runway has yet to find mainstream sustainable success for any of its winners.  I would argue that this is because the assessment techniques, and the work products created are not as much a function of an aspiring artist, but simply a compliant show character.

My biggest concern as an educator, and as an artist, is the effect that these shows are having on the perceptions of creativity in our students.  More than anything else, these shows espouse the idea that you can bypass the very important phase of the creative process that requires hard work, refinement, and adequate time for self-reflection needed to become a functioning artist.

Our district is in the process of rolling out a series of “loops” to replace and improve the standard ways of planning that most students have been exposed to over their education.  The loops allow students to enter the process at any point, and to begin to see that the creative process (as all loops lead to creating something, whether tangible or not) is rarely a linear event.

            The loops that we use are currently in development, and are hosted on the high school’s Media Center website.  You can explore the work that Deb Gottsleben and Anne Piascik have done HERE.  In addition to the research loop, John Madden, Instructional Leader at MHS, has developed a series of other loops for other processes, such as an Identity Loop and a Critical Thinking Loop among others.

            The goal here is to begin looking at the reality of being creative, that it is a way of thinking and problem solving, not just arbitrarily jumping through teacher-provided hoops. It requires authenticity, a desire to improve for the sake of improvement, and feedback that is not simply punitive and mean.

            Only when we begin looking at authentic modes of inquiry can we begin to create the problem-solving, creative artists we will need, to begin changing the perception and efficacy of publicly-educated students in this country.

As always, a few questions:

1.     How can we create better environments for “authentic” experiences for students?

2.     What can be done to counteract the onslaught of inputs that tell our kids that taking the risk to be creative is a punishable offense?

3.     How can we more effectively spread the idea of looping in our educational system?