Artful Innovation

Quincy Jones Makes Eloquent Plea for Arts Education

2009-05-11T08:51:00.004-04:00

"Every great society from the Egyptians, to the Greek and Roman Empires, has been defined by its cultural contributions. The commercial benefits of the arts not withstanding -- our artistic endeavors are a consistent source of revenue in the United States and our nation's largest export -- can we really run the risk of becoming a culturally bankrupt nation because we have not inserted a curriculum into our educational institutions that will teach and nurture creativity in our children?"

In the Huffington Post (dated May 9), jazz icon Quincy Jones calls for a plan of action to "make music education an ongoing part of the lives of children in the United States."

Astronaut Mae Jemison on Reintegrating the Arts and Sciences

2009-05-07T16:40:00.003-04:00

Mae Jemison, best known for being the first African American woman in space, presents a new vision of learning that combines arts and sciences, intuition and logic in a February TED Talk.

Making Learning Whole by David Perkins

2009-05-04T16:26:00.006-04:00

In his latest book Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education, David Perkins presents an alternative to the superficiality and fragmentation inherent in so much of today's teaching and learning. Perkins, who is co-director of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, diagnoses today's education as suffering from "elementitis" (learning all the elements of a subject without learning the whole) and "aboutitis" (learning about a subject without doing it). He presents his seven principles by connecting them to the way countless kids become skilled to some degree in the game of baseball.

Here is the complete list of principles is:

Play the whole game.
Make the game worth playing.
Work on the hard parts.
Play out of town.
Uncover the hidden game.
Learn from the team . . . and other teams.
Learn the game of learning.

"Play the whole game" is the first of the seven principles —and it's the overarching one. Perkins says playing a "junior version" of the whole game, often involving some type of inquiry or performance that crosses disciplines, is what promotes the kind of understanding that students will be able to apply in a range of contexts.

"Make the game worth playing" is ensuring "immediately meaningful active engagement.

"Work on the hard parts" is isolating and practicing skills and focusing on conceptually difficult knowledge (but integrating them as quickly as possible into the whole).

"Play out of town" is promoting transfer by encouraging reflective abstraction and simulating diverse applications of knowledge and skill, as well as making connections to prior knowledge.

"Uncover the hidden game" is paying attention to the processes of inquiry, thinking and problem-solving that are beneath the surface of student work.

"Learn from the team" is paying attention to the sociocultural context through various group learning strategies.

"Learn the game of learning" is promoting self-direction.

Playing for Change

2009-04-28T14:59:00.004-04:00

Between deadlines, visitors, and traveling, I have been losing my steam, but I will persevere. Before I get back into my Save the World Academy series, I will do a couple of brief posts about randoms things. First, have you seen Playing for Change?

A mobile recording studio is capturing music from all over the world. We get to see videos reminding us that we are all in this together.

Robinson's The Element Reminds Us to Tend to the Lifeworld

2009-03-25T15:40:00.004-04:00

My state, Ohio, has been reeling for some time from the wave of job losses that is just beginning to affect some states. Many people—from blue-collar workers to skilled trades people to educated professionals with solid track records—are contemplating choices they never thought they would have to make. Choices like:

Should I wait out this drop in the construction trades or start college at age 40?

Should I go back to college at age 50 for a second degree that will improve my "marketability?"?

Should I move to where the job market is better—which means uprooting my family and selling my house at little or no profit? Or should I stay here and settle for a job that realizes a fraction of my potential?

At what point will I take whatever job I can get so we can keep our house?

With those kinds of dilemmas all over the news, the vision of Ken Robinson's book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything is truly a revolutionary one. The current job market and the jobs President Obama is trying to stimulate seem to be largely for those whose "Element" is science, technology, engineering, and health care. Those certainly are pressing needs that must be met. But I think many who have been hit hard by the economic downturn may not be able to have the dream of working in a job that epitomizes their aptitude and passion. I fear that today's jobseekers who want to avoid major disruptions in their lifestyles will need to find that outside of the job world. I hope today's children and young people won't be in that position down the road.

As we rebuild, I hope to see some new dimensions of economic development emerge—a real attempt to begin making full use of human potential.

Thomas Sergiovanni wrote about "lifeworld" and "systemsworld." (Based on the work of sociologist Jurgen Habermas). The lifeworld deals with goals and purposes and is concerned with culture, meaning, and significance. The systemsworld deals with methods and means and is concerned with efficiency, outcomes, and productivity. He said that the two are symbiotic and that the lifeworld should be “at the center as a driving force for what goes on” while the systemsworld should be "at the periphery." With our systems—infrastructure, health care, financial—in serious need of attention, I think Robinson's book is an important reminder of why we are fixing those systems and the vision to which we should aspire.

Ken Robinson's The Element Reveals a Higher Purpose for Schools

2009-03-24T09:50:00.006-04:00

Back in February, I posted my thoughts on Ken Robinson's The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything after watching a video of his remarks on the book. Now that I have finished reading it, I recommend it to everyone thinks about the true purpose of education and wonders how to fulfill that purpose.

"The Element," says Robinson, "is the meeting point between natural aptitude and personal passion." When people are in their element, he says, "they find that time passes differently and that they are more alive, more centered, and more vibrant than at other times."

Robinson reveals the Element by telling the stories of people who found it. Invariably, those people succeeded in their careers and made a difference in the lives of others. For most, someone early in life recognized their aptitude or passion and provided opportunities for them to enter and grow in the Element. Many of them had to overcome indifference or resistance. Some, including Robinson himself, found the Element after, or perhaps even because of, disabilities or other circumstances most would call adversity. Although Robinson is best known for sharing examples of students whose lives were changed by the arts, the stories in this book reflect the diversity inherent in true success. Some people profiled found the Element through the arts but for others it was through other academic areas, as well as through athletics, entrepreneurship, cooking, philanthropy, and other pursuits.

With his trademark humor, Robinson weaves in the themes that he has been writing and speaking about for years. He debunks myths about creativity, such as the common view that it's a quality possessed by an elite few. He opposes the industrial model of education that promotes teaching to the test. He suggests doing away with the hierarchy of "subjects" in favor of a more fluid interplay across disciplines. He proposes that the curriculum be personalized, which entails more freedom for good teachers to work in their own Element. This book reinforces those themes, and makes the case that finding and nurturing the aptitudes and passions of each individual is the path to transformation and growth not only for education systems but also for all other aspects of human endeavor.

Themes Instead of Subjects—Interesting to Consider

2009-03-23T16:27:00.004-04:00

"Rethinking Education," an article by Julian Richardson in Sunday's Jamaica Observer, proposes that Jamaican high schools think about the humanities curriculum in terms of "life themes" that have "obsessed all cultures and all peoples in one way or another." Examples include 'The Origins of the Universe', 'Representations of God', 'Food and Nature', 'The Individual and the Common Good', 'Racial Differences and the Other', 'Gender Identity and Sexual Relations', 'Marriage and Family', 'Civil Life and Political Systems', 'Aging and Death', 'Art and Beauty', and 'Work, Tools and Technology'. (The article expands on each of these.)

Richardson proposes students would be more engaged in these themes than they are in things like "history" or "geography." Examples of arts integrated instruction in books such as Third Space: Where Learning Matters by Lauren Stevenson and Richard Deasy from the Arts Education Partnership, certainly could support that hypothesis.

Sunday Arts Education Connection #5: Unity and Variety

2009-03-22T09:00:00.011-04:00

Third Installment in my series on Arts Elements and Principles

The complementary arts principles of variety and unity are this week's topic—building on last week's post on contrast. The principles of unity and variety are important in all four arts disciplines. Whether composing music or a dance, writing a play, or creating a painting or graphic design, the artist must strive for wholeness and cohesiveness—unity—while introducing enough variety to prevent a work that is monotonous.

Exploring these principles in an arts class could set the stage for other investigations. Consider: In science, children marvel at the vast variety of species while seeking to impose unity through classifying them. In math, they create a whole shape from a variety of shapes. In reading, they look for a common theme that unifies a novel or poem and for the variety of ways the author or poet uses to present that theme. In writing or speaking, they work on making sure they use variety to keep the audience's interest while building on a thesis. In social studies, they consider the many cultures and ethnic groups that make one United States or the many nations that make one world.

Photo Credits: Stefano Corso, Agência Brasil, Justin, Peter Halasz, Mark Harden's Artchive

Link to Be the Change

2009-03-20T19:58:00.001-04:00

Sorry. I forgot to add the link to the Web site referenced in my earlier post. It's Be the Change—Year of Creativity.

Design Your Own Creative Business Card

2009-03-20T13:25:00.004-04:00

A design Web site called Be the Change provides a fun way to play with ideas—a business card generator that features dozens of occupations you won't find in the classifieds. Some are thought-provoking—Idea Cultivator, Imaginary World Interior Designer, and Engineer of the Fantastic. Maybe more companies should create these positions. Others are whimsical—Goldfish Hypnotist, Moment Anticipator, and Paper Airplane Pilot.

This really made me think about the amazing work graphic designers do.

Here's an example:

Group Shares Thoughts on Human Greatness

2009-03-17T22:57:00.008-04:00

With all the focus on preparing our next generation for the challenges of science and industry, I like to adjust my perspective by visiting the Web site of an organization called Touch the Future. TTF, led by Michael Mendizza, is an effort to revolutionize "the way local communities mentor parents and the people who care for children." It includes writings from visionary thinkers about what it means to care for children and support their development as human beings. Immerse yourself in those writings and you'll feel a heightened sense of urgency about making the arts a more integral part of the curriculum.

One visit introduced me to Lynn Stoddard, author of Educating for Human Greatness. Stoddard's work led a diverse group of educators and thinkers to develop seven principles of human greatness that should be at the heart of education:

1. Identity – Help students learn who they are – as individuals with unlimited potential, develop their unique talents and gifts to realize self-worth and develop a strong desire to be contributors to family, school and community.

2. Inquiry – Stimulate curiosity; awaken a sense of wonder and appreciation for nature and humankind. Help students develop the power to ask important questions.

3. Interaction – Promote courtesy, caring, communication and cooperation.

4. Initiative – Foster self-directed learning, will power and self-evaluation.

5. Imagination – Nurture creativity in all of its many forms.

6. Intuition – Help students learn how to feel and recognize truth with their hearts as well as with their minds – develop spirituality and humility.

7. Integrity – Develop honesty, character, morality and responsibility for self.

Read more about this list at The Daily Kos.

Sunday Arts Education Connections #4

2009-03-15T18:30:00.013-04:00

Contrast
Second Installment in my series on Arts Elements and Principles (See overview post See introduction to series See entry on Form)

Contrast is a design principle at work in all the arts disciplines. Listening to or composing contrasting musical passages—high and low pitch, fast and slow tempo—and exploring the effects of color contrasts prepares the senses for scientific observation and opens the writer's mind to how contrasts in sentence structure improve the flow of a composition.

Contrast also is a technique used in arts criticism. Critics may highlight the contrasts within a work of art and explore contrasts across periods and movements to heighten understanding or suggest meaning. The critical exploration of contrasts in paintings can be a springboard for investigating differences across societies, ecosystems, and ideologies.

Photos from Flickr and Wikimedia Commons by: Aussiegall, Bobbie8, Vince Alongi, Andrew*, babasteve, Azoreg, roberdan , makemake , Thomas Schoch

Arts are an 'R' Too—Mississippi Has the Right Idea

2009-03-14T20:35:00.004-04:00

The central features of Mississippi's Whole Schools Initiative are an arts-infused curriculum, instruction in the arts disciplines, and arts-based professional development. An evaluation of the initiative by two independent researchers, Dick Corbett and Bruce Wilson, and David Morse, a professor of psychology at Mississippi State, concluded that schools fully implementing arts integration had significantly better results on tests of literacy. Evaluators suggested that "enriching rather than narrowing the curriculum might be the wiser move in improving students’ literacy."

The report says arts learning is a powerful ally and should, perhaps, be considered "the 4th R."

I agree. Some people can express their ideas better through an art form than through writing an essay or making a presentation. I think it's important that children be able to use and develop the voice that feels most natural to them. Finding that voice can fuel the desire for knowledge and provide a bridge to other literacies.

Also, works of art are vital threads in the fabric of history and culture. If we want kids to really think about the academic content we have decided they need in order to understand their world, I can think of no better way than becoming immersed in works of art.

Ready for National Poetry Month?

2009-03-12T23:31:00.004-04:00

April is National Poetry Month, and the Academy of American Poets is inviting everyone to celebrate in some creative ways. First, anyone can sign up to receive a poem a day email. They are trying to get us all to select a poem and carry it in our pockets on April 30 to share with co-workers, family, and friends. Every year, they choose a poster to celebrate poetry (which educators can get for free) They also are having a unique photo competition to "capture and share your own ephemeral bits of verse." The idea is to "write lines from a favorite poem on a sandy beach, assemble twigs on a hillside, or chalk the sidewalk. Take a photo before it disappears and post it in the Free Verse group page on Flickr, or on the Academy's Fan Page on Facebook, or email your photo to freeverse@poets.org."

Some really wonderful photos are already online.

Arts and 21st Century Skills: Wisconsin and North Carolina are Moving Forward

2009-03-11T14:49:00.004-04:00

Two states have made definitive statements about the importance of arts learning in developing the next generation of innovators.

In January, the Wisconsin Task Force on Arts and Creativity published its plan for action. It recommends specific actions for making the arts a more integral part of the state's innovation infrastructure, but there is much in the report that has national application. I particularly liked its description of creative skills and attitudes, followed by what attributes in the environment nurture creativity.

North Carolina has published Arts Education and 21st Century Skills, a document that aligns the state's fine arts standards with the competencies outlined by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. This is an eloquent illustration of how much the arts contribute to the development of innovatiove thinkers, and I think it could be used as a model for anyone who is thinking about how to integrate 21st century skills with any academic content.

Arts Learning and Scientific Achievement: Another Piece of Evidence

2009-03-09T12:15:00.007-04:00

Psychology Today provides links to many blogs on creativity. Today, I looked at "Imagine That! Annals of Ordinary and Extraordinary Genius" by Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein. Their March 6 post discusses a longitudinal study of scientific creativity by UCLA psychologist Bernice Eiduson. She collected data from 40 young scientists in 1958 about their work habits, hobbies, etc. In looking at the group's successes over twenty years, she noted patterns among those who were most successful including the Nobel laureates Linus Pauling and Richard Feynman and several members of the National Academy: They were much more likely to spend time on their

avocations and they believed that "knowledge of art, poetry, music, etc. was part-and-parcel of being an educated scientist." They also "used a much wider range of mental "tools" during problem solving than their less successful colleagues, including various forms of two-, three-, and four-dimensional visual imaging, kinesthetic imaging, acoustic imaging, verbal and written forms, diagrams, and so forth."

Are cuts in arts education and the marginalization of the arts limiting the innovative capacities of future scientists?

If you go to Imagine That, also check out their February 11 piece on the arts and economic growth.

Words Matter

2009-03-03T23:24:00.005-05:00

The National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE) sponsors National Words Matter Week, a free celebration of the written word, held annually during the first full week in March. They have invited all bloggers to write on the idea that "words matter" during this week. Here are my thoughts:

I have savored words that capture and enchant the imagination:

A fallen flower
Returning to the branch?
It was a butterfly.

Moritake

I have shaken my fist, then hung my head, before words that sober me to realities I wish to see erased—but only if it's easy. Like genocide . . . poverty . . . war

I have cherished words that heal. Words of God that sometimes show up in human form. Like mercy and compassion and grace.

I have been embarrassed for words that are used as ornament when they should be the foundation. Like collaboration and community. I wish to reclaim them.

I have mourned the abuse of words. I have scratched to no avail at labels slapped on to mask the truth. Like communism—a sure way to silence so many calls for social justice. I have exchanged sad glances with words used to turn off thought. Like patriotism and faith—words used to stifle all questions when their power lies in nurturing inquiry. I will be faithful to them.

For words, I have done my little bit to defend meaning, to hold fast to words whose powers are being lost through carelessness—like respect . . . belief . . . love.

In words, I have heard the music—shimmer, silence, lovely—seen the radiance—dawn, springtime, eternity—shivered and flushed—exquisite, glorious, poignant, transformation—tasted the nectar and smelled the blossoms—poetry, prayer, peace.

To words, I raise a toast of light and warmth.

Yes, words matter.

Exciting Arts Education Research-Some Links

2009-02-26T11:11:00.008-05:00

My Google Reader took me on a thought-provoking Web cruise today. Some of my stops were familiar places with new information while others were exciting discoveries.

I started by investigating a link to the Academy for Early Learning on 21st century skills. I had to comment on the fresh take Lois Feibus had regarding 21st century tools, and my comment suggested ASCD's Whole Child blog.

I visited there and found some promising news about correlations between music education and students' cognitive development and academic achievement:

A study by two Ohio State University researchers, Darby E. Southgate and Vincent J. Roscigno, concludes that "Music participation, both inside and outside of school, is associated with measures of academic achievement among children and adolescents. Future work should further delineate the relevant processes of music involvement, as well as how background inequalities and music involvement intersect in relation to educational performance." (The study appears in Social Science Quarterly, 2009, vol. 90, issue 1, pages 4-21.)

Schuylkill Valley Elementary School in Pennsylvania has launched a Suzuki violin program for all of its 170 kindergarten students and is planning to work with researchers at Penn State Berks to evaluate the cognitive development and achievement of the students in the program. According to a New York Daily Record article cited by the Whole Child blog, the program was inspired by the three-year study, "Learning, Arts and the Brain" by the Charles A. Dana Foundation. The Dana Foundation sponsors and highlights neuroscience research on arts education.

Reading a news item by Janet Eilbert at Dana's site, I ran across a link to Dewey21C, a great blog about arts education by Richard Kessler, executive director of the Center for Arts Education. There I found out about the Teaching Artist Research Project (TARP) at the the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. This study looks closely at the work of teaching artist communities in several cities.

I better stop now. This could go on all day!

Congressional Hearings on Arts Scheduled

2009-02-25T10:28:00.004-05:00

From a Media Release Issued by the House Education and Labor Committee:

With the arts and music among the many industries being hit hard in economic downturn, U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, today announced plans to hold a series of hearings this Spring to examine how the arts benefit the nation’s economy and schools – and what can be done to improve support for the arts and music fields. “Like so many other sectors of our economy, the arts and music are suffering greatly – hurting millions of workers and families who depend on these industries for good jobs and the students who benefit from participation in arts and music education in school. Research shows that when students are exposed to arts and music, they perform better in other subjects,” said Miller. “In states and communities around the country, like my home state of California, these industries are vital engines for local economies – making up a large share of revenue and providing employment for a wide array of jobs, from construction to musicians to art teachers to sound editors.”

“President Obama has made it clear that arts and music have a critical role to play in improving our schools, our workforce and our overall quality of life. These hearings will give Congress the opportunity to hear from experts in these fields about how supporting the arts and music can help us build a stronger America.”

A Side Note
I just joined a new social network called Innovate-Ideagora. It's purpose statement is:

Innovate-Ideagora is an open agora, where problems seek solutions, new visions are explored, and the status quo is challenged.

Design Firm IDEO Offers Insights to Schools

2009-02-18T14:29:00.005-05:00

Ever since A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink led me to The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley, founder of IDEO Design, I have been trying to educate myself more about the world of design and to learn more about how designers think.

Metropolis Magazine is a good source for that exploration—and today it got better with the post "IDEO’s Ten Tips For Creating a 21st–Century Classroom Experience." IDEO has been working on a curriculum design with a nearby elementary school, and the project director makes some good points in this article about engaging students.

IDEO also worked with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's SPARK Initiative (Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids) to develop Tangible Steps Toward Tomorrow: New designs for education, ages 0-8. This publication details a human-centered approach to evolving the system of early education for the needs and possibilities of the 21st century. It can be downloaded from the Kellogg Web site.

I think collaborations like this will be important to the challenges ahead.

Arts and Cognitive Development: What Does the Research Say?

2009-02-12T23:39:00.003-05:00

Does an arts-rich education make a difference?

Based on their review of research on art education and its effects on academic performance, Lois Hetland and Ellen Winner warn against sweeping claims of causal links between learning in the arts and achievement in other academic areas. They found only three instances of causal links between learning in the arts and improved learning in nonarts areas. Here are some excerpts from the executive summary of their report on Project Zero's REAP (Reviewing Education and the Arts Project):

"a medium-sized causal relationship was found between listening to music and temporary improvement in spatial-temporal reasoning . . . .

a large causal relationship was found between learning to make music and spatial-temporal reasoning. The effect was greater when standard music notation was learned as well, but even without notation the effect was large. . . .

a causal link was found between classroom drama (enacting texts) and a variety of verbal areas."

Spatial-temporal reasoning is important in geometry and some areas of calculus. Based on what I've read, listening to and playing music activates the same neural circuitry that is used in problems that require spatial-temporal reasoning. So the effect may come come more from the effects of music on brain development than from a transfer of thinking skills or knowledge.

Hetland and Winner's analysis indicates that we do not yet have definitive research establishing a broad causal connection between learning in the arts and improved academic performance in math and science, literacy, and creative thinking skills. But it's not surprising that so little is known. Federal and state investments in such research and local investments in the kind of high-quality arts education that would provide the conditions for collecting valid and reliable data have been much smaller than investments in math and reading. In other words, scientific evidence is scarce largely because few are looking for it.

Some studies, however, suggest strong correlations between arts learning and positive outcomes. Here are a couple examples from Critical Evidence: How the ARTS Benefit Student Achievement, published by National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and the Arts Education Partnership:

In an experimental research study of high school age students, those who studied dance scored higher than nondancers on measures of creative thinking, especially in the categories of fluency, originality and abstract thought.

A group of 162 children, ages 9 and 10, were trained to look closely at works of art and reason about what they saw. The results showed that children’s ability to draw inferences about artwork transferred to their reasoning about images in science. In both cases, the critical skill is that of looking closely and reasoning about what is seen.

Both examples come from Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, an Arts Education Partnership research compendium that contains summaries of many such studies. Also, a 2005 Arts Education Partnership book called Third Space: When Learning Matters details the experiences of ten arts-rich public schools in economically disadvantaged communities with achievement test results that are significantly better than those of schools from the same communities.

The difficulty is this: A school's success in creating an outstanding arts education program may be an indication of other exceptional assets, such as committed parents and community partners or outstanding leadership and an innovative faculty. This is certainly true with many schools for the arts, whether they audition students or select them from a lottery. More kids with strong support networks—involved parents or mentors—go through the process of applying.

Still, isn't it a reasonable hypothesis that the arts played some role in the higher academic performance and other positive behaviors typically found in arts rich schools? And shouldn't clear effects on brain development be a rationale for more research on the benefits of arts education? Isn't that what innovation is all about—pursuing promising paths that lie outside the mainstream of what works?

Art & Soul: Edutopia Pleads the Cause of Arts Education

2009-02-11T15:57:00.003-05:00

The February issue of Edutopia is entitled "Art and Soul: Why Arts Education Must Be Saved."

There are articles about the latest research and cutting edge programs. One that describes Opening Minds Through the Arts in Tucson, Arizona, is the most exciting thing I've seen in awhile. OMA also provides some really good rubrics and other materials for arts integration.

My favorite article is "Art in Schools Inspires Tomorrow's Creative Thinkers" by Jeffrey T. Schnapp—"director of the Stanford Humanities Lab at Stanford University, a prominent twentieth-century cultural historian, and a frequent curator of art exhibitions in Europe and the United States."

Schnapp's passionate essay begins:

"Education minus art? Such an equation equals schooling that fails to value ingenuity and innovation. The word art, derived from an ancient Indo-European root that means "to fit together," suggests as much. Art is about fitting things together: words, images, objects, processes, thoughts, historical epochs.
It is both a form of serious play governed by rules and techniques that can be acquired through rigorous study, and a realm of freedom where the mind and body are mobilized to address complex questions -- questions that, sometimes, only art itself can answer: What is meaningful or beautiful? Why does something move us? How can I get you to see what I see? Why does symmetry provide a sense of pleasure?"

An Intermediate Space for Creative Thinking

2009-02-10T19:10:00.010-05:00

By clinical standards, research has a long way to go before anyone could propose that instruction in art and music is a key strategy for improving student performance in science and math. But I think the idea of arts education as the nucleus of developing creative thinking has merit.

I am not an expert in the teaching of science, but I have to agree with those who assert that students need some degree of scientific content knowledge before creative thinking in science becomes relevant and meaningful to their development as potential scientists or engineers. As Simonton says (see yesterday's post), creative scientists operate under constraints posed by the prevailing theoretical framework of their domains while artists have more creative freedom. That suggests to me that mastering content knowledge remains critical in math and science and should not be jeopardized. Although creative thinking needs to develop throughout their educational experience, children need to learn the difference between empirical facts and natural laws and their flights of imagination about the seen and unseen components of nature.

That's why it makes sense to me that—at least for the short term—schools should create an intermediate space for developing students' creative thinking skills. In this space, there should be opportunities for unadulterated fancy but also for creative problem-solving that requires them to use what they have learned in math and science.

Because highly effective arts educators offer the most evolved form of instruction in pure creativity and have the greatest freedom to reward originality, I think they should be the lead creators and keepers of that space.

Of course, educators from all disciplines should should take advantage of the space, and they, as well as school leaders and the arts and business communities, should contribute to its development.

Scientific Creativity and the Arts: Some Observations

2009-02-09T16:16:00.003-05:00

Chance, Logic, Genius, and Zeitgeist—those elements are the stuff of scientific creativity, according to Dean Keith Simonton at UC Davis. Simonton's 2004 book Scientific Creativity examines the people, contexts, and underlying processes associated with original discoveries that have a significant impact on scientific knowledge and practice. He says chance "appears to be the most proximate cause" of scientific discoveries while "logic, zeitgeist, and genius impinge upon, intensify, modify, and qualify or in some other manner adjust the operation of chance." In other words, the more original a discovery is, the "less likely it is that logic played a causal role in the event." (Of course, this doesn't mean scientists just roll the dice. It's just that the factors are so complex and there are so many possible interactions that it appears random for all intents and purposes.)

Does Simonton's analysis of each component underlying scientific discoveries and innovative breakthroughs—and how those components interrelate—add potential value to dialogue about developing students' creative and innovative thinking skills? I'd like to share some of my preliminary conclusions about that based on points from the book.

Simply improving science and math knowledge and skill is not enough. American education also must produce more STEM graduates who are creative thinkers. Simonton says that within any scientific domain, there is a small creative elite (about 10%) that accounts for something like 50% of publications. This suggests that STEM education should look not only at how to produce more students who have mastered advanced science knowledge but also at how to increase the percentage of those students who exhibit scientific creativity. In fact, wouldn't doubling the number of STEM majors exhibiting a high degree of scientific creativity give U.S. global competitiveness a bigger bang for the buck than doubling the number of STEM majors? Of course, both would be preferable, but considering the analysis of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, America can't lead economically unless it leads in innovative breakthroughs.

Building time into the school day for generating and playing with ideas may be part of the solution. Simonton says the process of scientific creativity consists of associative play followed by justification of the best ideas. "First," he says, "the scientist freely plays around with ideas, the logic participating only after the associative process has converged on a good combination." Also, he says most creative scientists generate more ideas than other scientists. Interestingly, the ratio of successful ideas to unsuccessful ones is about the same for the most creative and least creative scientists. In other words, creative scientists have more good ideas largely because they have more ideas. Should't we get students used to idea generation?

Building creative thinking into the science curriculum may be only part of the answer. A visual art, dance, theater, or music composition class—or projects that integrate these with science—might also be useful. Simonton says the most creative scientists are more likely to be working on several diverse projects at the same time and to have more outside interests. He also says that revolutionary contributions often come from people who are new to the field. Frans Johansson makes a similar observation in The Medici Effect: The most extraordinary innovative ideas are "intersectional"—that is, they are found where domains, disciplines, and cultures intersect. We need a complete curriculum!

The kinds of thinking creative scientists exhibit can be developed in an arts context. In comparing artistic and scientific creativity, Simonton says scientific paradigms place more constraints on scientific creativity and suggests that creative scientists exhibit more analytical intelligence than creative artists. But his analysis of how creative scientists think suggests to me that the actual creative ways of thinking in science and the arts are similar. Creative scientists, says Simonton, form a flatter hierarchy of associations (which means they connect ideas that other people would not connect) and are more open to "irrelevant stimuli." Michael Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott make a similar point in their book Innovate Like Edison. They call it "kaleidoscopic thinking"—generating lots of ideas, letting them flow, playing with them. I think arts activities outside of science can be an excellent "brain gym" for such thinking in general, and arts integration can be a way to introduce creative thinking into the science classroom.

I think creating strong arts education programs AND increasing instructional time in the arts is a good starting point, along with a commitment to studying arts integration. Students need the content knowledge and rigor they get in math and science classes. Taking too much time out of that to play with ideas—especially before teachers have received the professional development they need to do this effectively—could weaken the foundation of academic achievement in science.

In short: An expanded arts learning environment may be the better incubator for more purposeful instruction in creative thinking. Tomorrow, I will explore this further.

Ken Robinson Raises Overlooked Questions

2009-02-07T10:47:00.012-05:00

Ken Robinson's new book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything says, in a nutshell: People do their best when they are in their element—when they have a capacity for something and love doing it.

Yes!

In a talk at the Los Angeles Public Library titled A New View of Human Capacity (shown on FORA.tv, he says: "When you start to connect with your own talent . . . the environment you inhabit modulates around you. It becomes different. The world you're in becomes different. It's changed by your relationship with it and it unfolds differently as a consequence and we can't predict what that consequence will be."

He made a striking analogy: Death Valley had unusually high level of rainfall in 2005. Consequently, seeds that had lain dormant for years produced a breathtaking burst of wildflowers—a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. He says people are like those seeds, which adapted to the desert environment by developing a hard coating. They become self-protective when they are in environments that don't allow them to be in their element. He cites many examples of people whose capacities and interests did not fit the traditional academic mold but who had the opportunity to do what they loved. They succeeded, earned respect, and contributed.

Should the architects of education ignore the vision of economists, the scientific community, and industry? Should they scrap academic standards and hope that enough kids decide to pursue STEM careers? Of course not. But maybe it would be useful to think about new ways of helping each student find his or her element—or at least pay greater attention to the as yet undiscovered potential of each student. It's messier, I know. But diversity is a fact in America. We can't afford to let any talent become dormant.

As Joseph Campbell said, "Follow your bliss!"

Photo by Mila Zinkova.

Should Economic Goals Direct Educational Decisions?

2009-02-06T09:51:00.008-05:00

Yes, I know yesterday's post was idealistic and vague. I'm sure most would agree with me that the purpose of education should be "to engage and challenge young minds and help them develop and flourish." But they would dismiss that as too broad. Or they would say "and that's why we need to teach 21st century skills. I guess what I'm saying is that maybe we need to step back for a minute and ask whether schools should be instruments of an American economy that no one seems to be able to operate effectively. Can we be sure that aiming our schools at targets we are missing today is our best hope for America in 2019?

Looking back ten years or so—even five years, actually—at state committees that pronounced how schools should be preparing students for the workplace, I don't recall anyone suggesting the development of creativity and innovative thinking as a major theme. In fact, I remember that issue being shunted aside by business representatives in many meetings of policy groups I attended. Suggesting the likelihood of moral and ethical challenges ahead that would require critical and creative thinking would have been met in a similar way—agree, maybe mention in the introduction to the report, and then move on.

Business leaders at those meetings were concerned mainly with their current shortages of "skilled" workers—people with credentials in electronics or the trades, people who could keep the computers running or fix the machines. The health care industry was concerned about the need for technicians, nurses, and nursing assistants. They were thinking in a linear fashion—looking at what would happen if their current shortages were to continue. They did not foresee or take into account much of what we have today in the way of competitive challenges and opportunities. They did not think about how smart technology would be today—precluding the need for training in many areas. Sure, there were books like Robert Reich's The Work of Nations, but business leaders wanted and policies supported the shorter-term agenda—developing skilled workers—instead of the longer term mission—developing the next generation of knowledge workers and preparing students to learn and adapt in a changing world. It's just too hard to define all that within the existing context of our economic and educational systems. So it's excluded.

Instead of basing policies on the near-term thinking of business people and the politically tinged views of economists, we should take the broader, more long-term view of students' lives. That view, I believe, would put us in a better position for what's ahead.

Of course preparation for work is part of a long-term view. But why do we try to shape our most precious resource—children—to an agenda based on guesses and assumptions we can't prove are serving us well now or are best for us in the future? What if, instead, we worked harder to develop healthy brains, to spark a hunger for learning, to help uncover reveal what is best about the individual? What if we were to help all kids figure out who they are and how to nurture what is best about themselves? What schooling was about helping them explore and make sense of their world and the world at large, experience success, try something difficult without fear, explore the possibilities of the current world in hopes that they will be ready for those of a new world?

Yes, such philosophy might still result in "skill gaps." We would, I'm sure, have as many or maybe even more students whose math or writing skills are lacking, as well as some students who don't know much history or don't appreciate the great literary works. We might see dips in SAT scores, etc. But in my opinion, those differences would matter less in a world that valued individuals above systems and ideologies. Maybe people lacking skills who want to fill a role those skills require would be prepared to get to work on expanding their existing skills sets instead of regretting the road not taken in tenth grade. And maybe some would find a creative way to contribute despite their skill gaps.

Here is synchronicity. As I was writing this post, I received an email from ForaTV informing me of a new video by Sir Ken Robinson about his new book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. The title intrigued me—A New View of Human Capacity—so I started to watch. I think he is expressing what I'm thinking as I try to develop this idea. I will watch the rest of the talk and report on it soon. Maybe it will help me with this train of thought, which I admit needs still more thought.

Beyond 21st Century Skills—How About Beautiful Minds?

2009-02-05T13:11:00.007-05:00

The term "21st century skills" is rapidly losing its power to inspire me. While I don't agree with those who promote the idea that skills like creative thinking or collaboration will blossom on their own if schools just teach and assess basic skills and an appropriate canon of academic content, I think the descriptor "21st century" is ambiguous and that the identification of "skills" students will need for future success limits our thinking about this challenge.

Many have pointed out that we're not able to predict what the 21st century will demand of students. Like any other period in the history of education, we're looking about a decade ahead. All that has changed is that we expect change to be exponential over the next decade, so we are less certain that any changes we make today will really be right for 2019. But it's the word "skills" that I feel may be limiting the vision.

Some have objected to the haziness of terms like "critical thinking," predicting that educators will use the vagueness of the definition to claim a spurious success. After all, how can you really measure a person's thinking skill? I give teachers more credit than that. My objection is more against making something as volatile as industry the North Star for schools and continuing to think that we can orchestrate future economic triumphs by articulating what our schools will teach.

What if we were to shift the focus and redefine the purpose of schools as places where we engage and challenge young minds and help them develop and flourish? Instead of envisioning only outcomes like a new generation of computers or medical breakthroughs or energy solutions and the wealth and power that come with them, why do we not spend some time thinking about the kinds of minds we really need in order to achieve and sustain the good life throughout our world? Will we be able to prepare our kids for the challenges ahead through incremental teaching of discrete skills?

I know this sounds kind of fluffy and is even more vague than the skills being discussed. I will try to be clearer and more specific in my next post.

Ohio's Education Reform and Funding Plan: Some Questions

2009-02-03T19:52:00.007-05:00

After asserting a desire to transform Ohio's education system, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland has issued his long-awaited education reform and funding plan. I am pleased that the plan recognizes the need to foster innovation and proposes more project-based and individualized learning. I like that he wants to replace the Ohio Graduation Test with a four-part assessment that includes the ACT college entrance exam, end of course exams, completion of a service learning project, and submission of a senior project. (I am eager to see how this will be implemented though.)

I question his proposal that the Ohio Department of Education organize an Academic Olympics to "recognize academic talents in science, math, writing, debate, arts and technology." While I don't believe that a competition of this sort will be harmful, I wonder whether it is the best model for 21st century learning environments and the best use of limited state resources.

Does it reinforce the industrial age workplace model—employees competing with one another instead of collaborating to achieve breakthroughs?

Will it encourage a focus on the best of the best—kids who are already destined to go far—at the expense of those who want to excel but need help getting on the right path? His use of the word "talents" is unfortunate, I think. Stanford professor Carol S. Dweck says that sustained effort over time, not proving one's intelligence or talent, is the key to motivation and achievement.

Also, would the competition reinforce the compartmentalization of the disciplines in a time when we need students to think in a more integrative fashion?

No details are yet available. I hope this will be designed by innovative people.

Critical Thinking in the Disciplines

2009-01-30T12:59:00.004-05:00

Do disciplinary considerations affect how different people define critical thinking? Yesterday's first attempt at defining the term was purposely generic—an attempt to begin formulating my conception of a common view. It might be necessary first to examine critical thinking through the perspective of different domains.

In every discipline, critical thinking would include proper framing of the issue or question and a review of the relevant literature to see what others have learned. Examining different pre-existing positions, theories, or perspectives would be vital. In many cases, narrowing inquiry to a more manageable scope might be needed. In some cases, broadening one's background knowledge would be necessary although it would be hoped that the critical thinker has a sound base of understanding in the domain.

In science, critical thinking would extend into empirical observation and the design of an experiment or a methodology for gathering data in situ. Looking for patterns and anomalies would be a major aspect. The latter also would be part of critical thinking in social science.

Critical thinking about a literary text would be more centered on close reading, looking for patterns and anomalies in the text, identifying any claims being made. Often, existing literary theories would be used as a lens for examining the text or one appropriate theory would be selected as the basis for critical analysis.

Critical thinking about a work of visual art, a musical composition, a dance, or a dramatic performance combines the observation of the physical environment used in science and the textual analysis techniques used in literature.

Critical thinking in writing (here I mean scholarly or practical writing), I think, requires the broadest repertoire of skills because there is more choice involved—what evidence, words, connections to include. Creative writing and making art involve even more choices and require one to go beyond established territory and make more original judgments. However, in those activities, critical thinking is more subjective—the artist can set his or her own criteria.

What is "critical thinking" anyway?

2009-01-29T11:34:00.010-05:00

The term "critical thinking" appears repeatedly in state education visions, but I wonder whether everyone who uses it would define it the same way. Before I begin to research what others say about the term, I thought I would attempt to begin formulating a comprehensive definition of what I think it means. The following is my first pass. I welcome suggestions and critiques.

Critical thinking can be used in the process of arriving at a single right answer, but often, it can lead to a number of possible decisions, outcomes, solutions, or answers.

Critical thinking is concerned with some "object" for consideration. On a micro level, that object might be a text, an image, a spoken statement, a piece of music, a physical action, or a natural phenomenon. It might be a product or performance that combines multiple objects and types of objects. On a macro level, it might be an entire domain or subdomain of knowledge.

The object for consideration can be viewed or interpreted or responded to in multiple ways.

The object for consideration has content and form. Content might include facts and claims of fact, descriptions, concepts, ideas, theories, evidence, arguments, proposed actions or methodologies, etc. Form is the way content is arranged or structured to create a whole.

I would define critical thinking as examining an object closely, going beyond first impressions, surface appearance, and the most salient details in order to arrive at a goal—a decision or course of action, a solution, or new knowledge (or at least an enlightened theory, idea, or course of action). That examination of an object—let's say the object is a proposed idea—begins with clearly articulating the idea followed by such processes as:

1) Ensuring the idea is understood. Defining terms associated with the idea and being aware of alternative ways of articulating the idea. Putting the idea into a more understandable form if needed. Exploring assumptions about and subjective reactions to the idea to prevent bias. Exploring how the form of the idea affects its content, as well as how it might affect response to the idea.

2) Comparing the idea to other ideas in order to place it in a group, establish its distinctiveness from a group to which others have assigned it, and/or associate it with other relevant ideas. Exploring its opposite and other alternative ideas.

3) Taking the idea apart and identifying its parts. Determining the important ways its parts fit and work together and how they affect one another.

4) Putting the idea in a larger context—historical, environmental, societal/cultural, artistic, philosophical—whatever context might affect or be affected by the idea. Exploring the origins of the idea. Exploring the future implications of the idea.

5) Connecting the idea to evidence (objective facts, accepted ideas, expert opinions, data from experiments) that might establish its validity, applicability, and or superiority. (Of course, critical thinking must, in turn, be applied to that evidence, as well as to the question of whether that evidence is appropriate to the idea.)

6) Applying criteria to the idea to determine its value.

Throughout the process of employing these thinking strategies, creative thinking is an undercurrent: Asking questions about the idea, finding different ways to look at it, conducting thought experiments.

Regarding Yesterday's Post:

Correction: I corrected a reference in yesterday's post. Frans Johansson's Medici Effect was the book that said prolific innovators continue to have bad ideas throughout their lives.

Addendum: I found a discussion of hands on learning at the university level and some great to consider on a January 19 post at The Clever Sheep blog.

Content Knowledge AND Creativity

2009-01-28T16:20:00.007-05:00

Must kids learn basic content before they are allowed to think, imagine, and create in school?

In his blog D-Ed Reckoning, Ken DeRosa dismisses the Pittsburgh Regional Future City Competition as a "charming" attempt to to "instill creativity in students without first teaching them the relevant underlying content knowledge." The competition, which is part of the National Engineers Week Future City Competition, includes envisioning a city of the future (this year, with an emphasis on ("water conservation, reuse, and self-sufficiency"), using SimCity4 to create computer models, and then building a model of the city using recyclable materials. He quotes Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article written for the general public that, of course, emphasizes the fun and charm of the kids' ideas rather than delving into how they were taught and how content knowledge was assessed.

First, teams for this competition must have engineers as mentors. That is valuable. I doubt that engineers would waste their time if fun were the only objective. The materials on the Web site of the national competition and the essays suggest to me that the winning teams did more than have fun. There was potential for them to experience how engineers work, become more knowledgeable about today's advanced technologies, and engage in complex problem-solving. I'm sure the essays and presentations that are part of competing were among the most rigorous communication challenges of those students' middle school experience. Also, I thought the list of awards for last year's Pittsburgh competition provide a glimpse of the complexity of the project and suggest that charming ideas were only part of the experience.

Now I'm sure there are many cases of bad implementation for contests like this. I'm sure many teachers go heavier on the fun and creativity but do not think enough about how to tie the semester long project in with the rigorous math and science content knowledge they need to teach. I'm sure there are some teachers who aren't taking full advantage of the opportunity to work with an engineer and who are letting some students slide while others do most of the work. Cases of poor implementation and teacher training don't make such an activity a bad approach, however.

Now I'll go a little further out on a limb. Let's say some students are doing the project in a less than optimal context—mediocre teacher, lost opportunities to teach some of the relevant content underlying the competition. But they are engaged; many, for the first time, have thought of themselves as learners. They are experiencing teamwork, both its immediate social benefits and the potential for some long-term growth as collaborators. They are more aware of complexity and systems thinking, of interdependence. Their attitudes about science and engineering have changed. They can now imagine becoming engineers.

Those outcomes aren't enough, but they are significant. Sure, the excitement will dim for some, and they will fall back into apathy. But middle school is when many students lose interest in math and science, so who's to say this little jolt of fun won't be the spark that keeps some of them going long enough to put them on the path toward realizing that they need to do the hard work of mastering physics and math. Maybe the artistic child who tunes out math and science won't start to pay attention because they now see math and science as ways to apply, enhance, and even develop their creative capabilities.

And who's to say that the challenge of envisioning a city of the future is nothing without the underlying content knowledge? Maybe the act of imagining the city will lead to questions that will lead to deep engagement with relevant content. Maybe a desire to begin building a mental framework in math and science that extends far beyond the project will grow. I know I experienced that jolt in some contexts. And maybe the kids with the wild imaginations will have a role not yet envisioned in our future society. If ideas are the fuel for the future economy, maybe innovative teams will include people who don't need to know—just imagine. I read recently that innovative people have more ideas but often continue to produce bad ideas throughout their careers (Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect).

I don't mean to suggest that content knowledge is less important than creativity. But I question whether particular relevant content always must precede imaginative speculation. I think creative work and rigorous learning are interdependent.

Content Knowledge AND Critical Thinking, Part II

2009-01-27T14:36:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, I said this: "Some bloggers continue to suggest that increased focus on creativity and critical thinking skills threatens basic literacy, numeracy, and knowledge in the disciplines." My first example was a post in the Core Knowledge blog showing how critical thinking without background knowledge would limit listeners' grasp of the President's inaugural speech. As you can see in the comments for yesterday, the author of that blog did not intend to suggest that thinking skills are unimportant and has had some experiences with those who take the "learning how to learn" position too far. I think we all need to examine our positions continually in search of the right balance and I intend to to put that into practice using the Core Knowledge blog and other good sources with perspectives that differ from my own.

Perhaps Ken DeRosa, who writes a blog called D-Ed Reckoning, also has seen some examples of dismissiveness toward content knowledge and poorly implemented strategies for teaching thinking. But I'd like to suggest that he underestimates the power of critical thinking and the idea of "learning to learn."

In a January 21 entry, he outlined a projectile motion physics problem and on January 23 (in an entry called "Where's Your Google Now?"), he discusses "how difficult it is to think critically about Physics unless you know quite a bit [of] physics and have had quite a lot of practice solving similar physics problems."

Clearly, he demonstrated what he set out to demonstrate. But I think that in many contexts, good research and analytical skills can overcome gaps in content knowledge.

For example, I did not take physics and higher level math courses in school, and I know that even with my advanced Googling skills and high aptitude for gleaning information from technical texts, I would not be able to solve a projectile motion physics problem. But when a problem is relevant to something I need to understand and write about, I can discern that relevance through research and thought and can develop the background knowledge required for my communication task. In my career, and in many others, that is good enough.

When I worked for a NASA contractor as a writer, I covered basic and applied research projects across a variety of disciplines. When I started in 1987, I would not have been able even to identify or define those disciplines and knew nothing about how engineers analyzed design concepts and tested prototypes. As a writer, I used my critical reading and thinking skills when I needed to summarize physical processes within a system or communicate with physicists who were working on advanced concepts. By examining some technical references and project reports (No Idiot's Guides in those days), I was able to ask good questions and synthesize information from several sources to create background explanations for general and managerial audiences. Thus with a limited based of knowledge, I was able to educate citizens about the amazing work behind things they take for granted, to help legislators make decisions from a more informed context, and to make researchers aware of what was happening in other areas so they could make better use of the limited time they had to explore outside of their specialities.

Certainly, we need people who can do much more than what I did. My simplified explanations were much less important than the work of those who could write technical reports that other scientists could act upon. But my "good enough" knowledge base, cobbled together primarily through critical reading and thinking, fulfilled a purpose. Perhaps knowing more physics and being able to solve physics problems would have made my technical writing better in some instances, but most of the time I was effective because I was a learner—someone who could listen to a totally new concept and make enough sense out of it to tell a bigger story of ideas, innovation, collaboration, practical problems solved, or progress toward national goals. Moreover, imagine the benefits of having someone on the team who doesn't know the science but is a good learner. If he or she can't understand your explanation, you know you need to work on your message. Otherwise, those less motivated to understand you might not fund your project.

I don't mean to say that my avoidance of physics and math in high school and college was a good thing. Nor do I suggest that content knowledge played no role in my technical writing during that time. Certainly, my knowledge of structure, learned through studying English language content, helped. I was very interested in biology and anatomy. Maybe my content knowledge about living systems helped make it possible for me to converse with physicists and engineers—and maybe their "good enough" content knowledge in areas outside of their specialized domains helped them communicate their work to a tenderfoot.

I guess what I'm saying is that it would be wonderful if schools could figure out a way to broaden students' content knowledge in math and science while making them agile learners who can compensate for gaps in knowledge at the same time. Because gaps are always going to be there.

Another post on D-Ed Reckoning needs, in my opinion, to take a broader view of creativity. I will continue this in tomorrow's post.

Core Knowledge AND Critical Thinking, Please

2009-01-26T20:25:00.007-05:00

Some bloggers continue to suggest that increased focus on creativity and critical thinking skills threatens basic literacy, numeracy, and knowledge in the disciplines.

On the Core Knowledge blog, Robert Pondiscio shows eloquently how the symbolism in President Obama's inaugural speech would be lost on those without knowledge of history.
He questions the impact of the speech on children. He asks: "How many of our children, instead of seeing mere novelty, comprehend fully and viscerally the improbable closing of a historical loop they have just witnessed?"

While no child could be expected to comprehend the full historic impact of the speech, I think many will comprehend it "viscerally" because they have been witnesses, and they have heard family stories. They have asked questions and wondered. I think many will be motivated to learn more about the struggles mentioned in the speech because they know they have witnessed something important.

As a person educated in the liberal arts and a lifelong seeker of knowledge, I know my content knowledge of history, literature, and the Bible significantly deepened my understanding of what the President was saying in his speech. But most of my mental activities during and after the speech were along these lines:

I remembered stories my grandparents and parents told of the Depression and saw vividly in my mind household artifacts from that time. I recalled the metallic smell of my grandfather coming in from the steel mill. I remembered models of the Gemini spacecraft my brother built. I remembered my uncle's letters home from Viet Nam and the tears of girls in my neighborhood whose brothers and boyfriends were shipping out. I mentally replayed news clips of the civil rights movement during my childhood and remembered being in sixth grade and seeing a photo of a bleeding, prostrate black man being beaten as I tried to read a textbook on race relations because O wanted to know why so many white adults seemed to be troubled by Martin Luther King. I remembered our black garbage man standing in the kitchen and giving my mother his take on the riots of 1968. I heard his voice clearly. No textbook accounts came to mind, nor did I remember any lectures—except one nun trying to make us view the civil rights movement through the eyes of black people. I remembered her simple but profound words.

Basic literacy skills acquired in school made it possible for me to use books in making sense of those experiences. The content knowledge I acquired in school made my experiences more meaningful. But what engaged me and made me want to learn about historical events did not happen because of an excellent curriculum.

I acquired the content knowledge that gave the speech meaning because of my own unique way of thinking about the world. Wanting to understand my world determined what I decided was important to know and what I paid attention to and pondered during and after my school experience. I believe that more opportunities to ask and explore good questions and share knowledge in creative ways would have enriched my understanding even more, sharpened my thirst for core knowledge, and made a better scholar out of me.

I remember so many questions not answered in my textbooks and history classes: What is communism? How could such things happen to Anne Frank? Why are blacks unwelcome in our neighborhood? Why should Americans die in Viet Nam?

Here's another: Why do some want to make everything an either-or proposition?

I think what we need now is "Yes . . . and . . . "

The Core Knowledge Blog and others (see tomorrow's post) acknowledge that content and critical thinking are inseparable, but then they set about exposing the inadequacy of critical thinking for making sense of history or solving problems. Is content knowledge all we will need to understand war in the Middle East or negotiate a treaty or craft an effective energy policy?

NEA Chair Dana Gioia Comments on Arts Education

2009-01-24T20:11:00.006-05:00

"You're in a society that will be happy if you're simply a good customer and make enough money to buy stuff and be a consumer." That was one interesting comment National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia addressed to some high school students recently. (It was covered in The Tidings, a weekly paper by the LA Archdiocese. Paula Doyle wrote the story.)

Chairman Gioia, who left a high position in the corporate world to pursue his poetry, also said the purpose of arts education is "to produce complete human beings who can lead successful lives in a complicated society."

I would like to see this broader vision for arts education. I believe part of the problem is that teachers don't have adequate time to explore and talk about art with students. It's all about production and performance. Therefore, the arts are viewed as only for the talented and they become compartmentalized instead of flowing into all areas of inquiry.

New White Paper on 21st Century Learning Environments

2009-01-23T10:45:00.003-05:00

Promoting "vibrant educational environments – physical and online, technological and human – that support the 21st century learning all children deserve" is the focus of 21st Century Learning Environments, a new white paper from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

Classrooms that can be easily reconfigured (which the authors call "learning studios"), buildings that inspire intellectual curiosity and social interaction are some of the recommendations for physical spaces. The school schedule and calendar also should be more flexible. Schools should be connected to the outside world, both welcoming community members in and creating real world projects that extend learning beyond the time and space of school. Assessment should measure the results of such learning experiences rather than focusing on test results that measure only whether students have mastered or not mastered content and skills at a particular point in time.

Technology, connection, professional learning communities, project-based learning, and community partnerships are threads that run through the paper.

I think the paper describes the schools we need, and I like the paper's references to the ASCD's Commission on the Whole Child. But I would have liked to see arts education figure more prominently. I don't believe the Partnership for 21st Century Skills would view the cuts in arts education we have seen in recent years as good for the development of 21st century workers, leaders, and citizens, but I think they underestimate the important of artistic thinking.

Obama and Arts Education

2009-01-21T10:32:00.005-05:00

Our new President seems to be an advocate for arts education. This is an excerpt from his position paper on arts and culture:

To support arts education, Obama proposes these strategies:

Expand Public/Private Partnerships Between Schools and Arts Organizations: Barack Obama will increase resources for the U.S. Department of Education’s Arts Education Model Development and Dissemination Grants, which develop public/private partnerships between schools and arts organizations. Obama will also engage the foundation and corporate community to increase support for public/private partnerships.

Create an Artist Corps: Barack Obama supports the creation of an “Artists Corps” of young artists trained to work in low-income schools and their communities. Studies in Chicago have demonstrated that test scores improved faster for students enrolled in low-income schools that link arts across the curriculum than scores for students in schools lacking such programs.

Publicly Champion the Importance of Arts Education: As president, Barack Obama will use the bully pulpit and the example he will set in the White House to promote the importance of arts and arts education in America. Not only is arts education indispensable for success in a rapidly changing, high skill, information economy, but studies show that arts education raises test scores in other subject areas as well.

Art and the Inauguration

2009-01-20T19:50:00.006-05:00

I was glad to see that the arts were part of Barack Obama's Inauguration.

According to the LA Times: "Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States of America exactly at noon today Eastern time in a fashion unlike any of his predecessors. The ceremony ran a couple of minutes late, and as the clock struck, Obama had not yet been sworn in. Rather power changed hands as he sat quietly on the steps of the Capitol and -– along with much of the rest of the world -- listened as violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, pianist Gabriela Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill performed the world premiere of “Air and Simple Gifts” by John Williams. (You can watch and hear it below.)

Power changed hands just as the sober introductory air segued into an animated riff on the Shaker tune “Simple Gifts,” on which Aaron Copland famously wrote a set of variations for his ballet “Appalachian Spring.”

Here is the video of that performance:

Poet Elizabeth Alexander delivered a poem called Praise song for the day that inspired me to feel gratitude and hope. All of us made this country great and what each of us does matters. The "day" in the title was both the new beginning of an historic Inauguration and a celebration of every day—all the seemingly insignificant acts that create our lives and affect others in ways we don't know.I loved the last line and I hope it stays with us all:

"In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light."

Also, "View of the Yosemite Valley" by Thomas Hill of the Hudson River School was selected to grace the Inauguration luncheon. The Hudson River School artists (some of whom painted scenes from the West as well) sought to raise awareness about caring for the land and to further the idea of Manifest Destiny, the position that America should expand westward to extend "from sea to shining sea" and spread democracy throughout the world.

Closing the Innovation Gap: New Book Embraces a Complete Curriculum—Including the Arts

2009-01-15T20:21:00.008-05:00

I just finished an important new book: Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy. The author is Judy Estrin, who has founded a number of techology enterprises and served as Chief Technology Officer for Cisco Systems.

Similar to John Kao's Innovation Nation, the book looks broadly at our nations's "Innovation Ecosystem," including education, and outlines a direction for U.S. leadership in a global economy driven by innovation.

Estrin joins the call for increasing our ranks of STEM professionals. But she also says this:

“Improvements in math and science should not be made by sacrificing other subjects. Learning about literature, history, and the arts encourages curiosity, creativity, collaboration, and communication, all of which are essential skills for potential innovators."

"To cultivate next generation innovators," says Estrin, "the most important skill we need to teach our children is how to learn." (Note to Fordham's Gadflies: She says most important skill, not only skill.

She also quoted another technology leader who shares her views, John Seely Brown:

"If I had to teach creative problem solving would I go to mathematics, physics, or engineering? No. “I would go to history and art for lessons in moral development. Those are the domains that build the aesthetics and sensibilities for the kinds of thinking we need."

After critiquing NCLB, she said:

“In an era when we talk so much about Web site personalization, we are not giving our children the opportunity to develop as individuals. We need students who are solidly grounded in the fundamentals, but also generations of innovators who discovered their passion by being exposed to a broad range of human creativity and knowledge in school. We will not lead in the future by producing a nation of robots.”

For more information, see Estrin's Web site. See John Kao's Web site for more about Innovation Nation.

Does Education Need a Renaissance in Qualitative Thinking?

2009-01-14T22:54:00.006-05:00

Continuing my inquiry from the last post . . . I believe that the education community will not unlock the secrets to creating innovative thinkers through data-driven approaches. I believe that data certainly has its place and that schools should be collecting evidence about how well their strategies are working, but a culture focusing solely on quantitative data will make only incremental progress. Clearly, that will not be enough to meet the challenges ahead.

Policy leaders need to stop demanding numbers to justify all their decisions. Yes, qualitative data is hard to acquire and analyze. But where would our world be without decisions based on standing back and looking at the whole, making intuitive leaps because mystery beckons?

For true innovation to occur in schools, those who are pursuing a transformation in education must cultivate within themselves qualities of mind that we often call "artistic"—qualities like wonder, apprehension of beauty, embrace of mystery, exploration of possibilities, and fanciful reverie. Scientific progress and innovative breakthroughs draw from those qualities.

I believe that arts experiences can be incubators for those qualities—perhaps not what most schools call arts education today but a true artistic community whose views and ideas are taken as seriously as those of DaVinci were. Look at our world. Art is everywhere. It is highly influential. But because we do not study art in depth—arts classes are about getting results to show that kids are becoming better performers, not about the artistic process—we don't understand those influences or even consciously know they exist.

The Conundrum of Art as Evidence

2009-01-13T21:51:00.006-05:00

I know that yesterday's post—an image and a song about 21st century kids—are not really evidence, in the usual sense, that the arts should play a central role in developing 21st century skills. I've done enough writing about research-based reading programs to know what it takes to make causal connections. And I know there is a growing research base on arts education and arts integration I could cite. (If you're interested, start at the Arts Education Partnership. )

But I'd like to suggest that developing creative, innovative thinkers requires that the education community and those who set policy need to adopt an innovation agenda for themselves. If you have decided to act based on scientific research, then fund basic and applied research to test promising approaches like arts integration in a systematic way. If you view education as a science, you must do more than look at the existing literature for answers. It is not scientific to ignore possibilities because no one has yet proved them.

At the same time, think about a broader approach to collecting evidence. I still concede that the two artists I mentioned yesterday have not provided a basis for action, but qualitative studies and meta-analyses, as well as looking at the culture, have a place in the quest for innovation. Think about it: While the theories of Einstein and Freud were taking shape, artists like Picasso and Kandinsky were investigating space, time, and consciousness in parallel.

Or did the poet Ezra Pound get it right:

"Artists are the antennae of the race, but the bullet- headed many will never learn to trust their great artists."

Why We Need Arts in School: Evidence

2009-01-12T15:54:00.010-05:00

Throughout time, the arts have tapped into the gathering storms, illuminated changes in consciousness, and captured the spirit of the times in ways that no historian, politician, or blogger can.

As the debate about 21st century skills flows on, I saw two responses from artists today. Author/illustrator/educator Peter H. Reynolds has created a portrait of the 21st Century kid that can be viewed at the Verizon Thinkfinity Web site. I love it that his kid has a guitar slung on his back. (Reynolds also has a wonderful blog Stellar Cafe).

Jamie Cullum has written a song. I think the lyrics to 21st Century Kid (below the video) are something to ponder.

21st Century Kid
There's maybe a way I can tell you
Cos with everyday things continue
To get more compromised
So who will fantasise
A new generation politicised

When things are done in our own name
Are we as much to blame
Now it's become clear to me
But only lately
And the ground is removed underneath

Shout it from the brink
You’re louder than you think

21st century kid surrounded by illusion and confusion
So maybe if you're holding out for the truth now
Could it be the greatest weapon
Could it be the greatest weapon
Your weapon

Nothing is certain except a memory
And that's soon washed away by a low sea
Now sit yourself down my one
And see what you become
Ignoring a smouldering gun

The white dove's flown
D'ya think we're on our own

Sunday Arts Education Connections #3

2009-01-11T19:48:00.010-05:00

First Installment in my series on Arts Elements and Principles (see overview post see introduction to series)

Form
Form is an element in music, dance, theater, and visual art. It shapes our expectations, perceptions, and memories of arts experiences. Imagine exploring form as it relates to art, culture, language, the diversity of nature, the landscape. The possibilities are endless.

Wisconsin Report Links Arts Ed to Student Success

2009-01-11T16:08:00.005-05:00

A task force was created by Wisconsin's Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster has issued a report that makes strong statements linking arts education to success in higher education and the state's economic development. According to a January 11 Journal Sentinel article on the report, the task force found that "deepening the involvement of all Wisconsin students in the arts and involving them in creative processes in schools are, among other things, important steps toward making the state's economic future brighter." The report recommends immediate action on creating "a pilot program for six to 10 school districts to implement an arts and creativity in education action plan."

I like the way Elizabeth Burmeister defines the creative process on the Department of Public Instruction Web site: "a combination of imagination, creativity, and innovation to produce something unique that has value and meaning." She says the group's plan for action addresses four areas: 1) Legislative and State Policy, 2) Creativity in the Classroom, 3) Community Involvement, and 4) Business and the Creative Economy.

The report will be available at the Web site of the Wisconsin Task Force on Arts and Creativity. The site also has resources and will include updates on progress. As soon as I can read the report, I will post about it again.

Students Chime in on Creative Learning: Maybe a Junior Innovation Corps?

2009-01-10T13:52:00.005-05:00

Awhile back I wrote about an idea I had for the new Secretary of Education—creating an Innovation Corps. I thought of several well-known thinkers, innovators, and creators I would ask to be part of the core "dream team," but I left off the most creative people of all: the kids.

The Tate Museum has not made that omission. They asked over 3000 students across the United Kingdom to share their views on what they need to be the creative and succeed in the future. The result was the following:

The Manifesto for a Creative Britain:

1. We want less formality in schools and more creativity in the classroom.

2. Change the curriculum so that our subjects reflect our lives.

3. Create spaces where we can vent our creativity.

4. Let us have opportunities to take risks so that we are not afraid to try new things.

5. We need mentoring help to get us into the creative industries. We don’t know how it works.

6. We need to gain confidence in ourselves.

7. Allow us to learn from each other, to get fresh ideas from cultures other than just our own. We want to mix it up.

8. We need it to be easier to use the internet at school.

9. Invest money in us because we are the future.

10. We are prepared to start at the bottom and make our way up.

11: We want time for out-of-school activities and we want them to count towards our qualifications.

12: Give us the choice between exams or coursework.

See my comments at The Compass Point and join the discussion there. This is definitely a framework I will be revisiting.

Ready to Innovate: A Good Resource for the Innovation Corps

2009-01-09T09:35:00.007-05:00

A March 2008 report sponsored by the Conference Board, Americans for the Arts, and the American Association of School Administrators makes some interesting points about 21st century skills that I would definitely make required reading for the Innovation Corps I fantasized about.

Ready to Innovate: Are Educators and Executives Aligned on the Creative Readiness of the U.S. Workforce? compares the views of business executives and school superintendents regarding creativity and innovation.

First, when asked which school experiences were most important indicators of creativity, both employers and superintendents cited study in the arts. (Business ranked it second, superintendents first.)

Second, when asked about specific skills and patterns of behavior that indicate creativity, employers and superintendents differed in some areas. The chart below (taken from an article by Stacy Teicher Kadaroo in the Christian Science Monitor) shows a couple of interesting differences that should be further explored.

Based on the rankings, employers and superintendents agree that "ability to identify new patterns of behavior or new combination of actions" and "integration of knowledge across different disciplines" are highly indicative of creativity.

But perhaps schools that are interested in developing innovative thinkers should discuss the three areas ranked high by employers (most indicative of creativity) but significantly lower by superintendents:

Problem identification or articulation.
Comfort with the notion of no right answer.
Fundamental curiosity.

My reactions: I wonder whether some of the areas ranked lowest by employers (less indicative of creativity) are perhaps areas they take for granted—areas where schools have excelled. However, two of those areas—communicating new ideas and problem-solving—may be deceptive. Communicating new ideas is dependent on having them first, which requires the other skills and behaviors. That ranking may be more reflective of thinking sequentially. Solving problems is much broader than some of the other items and can be said to include some of the more highly ranked skills. I wonder whether superintendents were thinking of students or teachers when they were ranking. Some of the items they chose as the top five—problem-solving, integration of knowledge across disciplines, originality, and communications seem to suggest the types of criteria that would be used to judge student work or that would be found in education reports about 21st century skills.

A Pivotal Idea in 21st Century Skills Dialogue

2009-01-08T18:32:00.006-05:00

Journalists and bloggers have been quoting the Education Sector report "Measuring Skills for the 21st Century" by Elena Silva over the past few weeks. Although the report's central purpose is to assert that 21st century skills can be assessed and to highlight the need for better assessment systems that measure a wider range of content knowledge and skills, many commentaries that refer to the report focus more on her analysis of how 21st century skills fit into the education picture. Although her position is that schools must teach and assess both the basics and real world application, Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews, writers at the Core Knowledge blog, and Education Sector co-founder Andrew J. Rotherham underscored her statement that we must abandon "the idea we can teach thinking without a solid foundation of knowledge." The use of the word "fad" by Rotherham and Mathews has been widely quoted by bloggers.

A facet of Silva's analysis that I hope to see discussed more is the idea that advanced thinking and analytical skills can be integrated with the process of teaching basic facts and simple procedures. Among her references, she cites a report on math by the US Department of Education asserting that "the best learning happens" when students learn rules and procedures "at the same time that they learn how to think and solve problems."

She also mentions the findings of a working group that revised Bloom's Taxonomy. Led by Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl, the group found that more advanced skills, in many instances, can be learned simultaneously or even in reverse order. (See this post at Bowling Green's Interact at the Center blog for a good visual of the original and revised taxonomy.)

Fordham Foundation: It's Time for Inquiry, Not Ridicule

2009-01-07T10:46:00.012-05:00

Once again, the Thomas B. Fordham Education Gadfly blog "Flypaper" has responded to new views in public education with sarcasm, misrepresentation of the debate, and either-or arguments. This time it's an attack on 21st century skills. Flypaper blogger Mike Petrilli inaccurately frames the position of all who suggest that schools need to develop 21st century skills as “all kids need to learn is how to learn.” The most important, active discussions of how to prepare students for their future careers do NOT suggest scrapping content, nor is an emphasis on teaching technology skills (how to use software) the central recommendation of 21st century skills advocates. Yet the Fordham team chooses to frame the debate this way to suit its agenda: Attack any idea that does not require draining public funds into private schools.

This is not an either-or proposition, but Fordham has argued it that way. Sometimes explicit instruction in thinking skills is needed, but usually learning how to learn and mastering content reinforce one another. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, probably most responsible for the rise of the term, does not promote skills without content. Their framework suggests the need for new content (which includes not only introducing completely new concepts but also bringing some neglected aspects of the existing curriculum to the forefront) and paying more attention to the thinking processes students use as they engage with and apply content.

I agree that the term "21st century skills" has become a buzzword, but there is room in the education conversation for rethinking how we prepare students for the economic transformation and global challenges that are upon us.

Arts and STEM: Not Either-Or

2009-01-07T09:40:00.005-05:00

Thanks to Josie from The Compass Point at Poughkeepsie Day School for pointing me to her post on Hetland and Winner's Studio Thinking. The quote she cited at the end of her post is an important statement:

“We don’t need the arts in our schools to raise mathematical and verbal skills,” conclude Winner and Hetland. “We already target these in math and language arts. We need the arts because in addition to introducing students to aesthetic appreciation, they teach other modes of thinking we value.”

The comments her post received included one arguing that the arts are a waste of time because the best universities prefer more math and science courses to four years of high school arts courses. If this was ever the case, I think we will see it change. Earlier this year, I interviewed several leaders in the development of Ohio's new STEM high schools for the Ohio Arts Council's Links & Threads newsletter (Vol. IV, Issue 2). Here are a couple quotes:

Gregory Bernhardt, dean of Wright State University’s College of Education and a leader in the Dayton Regional STEM School Consortium: “We think the arts absolutely go hand in hand
with being a good critical thinker. We believe art and music are languages for today’s young people.”

Shaun Yoder, executive director of the Ohio Business Alliance for Education and the Economy: "Creative, innovative, inventive thinking in the STEM disciplines and in the arts work in much
the same way."

Marcy Raymond, principal of Metro High School (Ohio's first STEM high school): “The arts and humanities require the higher order thinking skills of analysis, evaluation and synthesis . . . . Science doesn’t happen in isolation. Students must prepare to view their work within the culture and to see the connections.”

Ohio seems to be one of the states that have a broader, arts-inclusive view of innovation. Governor Ted Strickland and First Lady Frances often mention the arts as essential to innovation. The Ohio Department of Education has formed a group of arts leaders called Committee for the Arts and Innovative Thinking (CAIT) to look at greater integration between the arts and the state's STEM initiatives. Also, Ohio's STEM Learning Network has a section on its Web site called Inquiring Minds, which discusses how the arts and sciences go hand in hand in creative thinking.

21st Century Skills Round-Up

2009-01-05T10:30:00.006-05:00

I've been following the term "21st century skills" on Google Reader for a few weeks and looking at blogs that regularly address the topic. Initially, I saw mostly mentions of the term without much further discussion. Now I think the conversation is heating up.

Here is a brief summary of what I'm seeing in other blogs and some articles. (I will be reviewing some major reports in another post.)

Overuse. Increasingly, I am seeing school districts incorporating the term 21st century skills into their missions and slogans, politicians using the term in speeches, and vendors claiming that their products and services promote development of those skills. Will the term become meaningless or distrusted before long—like "transformation" and "paradigm shift"?

Just a Fad. Some are casting the term as another buzzword or fad. In the Washington Post, Jay Mathews calls 21st century skills "The Latest Doomed Pedagogical Fad."

The semantics debate. Are we talking about skills or literacies or habits of mind? Is communication still defined as reading, writing, speaking, and listening, or does it need to be redefined? Good discussion on Strength of Weak Ties.

Objections to the modifier 21st century. Haven't many of the skills cited as 21st century always been important? See The Edge of Tomorrow. Also, Keeping Kids First makes the point that people in 2090 will be laughing at our concept of 21st century skills.

Emphasis on Tools. Many blogs and social networks that are dedicated to discussions of technology in education seem to equate 21st century skills with use of Web 2.0 and multimedia tools. It will be interesting to see if this thread gains branches.

Concern about Balance. Many bloggers commented on Andrew Rotherham's Dec. 15 article in U.S. News and World Report expressed concern that content will be shortchanged. While I haven't seen evidence of his claim that "some 21st-century skills proponents believe these skills should replace the teaching of content," he highlights an important issue. I also applaud the assertion of Daniel Willingham on the Britannica Blog that the crucial improvement needs to be deep understanding and the application of knowledge. The Compass Point had a good take on this debate.

Concerns about Equity. Will suburban kids be taught 21st century skills while low-income kids learn basics? This has been briefly mentioned.

I have not yet seen anything of substance about arts learning and 21st century skills.

Coming Back

2009-01-04T19:52:00.000-05:00

I am back to work after taking some time off during the holidays. For the first time in three years, my son and daughter were home at the same time and I also had the opportunity to be in the same place with my parents and all six brothers and sisters for a day.

I am eager to see whether my "tortoise mind" has been at work on some new insights (see post from November 29).

My focus for this week will be commenting on some recent articles and blog posts about 21st century skills. Seems like awareness of this new reform is growing. I also plan to get back on track with the series on how the arts elements and principles and the four categories of arts learning foster 21st century skills.

Questions for the Innovation Corps

2008-12-18T11:05:00.004-05:00

In my first session with the "Innovation Dream Team" that I suggested in yesterday's post, I would first present them with these questions:

What innovation challenges do you foresee for the years ahead? What kinds of teams will be needed to meet these challenges?

What kinds of contexts lead to innovative thinking?

If you were asked to spend a month in a sixth-grade classroom with the goal of planting the seeds of creative, innovative thinking, what would you do (or where would you begin)?

How would you ensure maximum opportunities and support for teacher innovation?

Of course, I would Webcast the session and encourage local groups composed of educators from all levels of the system, students, and innovative people from nearby businesses and schools. I would set up some groups on all the social networks in education like Classroom 2.0 and Students 2.0, as well as in groups frequented by creative professionals like Design21 or Innovation People on LinkedIn.

Imagine the buzz!

Innovation Corps: Start with a Dream Team

2008-12-17T13:22:00.004-05:00

My Innovation Corps idea continues to intrigue me. If I were Arne Duncan, the new Education Secretary, I think I would want to plan an ideation session with a mix of visionaries from scientific, technical and artistic fields, as well as some entrepreneurs who are especially skilled at turning good ideas into products.

Here are some possibilities off the top of my head.

Eric Drexler, one of the pioneers in nanotechnology, whose 1991 book Engines of Creation clearly explained the benefits of the technology.

George Lucas, creator of Star Wars and sponsor of Edutopia.

Charles Burnette, a design educator who developed Design-Based Education. Design thinking, he says, is "a process of creative and critical thinking that allows information and ideas to be organized, decisions to be made, situations to be improved, and knowledge to be gained."

David Perkins former director of Harvard's Project Zero or its current director Steve Seidel. The mission of Project Zero is "to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels." Lois Hetland, author of Studio Thinking (see my earlier post)

A journalist like Sara Dickenson Quinn of the Washington Post, who specializes in visual communications. (I know there are a few more journalists I would add, but I will think some more and do a later post.)

Tom Kelley from top design firm IDEO to share his ideas about innovative workplaces and teams.

Bob Lutz, GM Vice Chairman, Product Development, and Chairman, GM North America.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs

Some social entrepreneurs—people whose ideas have helped make the world more livable. One that comes to mind is Muhammad Yunus whose idea of extending microcredit—very small loans to very poor people in undeveloped countries—has changed so many lives.

Yo Yo Ma, the brilliant cellist who also is an expert on collaboration and global sensibility.

Eric Booth, a teaching artist and author of The Everyday Work of Art

A great installation artist like Ilya Kabakov (imagine what his creations take in terms of both imagination and practical skills).

Someone like Tori Amos, who is always pushing the envelope and always producing something new artistically across disciplines.

I know there are many more good candidates. What do you think?

How About an Innovation Corps?

2008-12-16T15:08:00.006-05:00

Every so often, I make a list of questions as away to crystallize or at least harness what I've been paying attention to and thinking about. The last few questions on my list today were:

Should schools and educators be held accountable for developing creative, innovative thinkers? Do we need to create an "innovation corps" that would develop and deliver rich tasks and experiences that reflect the kinds of skills, thinking, and experiences that are most likely to exist among our next crop of amazing young people who change the world? If so, what would such an organization look like? How would it operate? Would it be connected to the education system? If so, how? If not, what kind of credential or opportunity would it give to students?

Right now I have a blank page in my notebook waiting for ideas, but, as is often the case, I came back to my desk and found a relevant news story that suggests part of the answer. The item in the Wall Street Journal was about a program a Giant Campus, which offer camps (both virtual and actual) to "inspire kids and teens with technology while engaging them in 21st century skills such as creativity, problem solving, communication and collaboration."

Today's item was about a new project called Project CEO. According to the media release, "participants start with their own business idea and work with a team of peers and instructors on refining the idea while creating support materials with cutting-edge technologies. At closing ceremonies, camp attendees present their business where guests have a chance to invest in the company using Giant Campus bucks. Teens go home with business materials such as a company logo, business cards, a Web site and a presentation to share."

Giant Campus also offer camps for kids who want to develop computer games and make films.

These camps are not affordable for many students, but it would be well worth making such opportunities more widely available for a broader range of areas. It also might be valuable to develop connections between projects. This is a challenge that could not only develop skills students need but also bring together adults with creative minds in a new way.

2008-12-16T13:09:00.003-05:00

A post from Sean at The Bassplayers blog suggests that education systems are failing students who "think differently." He says: "The system doesn’t understand creativity. It robs all students of their creative consciousness and replaces it with structure, structure, and more structure, only to prepare them for a 9-to-5 job, Monday to Friday, every week of every year for the rest of their lives." I don't get a sense that Sean is looking for an easier educational experience. He just wants some "leeway" for imagination and thought.

Arts Education Connections #2: Overview of Approaches

2008-12-15T21:12:00.004-05:00

This is an overview of the four ways of approaching the arts. (For readers who may have even less fine arts training than I do.)

Students' work in each of the arts disciplines can be categorized as:

Art-making (or production): Performing a musical composition, a dance, or a play. Creating an original work of visual art, writing a play, creating a dance or dramatic improvisation, composing music, etc. Includes a number of technical components, such as learning dance steps or proper intonation on an instrument and notating a composition, mastering paints and other media, and learning how to block a scene in a play. Includes the generation of original ideas, the involvement and expression of emotions, and the making of meaning.

Art history: Connecting art to people, places, and times. Gaining a better understanding of artworks, periods, and styles by examining them against a larger context of history and culture. Using art to better understand events, periods, and other phenomena.

Criticism: "Reading" works of art. Responding to the form of artworks (how the elements and principles have been used) or to their expressive qualities. Formulating and supporting hypotheses about the meaning, importance, or value of works of art.

Aesthetics: Examining theories regarding what makes art good, important, or valuable. Connecting works of art to bigger philosophical questions and ideas.

As you may imagine, these approaches often overlap and enrich one another. I intend in my "Arts Education Connection Sunday series" to explore how they might also overlap with and enrich other disciplines and help develop 21st century skills.

Arts Education Connections #1: Elements & Principles Overview

2008-12-14T22:24:00.006-05:00

Although sources vary on what are considered the elements of visual art, music, dance, and drama. My list as an example:

Visual art elements: Line • Shape or Form • Color • Space • Value • Texture
Visual art principles: Balance • Contrast • Emphasis/Focal Point • Movement/Rhythm • Proportion/Scale • Repetition • Unity/Harmony

Music Elements: Duration • Intensity • Pitch • Timbre
Music Principles: Composition • Form • Genre • Harmony • Rhythm • Texture

Dance Elements: Action/Movement • Body • Relationships • Dynamics • Space
Dance Principles: Climax and Resolution • Contrast • Development • Repetition • Sequencing • Transition • Variety • Unity

Theater Elements: Characters • Plot • Setting • Script • Dialogue • Staging
Theater Principles: Balance • Collaboration • Discipline • Emphasis • Focus • Intention • Movement • Rhythm • Style • Voice

As you'll notice, some elements and principles are shared by different arts. That is the first indication that these elements and principles are powerful concepts that are widely meaningful. The word cloud below (made at www.wordle.com provides a first look at the overlaps.

Arts Approaches, Elements, and Principles Widely Relevant

2008-12-12T23:49:00.009-05:00

For the past couple of years, I've been working with visual arts and music educators on innovative standards-based units that are organized around essential questions. Of the projects I have done with the arts education community, this one was by far the most content focused. Therefore, my professional learning for the project included considerable time learning and thinking about approaches to art and the arts elements and principles.

The ways of approaching art are art-making, art history, criticism, and aesthetics. (State standards and other writings vary in the terms they use for these four areas.) The standards I have reviewed encompass all four of these areas and people who advocate for comprehensive arts education say that students need instruction in all four areas in order to be competent in the arts. Arts elements can be defined as the components or "ingredients" that go together to create works of art. Arts principles (sometimes called "design principles" or "composition principles") can be defined as ways of applying the elements to achieve desired effects. (Some examples of elements are line and color in visual arts and melody and harmony in music. Variety and repetition are examples of principles in both music and visual art, as well as in dance.)

I was thinking about how all these basics in the arts are powerfully connected to all disciplines. Why are the arts so often at the periphery of the curriculum? What if we explored these connections?

I am going to start a new feature based on this thought called "Arts Education Connections." Every Sunday, I will write a post about how a particular element, principle, or art approach might connect to other academic areas.

Visual Thinking

2008-12-11T16:01:00.002-05:00

This video on visual thinking strategies from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston expresses how studying art develops critical thinking skills. I think money spent on test prep would be better spent on trips to a nearby museum. Visit www.vtshome.org for more information.

New Free Tool for Creating Online Magazines

2008-12-10T14:38:00.004-05:00

I found a tool called Issuu for creating online magazines. Thought I would try it here with Links & Threads, a newsletter I create for the Ohio Arts Council. This issue contains features that illustrate why the arts can be so powerful in preparing students for the future.

To see the issue full screen, click on it. (There are problems with full screen in Firefox, however. I had to use Safari.)

To see more issues of Links & Threads, as well as other good content, go to the Ohio Arts Council's Web site.

Get your own - Open publication

Thinking in Pictures

2008-12-09T19:14:00.005-05:00

A typical report on education and the economy written circa 1998 would most likely have a collage that includes photos of young knowledge workers: one in a white coat holding a test tube, perhaps one wearing a suit seated at a computer, and maybe another adjusting a CNC lathe or some other advanced manufacturing equipment. Two guys and a woman. Probably one of African-American descent.

Today, the picture would certainly be different. It might still include a scientist, probably doing something environmental like examining a plant. There might be a technician or nurse with a medical imaging device. And there would probably be design team—a multicultural group of hip young people in a cool space strewn with all kinds of curious looking toys and gizmos and drawings.

The lathe might be replaced by a solar array. There might be a laptop in the picture or perhaps someone would be using a Blackberry, but the computer would be like the phone in those business images of yesterday—just a routine tool, not a major part of the story.

What's the point? I thought I would try thinking in pictures. Maybe that's one way to develop imagination. It was easier than my usual analytical approach and the time seemed to go faster.

Who am I to talk?

2008-12-08T18:51:00.011-05:00

I've never brought a technology breakthrough to market.

I don't have 20 years of classroom teaching under my belt.

I'm not a fabulously well-to-do entrepreneur who turns ideas into millions.

I'm not a poet or artist whose work has been validated by critics and audiences.

So who am I?

Why do I have the potential for adding something to the conversation on innovation and the role of arts learning in developing creative, innovative thinking and other 21st century skills? See what you think:

I am an independent observer of innovation (and its opposites). My career experiences are:

Supporting various education reform initiatives as an independent analyst and writer

Working with teams of educators—sometimes as a technical writer who clarifies, sometimes as a outside perspective who brings a beginner's mind and renaissance tendencies to a creative challenge

Explaining the work of NASA R&D teams to managers, funders, and the general public

Teaching communications courses to technically oriented people

I think those experiences have helped me see the big picture of learning and understand different perspectives. If you've read Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect, I stand at what he calls "The Intersection"—the place where disciplines and cultures meet. The Intersection, says Johansson, is where we see "extraordinary discoveries" and "pathbreaking innovations" like those that occurred through the patronage of the Medici family in fifteenth century Italy. My search for answers is taking me not only into the knowledge bases of education and the arts but also into the arenas of business, technology, neuroscience, psychology, and more.

Perhaps also, because I am a knowledgeable outsider, I can bring a beginner's mind to this issue. Maybe I can be what Cynthia Barton Rabe calls a "zero gravity thinker"—someone who is burdened by neither GroupThink nor Expert-Think and so is able to ask questions that help those on the inside see things in new ways. (Her book is Innovation Killer: How What We Know Limits What We Can Imagine—And What Smart Companies Are Doing About It).

I hope soon to begin blogging about my interviews with experts, creators, innovators, and other inspirational people.

I hope also to share insights about my own encounters with works of art, strategies for enhancing creativity, and occasional (hopefully not too self-indulgent) reflections on my own experiences as a learner, the evolution of my particular brand of creativity and how it was stifled and nurtured, ways I try to nurture the imaginations of children in my life, and other relevant experiences. (That will take some getting used to since doing so much writing for clients tends to push "me" way in the background).

Finally, I think we all need to weigh in on this issue. Our schools are at a turning point and much is at stake. Technologically, change is accelerating. Nationally, we are at the edge of chaos—a place of great potential for new beginnings. None of us has all the answers for navigating the Age of Innovation, but I'm pretty sure we need new ways of thinking and a different approach to the test-driven educational improvement of the NCLB era.

I hope if you read this, you will be more confident in the future value of Artful Innovation, and I invite you to share your ideas, expertise, and observations whenever you wish.

Image by Juanrondonleon @ Wikimedia Commons

Reflection and New Statement of Purpose

2008-12-07T16:34:00.009-05:00

I'm sure many of those who have happened upon this blog to date have been uncertain about what "Artful Innovation" means and what I'm trying to accomplish.

1) Some were probably expecting resources. Does the blog offer classroom strategies or techniques that could be applied to a variety of challenges? Maybe an online course or eBook that could help in thinking and working more innovatively?

2) Some may have expected to see promotion of expert services. Is the blogger an innovation guru? A designer? An artist with a broader lesson to teach? Is she going to share all kinds of exciting stories about her meetings with teams in Silicon Valley and her workshops in China?

Neither are the reality . . . at least not yet.

This work began primarily as an advocacy blog inspired by a belief that innovative thinking and other vital 21st century skills are developed in the context of making art, learning about the arts, and using the arts broadly as a way of knowing, a form of expression, a creative catalyst, and a proxy for the invention and innovation being furiously pursued by today's global economies. Those are not the only benefits of arts education, but they need to be acknowledged, and I hope to help make the case.

The Artful Innovation blog is a prelude to a more in-depth project about that core belief and as a supplement to more focused arts advocacy writing I do for clients. It has been helpful as a way to connect with other people who have similar interests and to stay motivated and somewhat intentional in the process of reading widely and developing my own line of thinking in a dialogue that I feel is still somewhat diffused and peripheral.

I have been getting more serious about structuring my "case" in a more coherent, logical, and (I hope) compelling fashion for publication and will probably be pulling things together on a companion Web site soon.

In reviewing my postings, I see that this blog has become much broader than my original tagline or statement of purpose implied: (In this Age of Innovation, learning in and through the arts is essential for everyone). That's because making my case about the arts requires a broader view. I need to explore individual and group innovation objectively, and I need to look at the bigger picture of education. Although the arts education literature is rich and the diversity of work in the arts is dazzling, a strong case will involve exploration beyond the knowledge base of arts education.

Moreover, my core belief must begin as a question: Are the arts important in developing innovative thinking and 21st century skills? And I must make sure my audience understands what I mean by arts education, innovation, and other concepts.

Therefore, my new tagline for the Artful Innovation blog is:

Exploring artistic responses to the challenges of education, organization, and human development in the Age of Innovation.

It reflects the broad scope of my current investigation, which I hope will funnel effectively in a useful, informative, thought-provoking site that I will launch by the new year.

So who am I to make this case? Check back tomorrow.

Hypothesis: Arts and Incubation

2008-12-06T16:56:00.004-05:00

My recent rambling about time and space bring me to this state—here is a core idea I will be exploring further.

The creative process of is often described as four stages: Preparation, incubation, illumination (the aha! moment), and verification. Rather than viewing their job as "preparation," schools need to be concerned with developing students' abilities to work in all four stages. The incubation stage takes time. It's a time of playing with knowledge and ideas, applying skills without definite ends, generating many ideas and possibilities. In other words, it's not going to have standardized, easy to measure results.

Among the many benefits of engaging in arts learning and practice, I think, is the possibility of activating alternate ways of thinking (and the neurons that accompany those ways of thinking). As students work on music or art, what they have learned through conscious methods is being processed by the unconscious. Yes, that's only a theory and I need to support it.

A Rich Dialogue on Arts Education

2008-12-01T22:33:00.005-05:00

I have made a commitment to follow a discussion on the Arts Journal Web site that is happening this week (http://www.artsjournal.com). Sixteen bloggers with expertise in arts education policy and practice are participating in a "Debate on Arts Education." The main question is "Will our culture suffer if we don’t do more to teach the arts?" The catalyst for the dialogue is Cultivating Demand for the Arts: Arts Learning, Arts Engagement, and State Arts Policy, a report by RAND.

Laura Zakaras, one of the authors of the RAND report kicked off with a list of questions. Some of the first day's discussion goes beyond the usual reasons for valuing the arts—those that are most frequently discussed by insiders. The discussion is rich and I would encourage arts education advocates and those interested in innovation to read it.

Nurturing Creativity Takes Creativity

2008-11-29T11:00:00.006-05:00

We need to ask the question "Do students gain any experience with problems that require both intuition and logic?"

In Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind (see last two posts), Claxton says that many scientific breakthroughs could not have occurred through knowledge and reason alone. A hunch, a willingness to "make a lot out of a little" and to speculate in imaginative ways also played a role. When do students get to do this? Again, it takes time.

Moreover, Claxton cites studies showing that the process of solving problems requiring insight and intuition can be hampered by the use of deductive thinking or even by the introduction of verbal hints or the need to talk about the problem-solving process as it is occurring. So too much focusing on the need to answer correctly in class and pass tests may be stifling creativity. "There is a wealth of evidence," Claxton says, "to confirm the common impression that when people feel threatened, pressurised, judged, or stressed, they tend to revert to ways of thinking that are more clear-cut, more tried and tested, and more conventional: in a word, less creative."

Nurturing Creativity Takes Time

2008-11-29T10:18:00.006-05:00

Developing students who think innovatively will mean rethinking time. Guy Claxton's book Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less, discussed in my last post, continues to provide support for that idea.

In the chapter "Having an Idea: The Gentle Art of Mental Gestation," he makes the point that having creative ideas is similar to having a baby. "The progenitor is a host, providing the conditions for growth, but is not the manufacturer." It would seem that a school's role in fostering creativity and developing creative thinkers would be mainly about creating the right conditions—being good incubators for creativity to develop and produce whatever it will.

Schools must begin by providing the environment where ideas, like seeds, have time to germinate. Only in such an environment will students have memorable experiences of creative thinking and problem-solving that will develop greater acceptance of the uncertainty and risk inherent in the creative process.

Students need time for curiosity to build. How often does an impending test or deadline take them away from questions that are gateways to higher order thinking—both creative and critical?

Students need time for rich experiences that are connected to the body of knowledge rather than a focus on articulating a body of knowledge that is largely independent of direct experience. Why is language—reading words on a page or listening to an explanation—so often the gateway to knowledge and thought?

Students need time for trial and error. They need to experience the thrill of a hunch or guess that leads to understanding or even a creative solution. How often do students opt for the safe yet forgettable project?

The challenge is that the need for disciplinary knowledge remains. Finding the right balance, I think, will mean becoming more efficient in building students' base of knowledge and palette of deductive thinking skills so that some less structured, more free form time can be incorporated.

Slowing Down to Catch Up

2008-11-25T13:03:00.011-05:00

In Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less, psychologist Guy Claxton says the tendency of our accelerated society to push us to think faster and make decisions quickly can stifle creativity because it over-emphasizes reason, logic, or analytical thinking—what he calls d-mind (d is for deliberation). In today's Western culture, he says, "time spent exploring the question is only justified to the extent that it clearly leads toward a solution to the problem. To spend time dwelling on the question to see if it might lead to a deeper question seems inefficient, self-indulgent, or perverse." Claxton says the "intelligent unconscious," which he calls the "undermind" or "tortoise mind," is a "patient, playful, mysterious" way of knowing that is especially valuable when the situation is "shadowy, intricate, or ill-defined."

In other words, innovators in science and industry use disciplinary knowledge and methods but more is at work in the emergence of breakthroughs. Opportunities for incubation—that mysterious process where nothing seems to be happening—are vital in the research and development jobs that will drive our future economy.

Is there time for incubation in the learning that happens at school? What might happen if students were allowed to arrive at the "aha!" moment more naturally? What if they were given opportunities to play spontaneously with ideas, tools, and concepts? What if they began each year with big interdisciplinary problems that could be continually revisited as learning unfolded?

This, of course, would mean the end of "periods" and "units." There would need to be some time built into the day for choice and freedom. Assessment would need to be fluid, formative, and flexible. The accountability systems and those in business who call for both rigor and 21st century skills would need to trust the tortoise mind.

Photo by The Learning Commonwealth at Wikimedia Commons.

Rethinking Time

2008-11-24T10:25:00.010-05:00

Photo by bogenfreund at flickr
After my recent reflections on how creativity and innovation in schools should be supported by decisions about use of physical space (both indoor and outdoor), it only seems natural that I should move to a discussion of time. But I've also been prodded by some of my readings on innovation and by my own recent experience of time being splintered by increasing complexity and choice.

I'll start with my personal observations. (Eventually, this comes back to arts learning.)

I have always had an outstanding ability to focus. Getting immersed in a task, finding the flow, and losing all track of time didn't happen every day but were pretty typical. I was never the type to make a detailed plan for the day or week unless time was extremely tight. I just dove into the work and always found a good rhythm. I tended to work long hours for four days a week so I could take a morning away from the work.

But recently, I noticed that I was struggling with concentration and taking longer to finish writing a book section or article. It seemed like it was taking an inordinate amount of time to get started and that I was doing a lot of thinking without much to show for it. So I started becoming more aware of how I was spending my time.

I was amazed at how I was jumping from one thing to another—and usually it had to do with something on the Web. Now I must say that I am not talking about fun and games, watching You Tube videos, etc. I realized that when I started my career as a public affairs writer, I used to extract every bit of good information I could from a few books or reports and usually had to spend time thinking about how it fit together. Now I just keep searching.

So could it be that the ease with which students can do things now using technology, the many "important" pieces of information they can find online, and the myriad "edutainment choices" may need to be balanced with some "slow" thinking? And what better way to slow down than an art project or learning a piece of music or rehearsing a play or dance?

More tomorrow about the brain and slowing down.

What is Progress?

2008-11-23T21:58:00.008-05:00

image by CC Merino at flickr

I like to attend a Socrates Cafe at an area library. It is refreshing and challenging to have a two-hour, face-to-face conversation about ideas with a diverse group of people. The one I have attended, the only one around me, is somewhat dominated by a couple of men who turn to science to answer all questions and cling to the idea that what is worthy of attention is what can be proven through reasoning and scientific method. I have asked them a couple of times:

"What kind of world would we have if everyone were a scientist?"

I've been going through some notebooks from the past year and found something I wrote in April 08 after one meeting in which the group discussed the idea of progress:

A truly progressive society is one that is growing in its capacity to support the good life for all people. True progress for me as an individual is growing in knowledge, understanding, and wisdom as I ask the questions that need to be asked for our time and act as responsibly and lovingly as possible.

What if we viewed progress as a process of passing through stages of increasing complexity and sophistication toward simplicity, peace, plenty (enough for everyone), health, wholeness, and pure being?

Check out the Socrates Cafe idea. (They have materials for teaching kids philosophy too.)

More About Space

2008-11-22T11:28:00.003-05:00

Physical space continues to surface in my thoughts about teaching creativity. Schools need to think about how space can both stimulate and enable creative thinking by:

Creating different types of work areas that are designed to fit their functions. Those functions should include cross-pollination of knowledge and ideas, collaborative problem solving, and quiet reflection.

Enabling students to personalize their classrooms and creating bridges to students' homes and cultures.

Providing spots where teachers can collaborate and experiment.

Creating spots with rich sensory content, as well as more neutral, stimulus-free spots.

Building flexibility into the physical design so that the space can be reconfigured easily

Incorporating the outdoors into learning processes

The visual arts should be a central part of this process. School staff members could examine installation and environmental art to get ideas and also engage students in art projects that make use of the school environment. The school community should regularly choose works of visual art and music to incorporate into the environment and should weave those works into the curriculum. Schools should create areas where ideas and concepts can be exhibited in interesting and creative ways and visual and audio documentation of the journey of learning and creating can be viewed and discussed.

Is This a Way to "Teach" Creativity?

2008-11-21T09:35:00.006-05:00

Here is an example from IDEO of a creative and meaningful challenge that I think says something about the thinking skills students will need for the future, as well as how artistic thinking both initiates and enhances scientific and engineering challenges. It is the Incredible IDEO Global Chain Reaction Experience, a functioning Rube Goldberg machine designed to run sequentially across three continents. Here we have a creative idea that can be interpreted as a marketing strategy for the firm, an example of the "experience economy" that is all around us, an example of ingenuity, a testament to the need for "serious Play" in the classroom, and an expression of yearning for a world where people work joyfully and work together to make things happen.
IDEO Global Chain Reaction from IDEO Labs on Vimeo.

Twitter Experiment

2008-11-19T14:34:00.003-05:00

I've been very hesitant to use Twitter. I'm skeptical about its usefulness and value to others. Who wants to know how I spend every minute of the day? What are people missing all around them while they tweet and IM? If I saw a hummingbird, I'd want to tweet my mom (if she used it) but would I miss the hummingbird in the first place because I was tweeting that I just finished sweeping the patio?

I asked myself: Should you use a tool just because all the cool people do it? (See video of Stewart and Colbert below.) I don't know anyone who uses it on a regular basis, so I would be tweeting into the void half the time anyway.

And I wonder what it does to the attention span. Then I started to think about how fragmented my attention span has been lately. I need to become more aware and strategic about how I spend my work time. I let email interrupt me constantly and and go on these interesting but unproductive voyages when I Google—sometimes I have to remind myself where I started. I read many books without recording the gems I find therein.

So I thought I'd make those observations the basis of my experience. Every so often, I'll have a Twitter day in which I keep track of all the shifts in my mental gears for the purpose of studying the effectiveness of my habits. And when I read or travel the Web, I'll use Twitter to capture the gems I find quickly.

Wagner's Questions #5 & #6: Physical Space and Creativity

2008-11-18T12:26:00.011-05:00

How do we both support our educators and hold them more accountable for results? What changes are needed in how educators are trained, how they work together in schools, and how they are supervised and evaluated in order to enable them to continuously improve?

"What do good schools look like?"

While these two questions posed by Tony Wagner in The Global Achievement Gap suggest multiple avenues of complex thought, I will begin addressing them in a discussion of space—somewhat of a continuation of recent discussion about the importance of visual surroundings for young children.

In the past few months, I have read or scanned several books and articles on fostering creativity and innovation in work groups. Nearly all of them mention the role of physical space.

"Create a space or place to play," say Gundry and Lamantia in Breakthrough Teams for Breakneck Times (2001). One example they provide: "Lucent Technologies has dedicated 1200 square feet of precious conference room space to creativity. The space has purple walls and a floor to ceiling white board for mind mapping and connection making. A full library of books, magazines, video and audio tapes gives people a place to come, relax, and reenergize."

In The Art of Innovation, Tom Kelly of IDEO (a leading industrial design firm) calls the work space a "greenhouse." They have all kinds of bins with various items to look at and play with as they develop concepts. They also constantly rearrange their work space to fit projects and create common areas where employees can collaborate.

In Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity (1996), John Kao also discusses space: "Places or spaces that facilitate creativity in their organizations are safe, casual, liberating. Not so small as to be limiting, not so big as to kill intimacy. Creature comfortable, stimulating, free of distractions and intrusions. Not too open, not too closed; sometimes time-bound, sometimes not."

Finally, getting outside of the workplace boundaries is a common theme in the books I've read. In Ideaspotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea, Sam Harrison says it best: "Nobody spots great ideas in cold offices. So why sit there?"

I think schools should set aside some areas to explore experimental approaches to space. They should be designed for project-based learning, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and creative thinking. There should be some space for solitude, for playing with ideas and tools, and for social interaction. The space should be reconfigurable and personalized by groups that use them. There should be outdoor classrooms, as well as areas in the community that are regularly used for intensive learning experiences.

An excellent report on the National Summit on School Design, published by the American Architectural Foundation and the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, echoes some of the themes I've seen in my reading. The report describes schools that are designed to accommodate different learning styles and that connect to the outdoors in new ways.

There's also a good article on the National Education Association Website for a quicker overview.

More Comments on Wordle

2008-11-17T14:52:00.002-05:00

I like that you can create a pdf to of your Wordle to use in a document.

I like that you can choose a color scheme.

Self-Assessment: Examining this month's tag cloud, I think I'm getting on track regarding what I want the main threads of this blog to be. As I look over the last couple of weeks of posts, I think I'm converging on my main idea with a healthy amount of divergence every so often when I see an interesting but peripheral idea.

Wordle: Love It?

2008-11-17T14:18:00.008-05:00

Last month, I tried a tag cloud generator as a way to critically examine the content on my blog. For this month's version, I used Wordle, which I learned about on Classroom 2.0. It's the best I've seen so far for visual appeal. I think the simpler ones might be better as tools for analyzing word frequency in a text, but with Wordle, you get something artful!

The problem with Wordle is that I have to create a screenshot to add it to a blog. I like the option other tools provide to cut and paste the actual code. To see the larger version, go to the bottom of this blog or use the link below:

title="Wordle: Untitled"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/320397/Untitled"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

Questions I Wonder About

2008-11-14T15:22:00.005-05:00

It has been 15 years since I wrote my Master's thesis on the implications of the Internet for media convergence and control. If I were back in journalism school today, I would be asking:

Is the written word more or less powerful today? Is the message being lost in the media?

Are people more or less manipulated by media and pop culture today? Has television and the Web made people more or less sensitive to design and aesthetics today?

From information and entertainment consumers to "prosumers." Will this trend last?
What has been lost because of this trend?

Does broader access to information mean more shallow understanding overall? Less critical thinking? Does having information at your fingertips mean more or less thought and inquiry?

Does anytime, anywhere communications detract from relationships with the people who are physically present? What are technologies like instant messaging and Twitter doing to reflection?

What percentage of Web sites really say anything vs. just creating a Web presence or projecting an image? Does this matter?

Is posting to an online forum "being heard" or just the illusion of an audience? How much real dialogue occurs? Why?

Was the letter that took a week to reach its recipient more valued than today's instant emails and messages?

Does the ability to find like-minded people through a global, online community reduce one's concern for reconciling, understanding, and dialoguing with those around us?

Is the culture splintering to the point that it will become atomized?

Of course, most of these questions could be argued either way.

A Basic for Innovative Thinking

2008-11-10T09:46:00.008-05:00

I just started iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind and already found something of value to my discussion about how schools can develop innovative thinking skills, particularly in relation to the use of arts learning experiences.

In discussing brain development in young children, Dr. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan state that if young children are deprived of proper environmental stimulation and human contact, "neuronal firing and brain cellular connections do not form correctly." They state that children's visual brain regions are susceptible to visual deprivation up to age 8.

In other words, surrounding children with color and form, providing them with regular visual arts experiences, and using visual images in teaching seem to be almost as critical to brain development as providing proper nutrition.

Asking the Right Questions

2008-11-08T14:51:00.003-05:00

"But if the specialist is ignorant of the inner philosophy of the science he cultivates, he is much more radically ignorant of the historical conditions requisite for its continuation; that is to say: how society and the heart of man are to be organized in order that there may continue to be investigators."

– Jose Ortega y Gasset,
The Revolt of the Masses

Last week's Quote of the Week was intriguing to me. Are those who are leading the call thinking for innovative thinkers considering the unintended consequences that always come with innovation? Artists always seem to be tapped in to the zeitgeist surrounding progress. Could the study of aesthetics help students grapple more effectively with some of the societal questions that will need to be asked as breakthroughs occur.

Four Types of Invention

2008-11-08T08:57:00.008-05:00

In their book Breakthrough: Stories and Strategies of Radical Innovation, Mark Stefik and Barbara Stefik describe innovation as a "dance of two questions." Those questions are "What is possible?" and "What is needed?" They discuss four main approaches that drive how scientists and inventors arrive at breakthroughs:

1) Theory-Driven: A mental model or theory provides a way of thinking that leads to insight and invention. Tagline: "Eureka!"

2) Data-Driven: An anomaly in data presents a surprising possibility. Tagline: "That's strange."

3) Method-Driven: Instrumentation enables previously unknown observations, discoveries, and inventions. Tagline: "Now I can see it!"

4) Need-Driven: Learning about an unresolved need or problem in the world leads to a search for a way to satisfy or solve it. Tagline: "Necessity is the mother of invention."

"These approaches," say the authors, "are like colors on a palette in that they can be mixed to form variations and combinations."

I was thinking about my earlier posts that explored what industry leaders mean when they talk about creativity and innovation as 21st century skills. I think it would be valuable for science, mathematics, and technology teachers to refer to these four approaches as they design curriculum and instruction geared to the preparation of future STEM majors and workers.

Of course my questions are: Do these four approaches apply to the arts? Is it possible that artistic invention—learning and making sense of the world through the practice of art—would add to the development of the skills and traits that prepare students to master those four approaches in a STEM context? Does the creative process that occurs before an artist begins to create a product (and by "product" I mean anything from a sculpture or musical composition to a dance or dramatic interpretation of a character) and the kinds of decisions an artist makes as a work takes shape consist of very similar ways of perceiving, thinking, and imagining? Does criticism in the arts translate to critical thinking in the STEM disciplines?

I do not claim that spending all day working on art projects or practicing an instrument will prepare you to discover a new star or invent the next generation of computer. Students need knowledge and skill in math and science as well. But I also don't think those skills are sufficient. Here is my first attempt to relate the arts to these four approaches to invention:

Theory-Driven: A quest for "the beautiful" is one thing arts and sciences have in common. Scientists and mathematicians often use the terms "beautiful" and "elegant" when discussing equations and solutions, says philosopher Robert Grudin in his far-ranging exploration of creativity and innovation (The Grace of Great Things). "Art itself can be a form of hypothesis, the detailed elaboration and testing of an idea," he says.

Data-Driven: Might training in the visual arts be a way to develop better powers of observation and a sensitivity to patterns? Could music instruction help students become more attuned to changes in their environment?

Method-Driven: Could the intense discipline required to practice an art form skillfully be related to the focus needed in STEM disciplines?

Need-Driven: Industrial design, a rapidly growing career area, often begins with a need. Often, artists are part of the team, not only because they provide an aesthetic perspective, but also because of their ability to see problems in different ways.

Brain Research: Arts & The Joyful Classroom

2008-11-07T12:04:00.008-05:00

Brain-based learning research identifies four essential elements of learning – emotion, movement, context, and environment. What comes to mind first when you read each of those elements? Name five classroom experiences that epitomize the elements at their most positive. Chances are, the arts figure greatly in your ideas.

On a related note:

In an online article from Educational Leadership (Summer 2007, Volume 64  Engaging the Whole Child), neurologist and classroom teacher Judy Willis says that "when we scrub joy and comfort from the classroom, we distance our students from effective information processing and long-term memory storage." She uses the acronym RAD to summarize three important neuroscience concepts to consider when preparing lessons:

Novelty promotes information transmission through the Reticular activating system.

Stress-free classrooms propel data through the Amygdala's affective filter.

Pleasurable associations linked with learning are more likely to release more Dopamine.

If only for the infusion of play, laughter, and freedom from the need to find one right answer, the arts should be an everyday experience for all students.

Technology Advances=Less Routine Work

2008-11-06T10:14:00.005-05:00

The future of technology is one big reason schools need to foster creative, innovative thinking. And I say this aside from earlier posts about American industries' need to stay competitive by developing new technologies. Yes, technological advances are our best hope for achieving global economic leadership.

But I am following another line of thought. I am thinking about how many jobs are being eliminated or streamlined because technology does it better, faster, and cheaper. For example, when I worked at NASA I once did a half-hour interview with a computer. No, it was not some machine with advanced artificial intelligence. It was a woman aged sixty-something, whose first job in the 1940s was to sit all day at a desk and repetitiously perform arithmetic functions based on data from test facilities. Her job title was "computer," and there was a whole cadre of them. In a way, she was the Rosie the Riveter of knowledge work. She and some managers from the same era told me about punching cards and trekking from building to building to pick up and deliver the cards. In my time at NASA (1987-1996), I saw the labor-intensive part of scientific computing shrink rapidly and many tasks that required a specialist become routine. In fact, there were only a few people who could create presentations in Freelance (a precursor to Powerpoint) and we had a whole department for training secretaries to use management information systems that today they would figure out in a couple of sessions on their own. People who could write code were well-paid and in-demand. Now that skill is not enough. Many skilled jobs in computing have become much less time-intensive because software has been integrated and made easier to use.

Or consider this: Ohio is still one of the top manufacturing centers in the United States, but it has lost nearly 250,000 manufacturing jobs in recent years because of automation.

Then there are all the jobs that have become (or can become) almost completely automated—answering phones and routing calls, checking out groceries, many aspects of banking, booking flights for travelers. These jobs are much less plentiful.

So while high tech jobs in America today are plentiful and pay well, there has been erosion at the bottom of the high-tech pay scale. A new computer software company or engineering firm in a depressed area will not create significant jobs for people without technical training or college degrees.

Frank Levy and Richard Murnane call this a "new division of labor." In their 2004 book of that title, they predict that jobs consisting of following defined rules and performing repetitive activities are not the key to middle class wages.

I would probably venture that children need some experiences with structure and rules. Following directions, consistency, and efficiency will always be needed. But being good at using rules and following directions are not ends in themselves. Increasingly, rule-based tasks will be valuable only as a way to support creative, innovative work.

Marking What I Hope Is a New Day

2008-11-05T13:33:00.006-05:00

"Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart."

- Martin Luther King Jr.,
Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, Dec. 11, 1964.

This quote expresses what many are feeling today after the election of Barack Obama. So often that "inaudible language" begins in the heart but finds expression in works of art. That is why we must work to give all children that precious form of expression.

Creativity Begins in Preschool

2008-11-04T08:32:00.006-05:00

Lois Feibus, a preschool educator at the Wyoming Seminary College Preparatory School, made an interesting point on her Academy for Early Learning blog:

. . . after almost thirty years of teaching Preschool, the most creative children that I have known, have been those who have not been forced to perform academically, but who were allowed to explore the outdoors, whose creativity was allowed to flourish, and who had ample opportunities to be little kids, at home and at school. Academic success and higher level thinking, for both children, in the end, were where the developmental process took them.

This empirical observation rings true to anyone who has observed children outdoors. I still remember investigating every inch of my yard. I can remember what every flower looked like and smelled like, how its seeds looked, how the soil behaved. We used to go outside with no toys of any kind and never be bored. I also had this little memory of my son Mike at age 4 (Thanks Lois.) We had been planting vegetables and he insisted that he was goingto plant a "meat garden." Of course we told him that was not possible, and he argued that he had seen one. Not long after, we passed a marshy area, where he triumphantly showed me the cattails (a.k.a. hot dogs) growing there. Mike was a very creative kid artistically and mechanically, as well as being what I think is a prime example of Gardner's "Naturalist" intelligence. Today, he is a machinist who is responsible for an entire manufacturing set up and uses his ability to visualize and invent in some very practical ways.

I think nature is very important to the development of innovative thinking and have just remembered "No Child Left Indoors." I googled this phrase just now after remembering an article I read this summer and found that this title is now being used by several states passing legislation, as well as programs and initiatives by schools, communities, and environmental groups across the country. These programs and Richard Louv's 2005 book Last Child in the Woods -- Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, as well as Bill McKibben's The End of Nature (1990, 2006), should definitely be part of my discussion on how to develop creative, innovative thinkers.

Thanks, Lois.

Fostering Innovative Thinking: What Does It Mean? Why Do It? How?

2008-11-03T08:12:00.015-05:00

I am going to shift gears today. The last few posts about what business might mean when citing creativity and innovation as 21st century skills are certainly not definitive, but they will be my framework for researching more about the business/economic perspective in the innovation conversation.

I plan to begin exploring three additional threads on fostering innovative thinking (which includes creativity):

1) Fostering Innovative Thinking: What Does It Mean? In addition to defining creativity and innovation from the perspective of various business sectors, what other perspectives on creativity and innovation are important and need to be heard as we discuss those two 21st century skills? I will explore what governors and legislators, opinion leaders in education, creative people in the arts and a wide variety of other realms, researchers, and parents and citizens who have not been part of the conversation are saying and doing around the issue of creativity and innovation as 21st century schools.

2) Fostering Innovative Thinking: Why Do We Do It? I will look critically at the claim that schools need to develop creative, innovative thinkers, as well as at the rationales of others. I also will question my own assertion that learning in the arts is an essential component of developing creative, innovative thinking and other 21st century skills.

3) Fostering Innovative Thinking: How Do We Do It? What must be done to meet future needs for creative, innovative thinkers? This discussion will center on classrooms, schools, and education reform. But it also will venture into all of the segments of society listed above. I will explore the ideas of those who write and speak about creativity and the new idea of "innovation literacy." I will synthesize research and suggested strategies from a variety of sources, as well as offer any creative ideas that might occur to me.

Creativity: The Rest of the Workforce

2008-11-02T15:30:00.007-05:00

I've been discussing what I think business leaders mean when they talk about needing creative and innovative workers. Reports from advanced technology companies suggest the theory that a bigger pool of STEM professionals and more STEM literacy = more innovation. My post linking to the Poynter Institute highlights the tension between creative technology experts and content creators. Then there is the recognition that artistic creativity is a community development tool—but that does not seem to be significantly linked to arts education.

Finally, what about people in manufacturing, sales, and services—the automotive worker who finds an innovative way to speed up production, the customer service representative or salesperson who thinks creatively when prospects have questions or customers have problems, the nurse who finds a better way to monitor patients or improve their morale? Do businesses recognize that kind of creativity as valuable? Do they feel that schools should be preparing all students to use creative thinking in just about whatever job they do?

Creativity: The Information Sector

2008-11-01T09:40:00.015-04:00

In my earlier posts, I addressed the question "What does the private sector mean when they identify creativity and innovation as important 21st century skills. To summarize: Big, high tech industries want schools to do a better job of teaching math and science so that more students will complete advanced math and science courses in high school, earn STEM degrees in college, and enter STEM careers. From this larger pool will come more ideas, leading to breakthroughs in highly competitive areas, leading to American domination in key high-tech markets. Business-led efforts in regions and cities that are competing to become economic centers support the arts because that makes them "cool communities"—attractive to young, educated workers in a wide range of creative professions. I mentioned that companies known for hiring "creatives"—American Greetings or IDEO, for example—don't seem to be greatly concerned about shortages of creative thinkers. (IDEO's message seems to be more aimed at educating business leadership about how to foster innovation among their employees.)

A look at the list of organizations that sponsor the Partnership for 21st Century Skills suggests that companies most concerned about "soft skills" (which include creative and innovative thinking) are IT companies (such as Adobe, Microsoft, Cisco), media companies (Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Cable in the Classroom), creators of educational products and services (Pearson, Lego), and education groups and think tanks (National Education Association, American Association of School Librarians). Ford is the only partner that is not considered an IT or education-related company.

Creativity: The Rise of the Creative Class

2008-10-31T12:22:00.011-04:00

Another vocal segment of the business sector are those concerned about the findings of economist Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class. To summarize, Florida says that the quality of a community's cultural opportunities and night life increase the capacity of companies located in those communities to attract talented, educated young workers—including workers in shortage areas, such as engineering. So communities and regions—with businesses taking the lead—are working together on projects like arts districts, public art, new exhibition and performance spaces, events that celebrate creativity, and other attempts to "brand" their cities as friendly to creatives.

Florida proposes a different view of what it means to be a creative worker. While businesses typically refer to those who strengthen their brands or create innovative content as "creatives," Florida includes many other jobs—from engineers and software developers to hairdressers to accountants—as creative. He estimates that the "creative class" comprises about a third of our workforce.

Florida does not call for schools to teach creativity and I have not seen any urgent call for schools to teach this from the so-called "creative industries." I think perhaps the talent pool for architects, designers of all kinds, commercial artists, and others whose main value added comes from their ideas is large enough at this point. Similarly, the civic and business groups at the local and regional level that are advocating for the arts as a way to attract talented young workers and the companies that recruit them seem mainly focused on the short term. I believe that initiatives to strengthen the cultural environment of an area should always advocate for arts in the schools, as well as participate in arts education. What kind of an arts community will you have if the local people do not learn to appreciate the arts and if the schools do not produce new artists?

Journalists & Geeks: A Lesson for Educators?

2008-10-30T13:22:00.010-04:00

Amy Gaharan, who blogs about online journalism for the Poynter Institute, had a post this week that relates to my questions regarding what industry is really asking for when they say they need creative, innovative thinkers. Here's a brief segment:

Right now, it's becoming obvious to many journalists that our field sorely needs lots of top-notch, creative technologists. Developers for whom software is a medium, and an art form. Developers with a deep passion for information, credibility, fairness, usefulness, and free speech.

Once more, we see creativity and technology combined.

A comment on Amy's post by Rich Gordon on the PBS MediaShift Idea Lab also got me thinking:

Too many journalists don't respect technology development as a creative activity -- they think developers should just build stuff they want. Too many technologists don't respect journalism as an intellectual activity -- they think journalists just pump out content for their algorithms to process. Too many journalists really don't like technology change; they blame it for hurting media businesses, threatening their livelihoods and diminishing the quality of news available in local communities. Too many technologists think it's not their job to worry about the negative impact of technology innovation on media companies and journalism . . . .

Do we see a similar dynamic emerging between teachers and those who create technology?

Go to Poynter.org to read the whole post by Amy Gaharan. (Go to the post by Rich Gordon too.)

Creativity: What High Tech Business Means

2008-10-29T11:07:00.018-04:00

American industries need creativity and innovation to maintain a competitive edge. A review of government and industry reports, best-selling books, and op ed pieces shows that to be a major theme in assessments of the global economy.

But is everyone talking about the same thing?

Let's start with defining creativity and innovation through the lens of big American industries like IT, aerospace and defense, automotive, and others that depend on the most advanced technologies for their competitive edge. Those industries and the public and private entities that support them have been the most vocal in calling for schools to produce more creative thinkers and innovators.

That group seems to be focused on the kinds of scientific and technological breakthroughs that create new industries, ensure that America is #1 in key global markets, and maintain U.S. national security (which more and more includes energy independence).

Their statements about education benchmarks suggest an emphasis on greater participation and rigor in math and science education. The report Innovation is America's Heartbeat, a 2006 report issued by the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, presents benchmarks for assessing America's current and future competitive edge. Among those listed under education are math and science literacy among high school students, numbers of science and technology graduates, emphasis on STEM courses among undergraduates, and the showing of American students on the Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest. In other words, these participants in the "innovation conversation" tend to see their role in K-12 education as promoting high standards in math and science and supporting high-quality math and science teaching (which may mean incentives for teachers). I have seen other recommendations from big industry consortia and agencies supporting programs that increase collaboration between math and science classrooms and the real world of STEM professionals, innovative use of technology in schools, and competitions that encourage students to invent or engineer.

"Teaching" Creativity: Some Background

2008-10-28T13:31:00.007-04:00

I have followed the literature on creativity and innovation in education, science and technology, and business for years because it fascinates me, but lately I've been immersing myself more than usual because I see a movement growing. Earlier this year, I wrote in Links & Threads (a newsletter about arts education) about a poll of likely voters by Lake Research Partners that has led to a movement called "the imagine nation." Briefly:

73% of voters agreed that building capacities of the imagination is just as important as the “so called” basics for all students in public schools.

82% of voters want to build imagination and creative skills in schools.

91% of voters indicated that arts are essential to building capacities of the imagination.

The imagine nation Web site cites statements by education and business leaders supporting this poll and highlights creativity initiatives in Ohio, Dallas Texas, and Oklahoma. Ohio's initiative is led by the Committee for Arts and Innovative Thinking (CAIT), a group of leaders from education and cultural organizations led by the Ohio Department of Education. Oklahoma's initiative to brand itself as the State of Creativity has lots of support from business and young people in creative professions. The Dallas Arts Learning Initiative is a partnership among the Dallas Schools and its arts partners that is striving to "make imagination a part of everyday learning."

The Lake poll, along with books like Tough Choices Or Tough Times (a report from the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce), Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, and Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind, suggest that educators will soon be expected to "teach" creativity. The conversation about this emerging idea will be fascinating. I hope it will mean new opportunities for arts education rather than another round of "Our nation is at risk and it's all the fault of schools." (Why didn't they teach creativity while they were preparing students for mind-numbing standardized tests and fearing punishment for not hitting arbitrary targets?)

I have ventured into a discussion on Classroom 2.0 about this and started a group on ArtSnacks hoping to get a sense of what is happening.

Can Creativity Be Taught? Different Views

2008-10-26T17:39:00.007-04:00

In yesterday's post, I cited an article in which the author suggested that creativity and innovation are not taught but can be killed. I have asked questions about teaching and measuring creativity of creative people in a variety of fields. One was Marc Millis, a NASA physicist who investigates breakthrough concepts for interstellar propulsion, and he cautioned against the idea of using a "cookbook approach" to teach kids to think creatively. At an arts education summit in Cleveland, I asked actor/author/NYU professor Anna Deavere Smith and other panelists whether creativity should be part of state standards and assessments and they were horrified at the thought.

On the other hand, John Kao, author of Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity and Innovation Nation (and an amateur jazz pianist), says people can learn to be creative: "Like jazz," he says, "creativity is a process, not a thing; and therefore you can observe, analyze, understand, replicate, teach, and even manage it.” He includes in his conception of creativity "the entire process by which ideas are generated, developed, and transformed into value." He says creativity "encompasses what people commonly mean by innovation and entrepreneurship. . . . both the art of giving birth to new ideas and the discipline of shaping and developing those ideas to the stage of realized value. (Jamming, 1996).

I think both views are right. I believe there is a component to creativity that just happens—the forces of an individual's unique make-up and experiences interacting with some type of spiritual source that might be called God, a higher power, nature, the collective unconscious, or the zeitgeist. Kao's definition of creativity—geared to business—might be broader or perhaps more purely intellectual or perhaps more instrumental than how those in the arts conceive of creativity. And I believe this is the kind of creativity that people think of as add it to the list of 21st century skills. And maybe this is why I have seen some hesitation among artists about getting too involved in this conversation.

I remember attending an event last year in which a businessman addressed teaching artists about a creativity initiative that was spearheaded by business people. The first artist I asked for a reaction had a very negative reaction and I saw uneasiness among others as well. It was interesting to me that these people who are trying to make a living with their art do not seem to be seeing this interest in creativity as a golden opportunity. There may be deep meaning in that reaction.

"Teaching" Creativity?

2008-10-24T11:55:00.011-04:00

While most discussions of 21st century skills cite creativity and innovative thinking as essential—in fact the crux of America's future economic competitiveness—the discussion has not yet begun in earnest about how schools will meet this need. In a February 2008 article in The School Administrator (American Association of School Administrators), Yong Zhao lays the groundwork. As director of the U.S.-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence at Michigan State University, he ties the creativity gap between American and Chinese schools to culture:

"To be creative is to be different," he says. "Creative people have ideas, behaviors, beliefs and lifestyles that deviate from the norm and tradition. How deviant people and divergent ideas are treated by others has a defining effect on creativity. Research has found that, in general, tolerance of deviation from tradition and the norm resulted in more creativity."

Clearly, China has a long way to go in this respect, but they are working on it, as are Singapore and other contenders in the global economy.

"Creativity cannot be taught, but it can be killed," he says. "It is clear how Asian education systems kill creativity more effectively than the American system. The creativity gap exists between Americans and Asians not because American schools teach creativity more or better than their Asian counterparts. They just do not kill it as much as the Asians."

American educators' concern with "making AYP" (Adequate Yearly Progress as defined in the federal No Child Left Behind law) may be jeopardizing the creativity of America's future workers, he says. "Instead of becoming more like others who are eager to be more like Americans," he says, "American education needs to be more American — to preserve flexibility, protect individuality and promote multiple intelligences."

As an alternate way gain understanding and a powerful form of expression, learning in and through the arts certainly play a role in preserving flexibility and protecting individuality. For some students, arts experiences mean stretching—thinking in an unfamiliar way. For those whose dominant intelligences are spatial, musical, or kinesthetic, the arts are an opportunity to excel. And for some of the those students, the integration of arts learning with learning in other subject areas is a way to transcend barriers that impede their efforts to explore ideas and exhibit knowledge. Yet the concern over the narrow measures required to make AYP has drained time and resources away from the arts. NCLB calls the arts a core subject, but like other core subjects outside the AYP realm, the arts are being marginalized.

Yong Zhao also stresses the need for American schools to "adopt a global perspective, add foreign languages and cultures and advocate global citizenship." The arts are an excellent vehicle for understanding and appreciating other cultures and finding commonalities.

(Read the whole article)

Innovation in Disadvantaged Schools

2008-10-23T11:13:00.006-04:00

In his comment on my contention that new technology strategies are needed for gathering and organizing evidence of student progress, Danny asks for ideas about how to deal with the "digital divide" still present in many urban areas. It is a valuable question because it recognizes current reality. Many kids in poverty have very limited time with computers and the Web. They don't have access at home and have a small window of time to use library computers because of extracurricular activities (which, of course, are also important).

What I would suggest first is to advocate for greater school-based and community-based access to computers. For example, could the school be opened on weekends so students could use computers? Might local organizations, such as churches, libraries, and rec centers, work with the school to start some Internet cafes around the community?

I also would learn to write grants and be on the lookout for technology grants that could support the above ideas and/or provide funds for inexpensive laptops that could be issued to students. A local business partner might also be cultivated for this purpose.

Another idea for dealing with limited access might be to structure learning experiences that take this into account. I am old enough to remember when knowledge workers didn't have their own PCs. When I taught writing classes in the early 80s, I had to use a computer in a central lab to do all my handouts. When I started working as a writer at NASA in the late 80s, we also didn't have our own PCs, believe it or not. Our group worked in what we called the "PC pit" and there were always one or two people waiting to use a computer. This was far from ideal, but it did instill some time management and organizational skills.

I wonder if limited computer access might be turned into an opportunity for students to develop resourcefulness, time management, and a more thoughtful approach to using information technology. Having that space separating the knowledge they are acquiring and managing and the knowledge technology could lead to the development of analytical skills (e.g., When I get my hour on the computer today, how am I going to organize this information? What are the goals of my Web search and how will I organize my search results? What do I want this presentation or Web page I am designing to look like? How can our group collaborate to make sure each of us uses the available resources optimally?) Many students with unlimited computer access spend a lot of time playing around whether it's trying every font when they should be writing or following interesting but not immediately relevant information trails in the search for the specific information needed to complete the task at hand. (The latter is something I tend to do). Many good Web designers will tell you that it's better to sketch out the site on paper before going to the computer. How many creative design ideas have been lost because of access to an array of pre-designed templates? The digital "have nots" just might turn out to be the best problem-solvers.

Again, I think time to play and experiment is valuable. Those open-ended searches have helped me. And socioeconomic status should not limit access to vital learning tools. But learning to be strategic in the use of resources and thinking more intensively about how knowledge can be represented just might be the up side of this dilemma while teachers wait for greater equity in access to technology.

Wagner's Question #4: Motivating Curiosity and Imagination

2008-10-21T11:37:00.009-04:00

What do we need to do in our schools to motivate students to be curious and imaginative and to enjoy learning for its own sake?

It just occurred to me that this is a rather strange question. I have not yet seen a young child who is not curious. And while some have wilder imaginations than others, few need to be motivated to pretend and fantasize, to explore and experiment and invent. I agree with Sir Ken Robinson who says: "We are educating children out of their creative capacities" and that we need to "radically rethink the fundamental principles by which we are educating our children." At the 2008 Apple Education Leadership Summit, Robinson said that the current curriculum is "siloed to an extraordinary extent, which stills the connections between the disciplines, which are the heartbeat of a properly conceived form of creative education."

The video below is from TED.com. The video of the Apple speech is at Edutopia.

Where is this blog going???

2008-10-19T22:17:00.011-04:00

The purpose of this blog is to report and comment on the growing national awareness that education for the 21st century requires the development of creativity and innovation with an emphasis on how education in the arts belongs in the picture. This weekend while visiting the Adirondack Mountains, I arrived at the one-month mark of writing this blog. The new vista inspires me to step back and take stock—a practice I think I will do each month.

How well have I stuck to my stated purpose? Well, I think that the arts have not been brought into the conversation nearly enough. But maybe I need to establish the context first. The kinds of conversations that are going on about educational reform and the economy are relevant to my purpose.

What has been accomplished? Blogging just about every day for a month is a major accomplishment. I am getting into a rhythm. Also, I was thrilled to find that some people actually read some of this blog and to have the opportunity to interact with some members of social networks in education!

What has happened this month? Of course the election and the economic chaos are the big stories in the news. I am an Obama supporter for many reasons, but the ones relevant to this blog are that I think he is more willing and able to look to the future, he recognizes that we need transformation rather than changes here and there, and he seems to see the complexity of the issues we face and the need to broaden our repertoire of strategies instead of always falling back on fire power.

What next? Next month, I hope to spend more time on the state of arts education and why it should play a central role in educational renewal. Wagner's Question #4 (which I will address in my next post) is a perfect opportunity to do this: What do we need to do in our schools to motivate students to be curious and imaginative and to enjoy learning for its own sake?

Photo Credit: Photograph taken by Jared C. Benedict on 01 July 2004. Distributed under a Gnu Free Documentation License.

Wagner's Question #3: Assessment 2

2008-10-18T17:05:00.004-04:00

"What are the best ways to know that students have mastered the skills that matter most? How do we create a better assessment and accountability system that gives us the information we need to ensure that all students are learning essential skills?"

First, thanks to Danny, a young teacher who commented on my October 16 post. It is good to see a reflective practitioner in the making. As a writer who supports education reform, I have the privilege of writing about the way things should be. I see the challenges teachers encounter when they try to bring new ideas into the complex environment of classrooms and am always in awe of those who innovate in the midst of those challenges. Like you, however, I see that "the same old way" of assessment has not yet lost its hold. One reason is that state accountability systems reward preparation for one-shot standardized testing, the primary purposes of which are sorting students and judging teachers. But classroom-level barriers to implementing a variety of rich assessments, I think, also are a factor.

Rich assessment tasks call for systems to support new approaches to documentation of student learning. Providing teachers with time for gathering and analyzing evidence of learning is vital. Also, the power of technology needs to be tapped. With all of the innovations we have seen in computing, communications, and connectivity among devices, it is time for an intelligent device that teachers can use to collect and sort evidence of learning in its many forms, especially the learning that is displayed in the process of producing that final artifact that now is the sole focus of assessment in many classrooms.

Wagner's Question #3: Assessment 1

2008-10-16T14:51:00.006-04:00

"What are the best ways to know that students have mastered the skills that matter most? How do we create a better assessment and accountability system that gives us the information we need to ensure that all students are learning essential skills?"

I believe that assessment in skills such as creative thinking, critical thinking, and collaboration must be radically different. As yesterday's post about the Education Week article "States Press Ahead on '21st-Century Skills" (October 13) suggests, we have much more work to do on the context, culture, or environment surrounding student learning before reaching the point where state testing would tell us anything meaningful about students' thinking or collaborative skills.

I think the best use of state resources for promoting assessment of soft skills is investment in locally developed classroom-based assessments and in the "assessment for learning" model proposed by Richard Stiggins. In a November 2006 Kappan article (available at Assessment Training Institute Web site) he says: " . . . assessments must evolve from being isolated events to becoming events that happen in an ongoing, interconnected series so that patterns in student learning will be revealed. In this way, both the learner and the teacher will be able to discern not only the student’s current level of achievement, but also how much the student’s capabilities have improved, which is a powerful booster for confidence and motivation."

This will require intensive support for teacher learning, including time to develop the tasks/projects/contexts for such student work and measurement instruments. It will require many schools to change the culture surrounding assessment and I think that must occur apart from the pressures of artificial accountability. And it will require new tools and better use of technology. That is step one.

Standards and Soft Skills: Where are the Arts?

2008-10-16T13:22:00.007-04:00

Building on the Education Week article discussed in yesterday's post:

Where are the arts? I think we should consider the possibility that high-quality instruction in the arts is a good way in itself to develop 21st century skills or at least that state standards for the fine arts are a good starting point for thinking about how to ensure that students develop their creative and critical thinking skills. Sure, making and performing art is not the only way to develop creativity and may even be ineffective with some students—but certainly, the arts are one of the most promising avenues to developing innovative thinkers and globally aware citizens. My view is that learning to practice an art is a form of literacy like learning to read and write. The arts are a way to acquire and convey information and ideas.

Standards and Creativity

2008-10-15T14:48:00.008-04:00

On her Academy for Early Learning blog, Lois Feibus called attention to an article in Education Week about states responding to the call for 21st century skills like critical thinking, collaboration, and technological and global literacy. I was saddened to see that no state has connected to a rich resource that is already in place—their own fine arts standards or the national standards for the fine arts. Wisconsin's standards for art and design, for example, include such categories as ability to think, skill in communication, and cultural and aesthetic understanding. I hope Wisconsin is finding those standards to be a treasure house of ideas with myriad interdisciplinary possibilities. In my experience, most policy makers see that the arts provide rich ways of knowing and expression but are not making the connection to this important discussion of "future readiness."

Also, before assessment in 21st century skills becomes a state priority, I think a serious inquiry about the school environment is needed. Learn from the creative disciplines, including arts providers, the world of industrial design, journalists, and technology originators like Google about such questions as:

What kind of environment fosters creativity and innovation?
What are organizational barriers to creativity?
How do leaders promote good ideas among their staff members?
What are some roles in a creative organization?
What are some outside interactions that ensure good thinking?

Then start by implementing the answers in schools so that teachers will be able to model these 21st century skills. I think 21st century skills are already second nature to good teachers, but the system stifles those skills. It seems to me that assessment of critical thinking in the current system is like a company migrating critical functions to a new computer system before it trains its employees who will be using the new system.

What also worries me about a potential rush to state assessments is the possibility of unintended consequences. These "soft skills" cannot be quantified on a per student basis. Creativity and innovative thinking occur because a problem needs solved or something important needs to be said—not for extrinsic motivators.

Talk Summary and Comments: Stephen Heppell & Fundamental Change

2008-10-14T16:53:00.007-04:00

I attended an online keynote speech by Professor Stephen Heppell, a professor at Bournemouth University in England. Called Europe's leading online education expert, Professor Heppell titled his talk “It Simply Isn’t the 20th Century Any More Is It?: So Why Would We Teach as Though It Was?” The video can be viewed at http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=268

Here are a couple of highlights I thought were especially powerful:

Now that technology can "do jolly well what we want," the challenge is not ‘what can we make the technology do?’ The challenge is ‘what do we want?’

He asserts that education as we know it—the factory model and the emphasis on productivity over community—needs to be completely replaced or schools will disintegrate. He says the signs are there and points to the indicators that preceded both the current financial crisis and the current trends in online learning.

He called attention to the big, BIG picture context of new technology and media: We are seeing fundamental change, which he says can be described as the end of oligarchy or, more simply, as the end of "they" and the beginning of "us." He linked this to the dominant paradigms of prehistory and more "primitive" civilizations, which were/are "not locked in a world of narrative linearity and ownership of knowledge."

He says we are witnessing "the death of education and the birth of learning."

As someone who spent much of the 90s writing about technological revolution, I was thinking about how that revolution was just the tip of the iceberg. So much attention was focused on that while all the structures of our society and how we think were being reconfigured.

I began to think about the ideas of the scientist Ilya Prigogine who many may remember was cited in Margaret J. Wheatley's Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organization from an Orderly Universe (1992, Berrett-Koehler). I pulled out my copy and read that while it makes sense to stabilize machines and structures as a way to prevent deterioration, living systems (organizations) need non-equilibrium to change and grow because they exchange energy with their environments. Prigogine said living systems are "dissipative structures." In Wheatley's words, they "dissipate their energy in order to recreate themselves into new forms of organizations" (88).

In ecosystems, for example, external fluctuations in the environment exert great pressure on the system and the system uses its energy very inefficiently, but "as the ecosystem matures, it develops an internal stability, a resiliency to the environment that, in turn, creates conditions that support more efficient use of energy and protection from environmental demands"(92).

Wheatley applies these ideas to organizations. In the factory model, she says, "managers watched for departures from the norm so they could "make corrections and preserve the system at its current levels of activity"(78). Systems that are organized around core competencies but open to information from outside are less vulnerable to environmental disturbances. Their more fluid structure ultimately leads to an internal stability. As expressed by one scientist she quotes (Jantsch), "the more freedom in self-organization, the more order."

On other words, there is much more happening in education than a change in tools. Trying to impose the old factory model using new tools will not work. Openness, creativity and freedom to innovate are the system of learning that is being born as the old system of education dies.

Below
Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction: A chemical reaction caused by changes in temperature and mix (disequilibrium)