April 28, 2016
Educational collaborator and expert to governments, agencies, Fortune 500 companies and cultural organizations, Sir Ken Robinson visited Houston for the Houston A+ Speaker series. Perhaps best known for his TED talks, viewed by over 300 million people throughout the world, Sir Ken was invited as a leading expert on creativity to speak with area educational leadership.
Thanks to leaders in my school district being unable to attend I spoke up several months ago when the opportunity to sign up was offered. He was every bit as dynamic and exciting as his famous talks. We laughed often as Sir Ken shared some sobering statistics about the current effect that standardized testing has had on the American education system.
Sir Ken explained that we cannot blame politicians, government, or local educators for what has happened in America with the continued erosion of student performance. He explained that the systems developed to enact No Child Left Behind are at fault. Our country was evaluating how public education would proceed in the new millennium and we allowed the best of intentions to be corrupted by big money and tradition.
Testing is big business. Once we decided that we needed to standardize our country on what should be learned by graduation, big corporations became involved and have slowly bilked billions out of our taxes. In 2013, he mentioned that the NFL made 9 billion dollars, the entire box office of North American cinema was roughly 11 billion, and testing companies raked in close to 16 billion dollars. Why is change slow? Companies who are soaking that revenue up are capable of dropping some serious lobbying power in front of the reform efforts.
How do we counter this culture of standardized testing? We have to be heard voting, opting out, and talking about the need for less standardized testing. That starts in our community. Traditions and teaching go hand in hand. Sir Ken mentioned that because everyone has attended school they believe they know how to teach it. Unfortunately, this adherence to tradition creates a barrier to change. We are reluctant to change the way we educate because it worked for us. We are forgetting that it didn't work for us. We have struggled every year with an increasing drop out rate that is creating an ever expanding drag on our economy of unemployable workers.
Sir Ken explained that it isn't because of lousy teachers, schools or administrators. It is because we have narrowed our focus in our curriculum to what is considered most important to an outdated industrial system of employment. We are all working in a system which funnels all learning into a narrow testable system. Sir Ken mentioned how this leaves out a lot of the creative classes that we used to include in curricula.
Sir Ken defined creativity as the act of doing something with imagination that is original. It may not be original to the world but it is original to the individual. Think about a 4 year old drawing stick figures for the first time. That is imaginative and original to them. This is their expression of creativity. Try being creative in a class that focuses everyone into learning how to draw a stick figure the exact same way. At the end of the class every four year old has a stick figure that is doing the same thing and looks like a photocopy. This is essentially what we are doing to our students by continuing to get them to answer information that can be condensed into a question with four check boxes. They don't all work that way. Ask any parent of two or more kids. Are they the same?
What can we do? Sir Ken explained that as educators we embrace a growth mindset. We encourage and support each other. Collaborate and share how we can introduce students to being creative again. Stop worrying about the tests and start encouraging each other to bring back the trades programs, art, music, dance, and alternative educational methods that allow for the individual learning styles that we all have.
Sir Ken went on to enlighten and entertain us for the morning. I took away a couple of ideas. I have to start focusing my frustration away from individuals. They are a product of the system. If I need them to change, I have to endeavor to change the culture, traditions, and system to encourage the student learning we expect to see. I have to stop taking it personal that someone is resistant to change as they are a product of the system that produced us both. I have to work to gain more followers in the growth mindset and hope that this will encourage a change of the system.
Thank you to Houston A+, Chevron, and Sir Ken Robinson. It was an enjoyable morning.
For further exploration of Sir Ken Robinson please take a look at the following TED talks.
Educational collaborator and expert to governments, agencies, Fortune 500 companies and cultural organizations, Sir Ken Robinson visited Houston for the Houston A+ Speaker series. Perhaps best known for his TED talks, viewed by over 300 million people throughout the world, Sir Ken was invited as a leading expert on creativity to speak with area educational leadership.
Thanks to leaders in my school district being unable to attend I spoke up several months ago when the opportunity to sign up was offered. He was every bit as dynamic and exciting as his famous talks. We laughed often as Sir Ken shared some sobering statistics about the current effect that standardized testing has had on the American education system.
Sir Ken explained that we cannot blame politicians, government, or local educators for what has happened in America with the continued erosion of student performance. He explained that the systems developed to enact No Child Left Behind are at fault. Our country was evaluating how public education would proceed in the new millennium and we allowed the best of intentions to be corrupted by big money and tradition.
Testing is big business. Once we decided that we needed to standardize our country on what should be learned by graduation, big corporations became involved and have slowly bilked billions out of our taxes. In 2013, he mentioned that the NFL made 9 billion dollars, the entire box office of North American cinema was roughly 11 billion, and testing companies raked in close to 16 billion dollars. Why is change slow? Companies who are soaking that revenue up are capable of dropping some serious lobbying power in front of the reform efforts.
How do we counter this culture of standardized testing? We have to be heard voting, opting out, and talking about the need for less standardized testing. That starts in our community. Traditions and teaching go hand in hand. Sir Ken mentioned that because everyone has attended school they believe they know how to teach it. Unfortunately, this adherence to tradition creates a barrier to change. We are reluctant to change the way we educate because it worked for us. We are forgetting that it didn't work for us. We have struggled every year with an increasing drop out rate that is creating an ever expanding drag on our economy of unemployable workers.
Sir Ken explained that it isn't because of lousy teachers, schools or administrators. It is because we have narrowed our focus in our curriculum to what is considered most important to an outdated industrial system of employment. We are all working in a system which funnels all learning into a narrow testable system. Sir Ken mentioned how this leaves out a lot of the creative classes that we used to include in curricula.
Sir Ken defined creativity as the act of doing something with imagination that is original. It may not be original to the world but it is original to the individual. Think about a 4 year old drawing stick figures for the first time. That is imaginative and original to them. This is their expression of creativity. Try being creative in a class that focuses everyone into learning how to draw a stick figure the exact same way. At the end of the class every four year old has a stick figure that is doing the same thing and looks like a photocopy. This is essentially what we are doing to our students by continuing to get them to answer information that can be condensed into a question with four check boxes. They don't all work that way. Ask any parent of two or more kids. Are they the same?
What can we do? Sir Ken explained that as educators we embrace a growth mindset. We encourage and support each other. Collaborate and share how we can introduce students to being creative again. Stop worrying about the tests and start encouraging each other to bring back the trades programs, art, music, dance, and alternative educational methods that allow for the individual learning styles that we all have.
Sir Ken went on to enlighten and entertain us for the morning. I took away a couple of ideas. I have to start focusing my frustration away from individuals. They are a product of the system. If I need them to change, I have to endeavor to change the culture, traditions, and system to encourage the student learning we expect to see. I have to stop taking it personal that someone is resistant to change as they are a product of the system that produced us both. I have to work to gain more followers in the growth mindset and hope that this will encourage a change of the system.
Thank you to Houston A+, Chevron, and Sir Ken Robinson. It was an enjoyable morning.
For further exploration of Sir Ken Robinson please take a look at the following TED talks.