Sir Ken Robinson is compelling. He is concise and concrete while ingeniously illuminating the concepts he very successfully develops in his publications and media presentations. He is believable and makes a believer of me. Recently, I viewed his You Tube video in which Sir Ken points to the structural impediments in American public education that stymie children in their development of creativity. American schools pound facts and convergent thinking. There no incentive in the many federal and state mandates for schools to facilitate the growth of divergent thinking, he proclaims. (http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html).

Darn right, I agree. And, to emphasize my agreement I paraphrase Matthew 22:20-22. “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s…” What is it that Caesar requires? Federal mandates demand competent achievement of all students on prescribed standardized tests. In addition, verified accountability systems are in place that publicize student, teacher and school effectiveness. What is that Caesar does not require. The No Child Left Behind Act does not list creativity as one of the educational outcomes included in tests of student competency or school effectiveness. The Race to The Top also omits references to creativity as a requirement for states, hence local school districts and schools, to be waived from iron-fisted NCLB requirements. Creativity is not one of the “things ” Caesar claims as his.

In addition, junior Caesars, state governors, also forsake creativity. The National Governor’s Association which authorized and approved the Common Core State Standards comes “close but no cigar” for their efforts. “Close” is the inclusion of academic problem solving melded with collaboration with other students as a process skill within specific CC standards. Yet, this is not enough to win a cigar or the agreement of Sir Ken or anyone who advocates for a public education that values and purposefully promotes student creativity.

Hence, render unto our modern day Caesar, our mandating federal and state governments, that which they require – a standardized education that does not value creativity.

For educators, our dilemma is age old in school lore. That which is tested gets taught. That which is part of the mandated school and educator effectiveness accountability systems gets attention. The new state report card for all K-12 schools in Wisconsin does not include creativity in any of its measures of student, teacher or school effectiveness. Wisconsin’s state assessments fall into the category of all standardized tests. They assess convergent thinking. The Iowa legislature recently passed educational reforms with the goal of returning its high school graduates to national prominence in the ACT test, a test used for college readiness and admissions. Instruction for this purpose assures that classrooms will value the learning of content, skills and processes for discerning “right” answers.

“New York is one of the first states to revamp its annual exams to match up with the new Common Core Standards, a comprehensive set of academic expectations designed with the goal of better preparing American children for “college and careers”. Forty-six states and the District of Columbia have formally adopted the Common Core, but reviews are mixed. Diane Ravitch, an education analyst at New York University, calls the standards a “fundamentally flawed” mandate foisted on the states without “any idea how they will affect students, teachers, or schools”. Other commentators argue that the standards honour “data, not children”, neglect creativity in the classroom and weave an unholy bond between public education and test-development companies.” (“Not Prepared,” The Economist, 4/16/13)

“However counter-intuitive this notion may appear, fostering a nation of creative thinkers will serve the U.S. well in an increasingly global and technological economy. After all, one of the most successful and profitable companies in the world (high-tech or otherwise) is Apple. Until August 25, 2011, Apple was led by CEO Steve Jobs, who stepped down (for the second time) for health reasons. Jobs was one of the most creative thinkers of the past 50 years and was not trained by the American university system for such greatness. He was a creative thinker, not the toiler of a particular trade conferred upon him by some professional degree.” (“We Need an Education System that Promotes Creativity, Innovation, and Critical Thinking”, Huffington Post, 03/23/2012)

So, what should we do?

Parents, allow your Huck Finn to play (safely). An overly structured childhood stifles creativity. Don’t register your child for every team, ensemble and group that rises in your community for the purpose of keeping kids busy so that they will be “safe.” Count your own hours of driving to and from every practice and event and then add that large number to the gazillion hours your child is at practice or performing and you must arrive at “Stop!” Too much is too much. Let your Huck Finn play safely in the neighborhood without electronic devices and programmed activity. Let children design and act out their personal and collective creative fantasies. Play acting life on Mars and manufacturing their own playgrounds and creating their own language that keeps their doings safe from others brings out their creativity. Children in generations prior to helicoptering parents somehow created an American economy and culture that constantly regenerated itself.

Schools, use your powers of assessment to find children who possess true creative energy and give them time and opportunity to grow. Schools have a long history of divining which children need special education and assistance to succeed in school. Don’t stop annual “child find” activities, but add “loose the creative” children to your findings. Every school contains children who easily learn what they must know in order to pass required tests. Once they have gotten to the head of the testing line, free them to experience the learning that is their passion. Supervise their safety, but give them time, place and opportunity to compose, paint, sculpt, program, write, shape metals, graft plants, mix chemicals, and lead their peers. This is the environment what young entrepreneurs, engineers, artists, authors, and explorers need. There is time in any school day for this. Observe what children who finish their assignments first do while waiting for the class to finish. Turn them loose.

Government, stop meddling. Public education may be governmentally funded, but a public education is an investment in an individual’s potential to advance the community, state and national future. The ebb and flow of liberal and conservative agenda handcuffs any opportunity for schools to create long-term practices that promote student creativity. Educators spend too much time explaining and defending best practices to the political agenda du jour that children get robbed of time and opportunity for creative work. There is a world of difference between assuring a free and public education that creates graduates who are college prepared and community ready and fencing in the future.

I am composing this blog on a tablet with a touch screen, saving it to the “cloud” and will post it to the world. These processes are the result of unbelievable creativity by individuals, collaborating groups, and corporations that proper from “time and opportunity” to do the right work.

“A day that you tarry is a day that you lose.” (Jeremiah Johnson, film -1972).

Or, for a child, no time passes faster than a day of summer vacation and it is almost impossible to think about school and learning on a day of vacation. However, when we let a day pass without attending to what a child can learn, we lose that day just as assuredly as Jeremiah lost the beaver pelts that could have been traded if he did not attend to his traps every day. Now work, no pay. No new words, no new learning.

Words are the currency of education. When a child does not know a word that is heard or a phrase that is read, that child is out of business as a learner. The words might as well be Martian. It is easy to observe. Just watch a child’s face when she is reading and notice the small frown that appears between the eyes of the tightening at the corners of the mouth when an unknown word is encountered. Children are exposed to new words every day. They hear new words on television and in music. They see new words on a TV screen and in print in a book or magazine or comic. When they know the words they are reading or hearing, their learning is advanced. However, each word that is unknown stalls the child’s understanding and too many unknown words push the child backwards in the economy of learning.

The size of a child’s vocabulary is argumentative. The number of words that a child should comprehend depends upon the source of the research. The common truth in all vocabulary studies indicates one universal, however – vocabulary and background knowledge are required for continued learning, and, a stronger vocabulary and a richer background knowledge have immediate and real benefits for advanced learning.

Increasing a child’s vocabulary and background knowledge increases their readiness for new learning. Jeremiah just found the greatest beaver pond in the Rockies! (This does not make any sense if you are not aware of the character played by Robert Redford in a cult escape movie from forty years ago – background knowledge enriches our metaphors.)

Summer vacation is a perfect time for parents to increase the currency of their child’s education. The absence of grade level instruction in June, July and August means that every word a child learns that is relevant to the next grade level of instruction is a bonus. Each word and every family of words gives the child an advantage in their new learning in September.

What to do:

Add 1,000 words to your child’s vocabulary this summer. One thousand sounds like a large number but it is not. It is approximately ten words each summer day. It is two word families each week counting all of the ways in which a word is used, making a noun into a verb or an adjective or an adverb. It is 250 words with two synonyms and two antonyms for each word. Adding 1,000 words can mean the difference between a child being ready for new learning on the first day or playing catch up for months.

Talk with your children. Talk to them about meaningful things. Talk about what you did at work each day and let them hear the vocabulary that is important to you and the ways in which you provide for them. Use the words that are unique to what you do. Children really do want to know “what my mom or dad does at work.” Talk about real, local things like road improvements and the price of groceries and gas and that your lawn needs more rain or suffers from too much rain. Tell them they “whys and what fors” of repairing potholes and resurfacing beaten up streets and how the price of a gallon of gas is increased by “middle men.” Talk about the weather, they experience it every day so give them the words to understand what weather is. Children want and need to hear their adult’s thoughts and learn the words that adults use.

• Conversations: What I did today at work. What problems I had at work today and how I dealt with each problem. What I saw on my way to work and from work to home and what do I think about what I saw. What I bought today and what I think about my purchases. What the things we need cost and why things cost what they do. Explain the differences between gasoline, engine oil, diesel fuel and kerosene. Explain what might happen if you mistakenly substitute one of these for another.
• Conversations: Point at and name birds and small animals around the home. Use exact words to describe a bird’s beak and plumage and nesting and male and female appearances. Point at and talk about squirrels and chipmunks and ground squirrels and voles. Explain the differences between pets and varmints.

Use but don’t abuse electronic devices. If allowed their choice, my grandchildren will grab my I-pads and burrow into their electronic games for hours. They will play games on the Wii or PlayStation without needing adult supervision. Electronic devices have become the preferred pacifiers that keep children out of physical trouble and out of their adult’s way for hours on end. Electronic devices are for today’s children what television was for children in the 70s and 80s – free babysitting and child attention diverters.

• E-learning: I-pads also are wonderful learning aids. Along with games, load children’s books and magazines on your I-pad. Also, load word and math skill games. Balance a child’s time with an e-device between games and learning. Use the incentive of I-pad time to have a child read a story to you and your opportunity to help the child sound out and define new words.
• E-learning: Use the media. Listen, hear and read things that are made more important because they are E. Take a child’s enthusiasm and run with it.

Make a list of all the new words learned over a summer’s time. Children like to quantify things in their life. Numbering and listing things helps them to make sense of what they encounter. Just listen to a child’s talk when she is by herself and notice how often she counts or groups and regroups the things around her. Make and keep a list of words and meanings of words. Writing them down reinforces a child’s mental retention of the words and makes it more likely that they child will use and reuse the word or words that have similar meaning

• Whose list: The child should create the list writing new words on it each day. This is not your list.
• Whose list: Create your own list of new words you learn. Demonstrate that everyone, not just school-age children, learns new words. Post your list next to your child’s list.

A day that an adult tarries in his or her learning, is a day of new learning that an adult loses.

I am assigned to them and they are assigned to me. We meet at the same time every week day for almost nine months, rain or shine. I am supposed to help them; they are supposed to profit from my help. I tell them what to do and they do; kind of. More to the point, I learn what they can do and then design ways to help them to do more and do it better. Day after day we dance this dance of teaching and learning together. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? But, what is it that keeps this transaction from being sterile and rote and an assembly line environment.

Today I will be Moonlight Graham, the reminiscent baseball player in Field of Dreams who played one inning in the outfield for the New York Giants but never got an at-bat in the major leagues. In his old age dreams all he wants is to have one chance to stare down a major league pitcher. Just when the pitcher began his wind-up, Moonlight wants to wink at him and make the pitcher think that Moonlight knows something the pitcher does not.

That’s it. I need something like a wink, but not a wink because a male teacher winking at school-age children today may not be perceived as a latter day Moonlight Graham. A smile should do the trick.

There is something simple and inviting about a smile. There also is something contagious about a smile. Actually, a smile is a lot like a wink; when you see a person smiling, you wonder what the person is smiling about. Mona Lisa taught us this.

This is my plight. I am supposed to be the informed man destined to educate children. I organize and plan and build structures that will lead these children toward their understanding of things they do not know today. I teach and they learn; I learn from their learning and they help me to teach them tomorrow. Like the winking Moonlight Graham, I actually do know things that they don’t know. Tomorrow, I will greet them with my smile, because “An honest smile is an icebreaker” (Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity) and I will have difficulty restraining my excitement for causing them to learn.

Learning revolves around two smiles; the smile of teaching and the smile of learning. However, the reality is that it only is their smile that counts. In the end, when they smile, we all smile. One smile is mine and the other smile is theirs, an entire room of Moonlight Grahams.

“The joy and smile of even one child is worth more than the prancing intellects of a thousand men…” (Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason).

Thanks to State Senator Luther Olsen for his likening the Wisconsin legislature to a banana republic, and not the clothing store. Senator Olsen referred to the legislature about face relative to its partisan decision to countermand its 2011 decision to seek a single vendor for Wisconsin’s Student Information System. He correctly infers a negative impact upon any contractor who considers doing future business in Wisconsin and their lack of assurance that a legitimate contract will not be subverted by politicos. Olsen’s attempt to uphold legislative integrity was pummeled 13-3 in committee and his argument was canned before it could gain momentum. Governor Walker’s campaign announcement that “Wisconsin is Open For Business” really means open only for the business that special interest lobbyists can endorse.

Bananas come in bunches and another banana going bad in the current bunch of stinky business relates to the Wisconsin legislature pushing the caution button on implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Forty-five states, including Wisconsin, have adopted the CCSS as their PK-12 academic standards. The Wisconsin legislature adopted the CCSS in 2010 with little to no discussion. Since then, the English/Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics standards have been rolled in each Wisconsin school district.

As with every reform in public education, commentary is on the record for and against the CCSS. A common thread in all comments is that the CCSS are standards and not curricula. Interpreting the standards into instruction is critical work and is much more than just buying a new reading or math text series. Hence, there is some natural labor slap-back against the CCSS.

However, there is almost consensus that the CCSS are better than the amalgam of non-standardized standards that independently populated the thousands of school districts in these 45 states. And, there is an unspoken consensus that the real hurdle is not the instruction of the CCSS but the accountability of educators for student achievement on new assessments that will be aligned with the CCSS. The real caution button is not being pressed because of questions about the value of the CCSS but in fear of the angst that will rise when student achievement not only does not improve but takes a significant dive in the first year of CCSS assessments. Someone is forgetting what we already know – significant organizational change cannot be validly evaluated for at least five years. Politics, though, seldom can wait five years for valid results.

As promised, the CCSS in the sciences is ready to roll out this summer. Social Studies standards are still in the writing process. Although the Wisconsin caution button says “let’s hold more discussion in Wisconsin about the CCSS,” politically pushed caution buttons have a habit of becoming sidetracking actions. So, politically it will be acceptable for Wisconsin children to learn from updated ELA and Math standards, science and social studies standards will remain in the last century. Bad business once again!

Two bananas do not make a very impressive bunch. A third banana going bad in our bunch is the legislature’s discussion of opening school choice vouchers to all school districts in Wisconsin. Instead of limiting the districts open to vouchers, the new thinking is to make choice/voucher available in all school districts and place a numerical cap on the number of vouchers to be allowed each year. The proposal would allow 500 vouchers in year one and 1,000 in subsequent years. State Superintendent Evers appropriately acknowledged that few if any such legislated quotas ever are static. The real politic of deciding who will receive such a limited “golden ticket” seems to point toward a quick expansion of the quota to lessen the anger of non-recipients. As has been demonstrated by the proposal under consideration, special interests in favor of choice/voucher will not take “no” for an answer.

Interestingly, Governor Walker proposed expanding the voucher system from Milwaukee and part of Racine County to a dozen-plus of the largest Wisconsin districts where student achievement on the new state report card fell below satisfactory. The political “compromise” is to expand choice/voucher to all districts with a quota that is certain to be “watery.” Great compromise

Not a great season for bananas.

Runs. Touch downs and conversions. Two-point and three-point shots and free throws. Strokes. Goals. Percentage of correct responses. When everything is reduced to points, there always is a numerical end. Sometimes the end is when the numbers of time on a clock or calendar run out. Sometimes it is when the magic number is reached. Other times, the end is when the points assigned reaches a target number. In so many things we do, numbers equate to how well we do and when we are done.

Kids in middle and high school understand numbers. In fact, their sense of numbers is cold and hard. Points earned are grades and good enough grades mean promotion. Or, poor grades are not good enough and mean summer school or retention. In so many, in fact too many, ways schooling and learning reverts back to points.

Ernie was a freshman who scrambled through middle school. If his middle school computed a grade point average, Ernie’s would have been a 1.2 or maybe .3. His middle school efforts always were just good enough to earn a passing grade of D or better and his now-and-again F was balanced with a now-and-again C. However, high school was not like middle school and grading was more rigorous.

Ernie’s work effort in 9th grade was just like his work effort in 8th grade, but his point sub-totals were not good enough for a once-in-a-while C; he was looking at Ds and Fs. By mid-October, Ernie knew he was in grade trouble with Ds and Fs on his first quarter report card. By December, he knew that his first semester was in the tank. He would not earn credit in English, Math or Science. And, by late February, Ernie knew that he would be a freshman again the next school year. It was impossible for him to earn enough points.

Numerically, Ernie was finished. His work effort throughout the second semester demonstrated his knowledge that no matter what he did, he could not alter his fate. Ernie stopped any intentional learning after March 1st, not that his intentions were very impressive in February or January.

What a terrible way to treat a child! What a terrible way to treat all children who numerically crap out every school year. Ironically, the Ernies in every school are the children who are the focus of most federal reform efforts. Regardless of racial or economic status, non-performers like Ernie populate every school’s academic achievement gap.

I am not an Alfie Kohn fanatic. Given that, I do agree that points and grades are killing our Ernies in school. We need to separate every Ernie from:

• Any and all point recording systems. Why give students reasons to quit learning?
• Every assignment calendar. When the desired outcome is learning, “when” should not matter.
• Any information that tells him that no matter how he does, he cannot succeed. The motivation valve must always stay on, especially for children who look first for failure and second, if at all, for success.

This separation from the usual way school happens is not designed to give Ernie a free pass; free passes are even worse than being numerically finished.

Ernie’s new system needs to be what we really want for every child – learn this well enough before moving on to the next learning. Effort is recognized and applauded, but is not enough. Time is no big deal. Getting it right is all that counts. And, let’s see how much Ernie can learn by June 1st. Instead of being a learning fatality, Ernie could very well be a statistic of achievement.