School Needs to be Transformed -- Not Reformed

When I meet new people, I like to ask: "What do you do for fun?" I have been criticized for this; some have said that this is a mark of immaturity. Apparently, lobbing such a question is something that only my generation would do, and it is probably a result of the gradual stretching of adolescence over the past 60 years.

I do not ask "What do you do?" because the answers largely depress me. Most people, I've discovered, do not "do" what they enjoy doing. Most people, it seems, work for a paycheck. Have you thought about this? What did you want to be when you were young? Are you that now? If not, why not?

At some point in your formation, someone probably told you that you could not make a living doing what it is that you found delightful. And maybe that seemed true at the time. But now, the people that will rule the world (according to Dan Pink) are the right-brained, curious, artistic, innovative, out-of-the-box thinkers who desperately want to create and apply their learning.

And this is an area in which I think schools can always do better. How much are we teaching our students how to think? How often do we require them to think with endurance--to persist through a problem? To what degree do we ask our students to apply what they know and can do?

In saying that children can do more than we require of them, I am not at all speaking about pushing academic content further down the grade levels. Children can exercise more analytical thinking, creativity, innovation, and curiosity than we give them credit for. Have you seen Jack Tucker's YouTube page? How often is he required to exercise the level of ingenuity and creativity that he freely delievers each week on his YouTube channel?
http://www.youtube.com/user/claymate47?feature=chclk and http://www.youtube.com/user/JackTuckerProduction


As an educational system, we can do better than the panicky policies made by politicians who do not really understand what is at stake--decisions that make it difficult for teachers to incorporate creativity and real thinking in daily learning. I know we need accountability. We also need to acknowledge that the education of children is much more complex than a bubbled-in test.

Abraham Lincoln addressed the Congress in 1862, in part, with this:

"It is not 'can any of us imagine better?' but, 'can we all do better?' The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

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I take a great deal of pleasure from my job. I love working with students. It is truly "fun". And it is fun because of what I believe and know about children and teachers and learning.

Here's another TED talk from Sir Ken Robinson on the same topic (and from which I derived the Lincon quote).