Born Creative ...

Born Creative is a new publication from DEMOS (the London-based think tank).

This publication is a collection of essays focusing on creativity and arts in the early years education.

Conversation from Penn State with Sir Ken Robinson: Education Innovation - Learning the true meaning of creativity

I woke up this morning to find I'd received the following email from Stephanie Williams from WPSU/Penn State Public Broadcasting:

As I'm sure you're aware, many experts believe the education system in the U.S. needs significant restructuring. WPSU-TV recently interviewed Sir Ken Robinson on a series called “Conversations From Penn State” where he discussed the problems facing the education system and suggests ways to improve it by promoting creativity. After reading through your blog, I think you and your readers may be interested in the interview. It can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL0WW3tR8Kc and I have provided the embed code at the bottom of this message if you wish to share the video. Please let me know if you have any question or if you decide to post the video.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Williams

As regular readers would know, I resonate strongly with Sir Ken Robinson and what he has to say about education.

Often times teachers and leaders in schools are hamstrung by an education system that is focused on reforming and teacher-proofing, resulting in standardising students and de-professionalising teachers.

However, There are many people in education for whom teaching and education is their passion. It is where they are in their element.

Video: Conversation from Penn State with Sir Ken Robinson

This conversation draws on Ken Robinson's work, The Element. During the conversation he makes the following points:

• People underestimate themselves
• The problem is the education system, not teachers and principals
• Transformation is what's required, not reform
• There's an obsession with Standardised Testing
• Schooling is resulting in "standardising" kids
• Reforms are focused on teacher-proofing.

After viewing the video I'm left with the opening question that was put to Ken Robinson:

What sparked your interest in education?

I'd be interested in what your thoughts on the conversation are. I have placed my own summary, comments and thoughts after the video.

A transcript of the conversation is also available.

My summary, comments and thoughts on the conversation

I have been working on my PhD studies which has involved me interviewing many primary and secondary teachers. As part of the interviews teachers commented on their view of schooling and themselves as a teacher. Several of these teachers, primary and secondary, commented that teaching is more than content and subject areas. Teaching is about students realising their full potential.

These teachers seem to believe this, yet an outcome of the education system, according to Robinson, is people underestimating themselves. Robinson highlights this when he comments that there is a view that only special people are creative or are good at Maths. For me it raises questions as to what we might mean be "full potential".

Robinson indicates that systems of mass education are the result of mass industrialism. The education system has been crafted in the image of industrialism. The education system is linear and based around supply and demand. It's a system that is about conformity, standardising and a presumed workforce and less about diversity. The system is founded on the IDEA of UTILITY: that is what will be useful in gaining employment and making a living.

For Robinson, education systems are obsessed with standardised testing. This culture of testing can result in narrowing the curriculum and teaching to the test. This comes at a price for students and teachers. Robinson believes that in attempting to deal with a culture of standardised tests the education system is standardising students. It also results in a stripping away of teacher professionalism.

Many Government policy makers invest huge amounts of time, money and energy in attempts to teacher-proof the system through public accountability resulting in standardisation: teacher standards, leadership standards, standardised testing, public reporting of results comparing schools, common curriculum.

Teacher-proofing won't work. Why? Because teaching is more complex than standardised solutions. Scotland discovered this. Improvement processes can result in isomorphism - where it all starts to look the same, no matter the context. Robinson states that students don't comment on the curriculum or the testing regimes as making a difference to them at school.

Students regularly comment that it is the teachers who were significant to them at school. It's teachers (or other mentors) who can result in students realising their passion, and perhaps their full potential.

Many leaders and teachers are grappling with the issues of transformation. Just the other day I was having a conversation with a secondary teacher around the need for things to be different in schools. The teacher, a very competent and successful teacher teaching in a highly complex secondary school, commented on the challenges she was faced with on a daily basis. The world isn't changing - it has changed.

A more creative society

There seems to be a convergence of thinking around creativity, learning and schools. More and more it seems that creativity is a key feature of the "next age" in society.

Conceptual Age, creativity, creative minds

Dan Pink puts forward an argument that we are moving from the knowledge and information age and are now entering the Conceptual Age. The Conceptual Age is characterised by empathy and creativity.

The emergence of the Creative Class is a concept explored by Richard Florida, where he recognises a central role for talent and creativity in economic development.

The Creative Class is a class of workers whose job is to create meaningful new forms (2002). The Creative Class is composed of scientists and engineers, university professors, poets and architects. The Creative Class also “includes people in design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or creative content” (Florida, 2006, p. 8). Their designs are widely transferable and useful on a broad scale, as with products that are sold and used on a wide scale. Another sector of the Creative Class includes those positions which are knowledge intensive, these careers usually require a high degree of formal education (2002). Examples of this sector are health professionals and business management, who are considered to be a part of the sub-group called Creative Professionals. Their main job is to think and to create new standard approaches for fixing the problem at hand. Creativity is becoming more valued in today’s global society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_class (accessed 5th July 2009)

The importance of creativity is a theme that Sir Ken Robinson picks up on in his interviews, presentations and writings.

Sowing the seeds for a more creative society

I recently stumbled upon this clip of Mitch Resnick presenting at MIT Museum SOAP Box. His topic was Sowing the seeds for a More Creative Society.

The video is interesting in exploring themes of learning, collaboration and creativity. Mitch talks for about 30 minutes. The remainder of the time is facilitation and exploration of issues by participants with Mitch.

There are opportunities for schools to move from delivering information and ensuring good command of facts to spaces that allow students to work collaboratively to think and act creatively.

Working collaboratively to think and act creatively should be a central focus of what happens in learning - for students, teachers and leaders. In many schools this is starting to happen.

POSTSCRIPT:

Resnick directs the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the Media Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He has developed new technologies designed to engage people (particularly children) in creative learning experiences. These technologies include a program called SCRATCH, as well as LEGO Mindstorms.

Picture from: www.flickr.com/photos/ minezone/120962030/

How schools kill creativity

As I am presently between work at the moment I have had the opportunity to catch up on some of my podcasts from TEDTalks. One of my favorites is this TED video of Sir Ken Robinson. It is very provocative, insightful and funny.

Certainly one of the areas that I am particularly interested in is the place of creativity within teaching to stimulate and promote innovation to transform schooling and learning. I often wonder to what extent schools kill the creativity and passion of teachers.

Creativity, Innovation and Learning

Late last year I was contacted by a consulting company who has been commissioned by the European Commission to identify a list of Good Practice for Fostering Creativity and Innovation in all sectors of society within EC countries.

This project has been commissioned as part of 2009 European Year of Creativity and Innovation.

Despite being located in Australia, they had come across my "extensive work on learning and innovation" (their words), and thought that I might be able to help them identify practices that I may have come across in the EU.

They are seeking practices and projects targeted at:

• Stimulating innovative/creative behaviour in people, and



• Promoting an innovative/creative approach to tackle problems in society.

I think they would probably be aware of the work of the places I visited on my Churchill Fellowship but I put forward some recommendations.

What captured my imagination though was the focus on creativity and innovation. It sounds much more promising than the Australian Government's Education Revloution.

Learning the Dance - Learning in today's world

Today a friend of mine shared this YouTube clip with me:



Jonas, the young man in the clip, is the son of a work colleague of my friend. Notice his raised eye brow in the video! (It's very cute!)

What Jonas' Numa Numa Video brought home to me is the connective power of YouTube, even for our children.

I first came across Numa Numa in the middle of this year when I stumbled across a YouTube clip, "An anthropological introduction to YouTube", on Michael Wesch's site, Digital Ethnography. About 2 minutes into the clip Wesch introduces the Numa Numa phenomena.

Numa Numa was a 2003 pop song from a Maldovan group, O-Zone. The song became popular in Italy and Japan.

In December 2004 Gary Brolsma looked down a video cam and performed the song in his bedroom.

YouTube was registered in Febuary 2005 and by April that year anyone with a web cam could easily upload a video to the world wide web.

Gary version of Numa Numa is here:



People around the world joined in Gary's joy by learning the dance - including the raised eye brow, and lip synching the words. Now a YouTube search for Numa Numa shows results for 1,200,000!

Michael Wesch draws on Douglas Wolk in reflecting that the phenomena is not a parody of Brolsma but rather, through YouTube, a new cultural order is able to be created. Wesch sees that the Numa Numa phenomena is a celebration of new forms of empowerment, new forms of community and new forms of unimaginable possibilities.

Watching Jonas in his rendition of Numa Numa I'd have to agree. He is joining in spreading the happiness, with real audiences, connecting with others. This is part of Jonas' world, and should be part of how he learns.

The metaphor of "Learning the Dance" is a powerful one for me. As an educator I need to learn the dance that is learning today, and be a part of that dance that is learning in today's world - the world of Jonas.

Michael Wesch's video is below (including list of timing for sections in the 55 minute video):

0:00 Introduction, YouTube's Big Numbers
2:00 Numa Numa and the Celebration of Webcams
5:53 The Machine is Us/ing Us and the New Mediascape
12:16 Introducing our Research Team
12:56 Who is on YouTube?
13:25 What's on Youtube? Charlie Bit My Finger, Soulja Boy, etc.
17:04 5% of vids are personal vlogs addressed to the YouTube community, Why?
17:30 YouTube in context. The loss of community and "networked individualism" (Wellman)
18:41 Cultural Inversion: individualism and community
19:15 Understanding new forms of community through Participant Observation
21:18 YouTube as a medium for community
23:00 Our first vlogs
25:00 The webcam: Everybody is watching where nobody is ("context collapse")
26:05 Re-cognition and new forms of self-awareness (McLuhan)
27:58 The Anonymity of Watching YouTube: Haters and Lovers
29:53 Aesthetic Arrest
30:25 Connection without Constraint
32:35 Free Hugs: A hero for our mediated culture
34:02 YouTube Drama: Striving for popularity
34:55 An early star: emokid21ohio
36:55 YouTube's Anthenticity Crisis: the story of LonelyGirl15
39:50 Reflections on Authenticity
41:54 Gaming the system / Exposing the System
43:37 Seriously Playful Participatory Media Culture (featuring Us by blimvisible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yxHKg...
47:32 Networked Production: The Collab. MadV's "The Message" and the message of YouTube
49:29 Poem: The Little Glass Dot, The Eyes of the World
51:15 Conclusion by bnessel1973
52:50 Dedication and Credits (Our Numa Numa dance)

"You are what you share." We-Think

Today I started reading Charles Leadbeater's recent book, WE-THINK: Mass innovation, not mass production.
It's shaping up to be a thought provoking book. Charles Leadbeater, a researcher with the London think-tank Demos, is one of the leading thinkers about innovation and creativity.

Leadbeater was

early to notice the rise of "amateur innovation" -- great ideas from outside the traditional walls, from people who suddenly have the tools to collaborate, innovate and make their expertise known.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/charles_leadbeater.html

Leadbeater has written about such ideas as personalisation. Publications include:

• Learning about personalisation (2004)
• Personalisation through participation (2004)
• The shape of things to come (2005)

We-Think examines ways in which the world wide web is changing our world. These changes are creating a culture that allows people to share and collaborate ideas and information. Leadbeater argues that "the web is a potent platform for creativity and innovation."

The sharing can be for good, but also brings with it dilemmas.

We-think explores the new phenomenon of mass creativity exemplified by web sites such as YouTube, Wikipedia and MySpace. The book ... argues that participation, rather than consumption or production, will be the key organizing idea of future society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Leadbeater

The following YouTube clip provides an introduction to We-Think:

The thinking behind We-Think is outlined in a TEDTalk that Charles Leadbeater gave on innovation. (This talk is about 19 minutes)

The implications for schools, schooling and learning are great! Has anyone else read the book or have thoughts on the implications?

Remember: You are what you share!

Enabling factors for robust frameworks to develop teacher agency, creativity and innovation

Recently Greg Whitby had a reflection on his blog Bluyonder titled Bogged down by accountabilities. This caused me to revisit my thinking from my Churchill Fellowship. A strong motivation for the trip was a concern that I had that accountabilities were stiffling creativity, innovation and the profession.

I share Greg's view that too often accountability is about blame rather than responsibility. I believe that teaching needs to become the learning profession. This means that teachers need to be the key decision-makers, but that decisions need to be made from a position of informed professionalism. Elsewhere in this blog I have expressed a concern with an emphasis on measuring and reviewing schools, and less of a focus on improvement.

Greg indictates that schools need robust frameworks from which good decisions about learning and teaching are made. I believe that these frameworks require teacher agency, creativity and innovation.

SOME ENABLING FACTORS
These enabling factors are not always recognisable in large scale reforms of schools and public accountability agendas. Further information on each of these enabling factors can be found in the ACSA paper I presented in 2007 and in my Churchill Report (see links).

What might be some enabling factors that allow for the creation of these robust frameworks?

1. Trust the professionals.
2. Build flexibility and adaptive capacity within and between schools.
3. Create a culture of professional authority.
4. Develop teacher agency and leadership.
5. Develop informed professionalism.
6. Strengthen collaboration across the profession.
7. Foster networks for learning.
8. Evolve communities of learning.
9. Promote disciplined innovation.
10. Harvest intellect and capture new knowledge.
11. Build professional knowledge.
12. Build capacity across the profession.
13. Develop next practice.
    

FACTORS THAT APPEAR TO LIMIT
A number of factors were identified that appeared to limit the development of robust frameworks that promote teacher agency, creativity and innovation . These include:

• A political cycle and motivation that is focused on short-term reforms and lacks authentic engagement of the profession as well as the community;
• An absence of incentives, rewards and acknowledgements for teachers engaging in improving the profession;
• Focusing on the tools and processes of school improvement rather than the profession and people;
• Over-emphasising the importance of positional leadership to bring about school improvement and under-valuing teacher leadership;
• Emerging managerialism at the expense of leadership;
• Focusing on reforming schools rather than transforming systems of learning;
• Bureaucratic inertia and linear policy thinking that prevents the evolution of systems of learning;
• Assumptions that education systems do have a strong focus on learning and have a learning culture;
• Innovation fatigue with a few involved in doing the work.
  

Creativity and Innovation: Beyond Best Practice presentation

The responses to my presentation at the recent ACEL conference have been very positive.

I am always interested in what others take away with from presentations and am happy to receive correspondence to explore ideas further.

From the emails I have received since it would seem that the following were key messages taken away:
1. Teaching should be seen as the Learning Profession - this my catch phrase at the moment.
2. Teaching, as a profession, should claim learning as its territory.
3. Best Practice should be seen as indicative practice rather than prescribed practice.
4. The challenges posed by the concept of Next Practice are worth exploring further.

The Innovations Unit in England has been pioneering the way with Next Practice in schooling and education.

I have included in the Links for this Blog some of the useful references developed by The Innovations Unit on Next Practice.