Children and Creativity

John Florez---Deseret News--  June 1, 2013







It's only when they start meeting the demands of adults to focus that they start losing their innate ability to create. Adults call it learning. Infants are taught to focus and do it the right way. The message is don't risk, focus and do it the right way. In doing so, we limit a child's ability to be creative, innovate and imagine.

When Mae Jemison, the first black woman astronaut, who also has a long list of degrees, spoke at a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People meeting in Salt Lake City, she made an important statement about children. She said everywhere she went people always asked what motivated her. She said that all children are born motivated, the question is: What do we do to take it out of them?
She is right. All infants are born motivated, with a sense of wonder and creativity. They see the world in awe. And while adults around them try to get their attention with goo goos and baby rattles, they are still checking out their new world. They soon begin to crawl, to stand and to fall. They take chances and fail more often than succeed. They don't know failure as we define it; they are too busy trying new things — innovating and creating.
It's only when they start meeting the demands of adults to focus that they start losing their innate ability to create. Adults call it learning. Infants are taught to focus and do it the right way. The message is don't risk, focus and do it the right way. In doing so, we limit a child's ability to be creative, innovate and imagine. It's called teaching: focus, follow the rules and learn facts. Failure is frowned upon, which squelches the innate ability and creativity a child brings into the world. And we call it education.
We still don't seem to see how our century-old education system that prepared children for past economies is now stifling our ability to prepare students for a digital economy, where innovation, creativity and imagination are the skills needed to succeed. Our schools continue to teach and test for jobs that are done by machines or that no longer exist. Today's students face a future where if they lack the ability to create and innovate they will not have jobs that pay a living wage.
While policymakers and educators struggle to find ways to teach creativity and innovation, they fail to understand it's not to be found in lesson plans, rather in creating an environment that nurtures the innate talent all children are born with — curiosity, creativity and being unafraid of failure. Children don't know what they don't know, until adults and our schools tell them differently. As the story goes, a first grade girl was in her art class drawing a picture when her teacher approached her and asked, "What are you drawing?" And the girl replied, "A picture of God." The teacher then said, "But no one knows what God looks like." And the girl said, "Just wait a minute and they will."
In our highly competitive society, parents often structure their child's life to accelerate their learning and shield them from failure. Often parents don't realize we deprive them of the opportunity to learn from failure needed to allow for their creativity to flourish. To deprive them the chance to fail is to deny children the chance to grow. While the hard skills are important to learn, the arts and physical activities may be just as important in cultivating the innate creativity and imagination within them.
Our world is in the midst of another social revolution where those societies that cultivate the creative and innovative talent of their young and old will thrive; those that don't will be left behind. While we talk about teaching out-of-the-box, maybe, if we watch and learn from infants, we could learn about creativity.

A Utah native, John Florez has been on the staff of Sen. Orrin Hatch, served as former Utah Industrial Commissioner and filled White House appointments, including Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor and Commission on Hispanic Education. Email him at jdflorez@comcast.net.

Wanted: Amazing Administrators

My View:  Wanted:  Amazing Administrators
By Megan Allen, Special to CNN
Editor’s Note: Megan Allen is a National Board Certified Teacher, 2010 Department of Education/Macy’s Teacher of the Year and a finalist for 2010 National Teacher of the Year. She is also a member of the Hillsborough County New Millennium Initiative, an initiative of the Center for Teaching Quality.
As a professional educator and a teacher leader involved in dialogue about effective education reform, one thing is blaringly evident: At the school level, administration makes all the difference in the world.
When you walk through the doors, you can feel it. You observe how the teachers walk with a lilt in their step, you witness it in the priceless faces of the students. But it’s left me wondering, why all this talk about teacher evaluation? It seems that a much more efficient first move would be to focus on the administrators. Great administrators have the ability to inspire the faculty to push themselves to greatness, finding time and support to do so. A great administrator can build even stronger teachers, while a not-so-hot administrator can make a staff of amazing teachers wilt.
That being said, I’m placing a want ad for an administrator. I’m currently accepting applications. Please read the requirements below:

1. Be visible. In our classrooms, in the hallway, in the community. Shake hands–get out there. Be the lifeblood of our school and the first welcoming face children see as they stroll into our halls.
2. Put people first. We may need to think outside the box, err, office on this one. Let’s hire office administrators from outside education to take care of office-related duties that principals are swamped with. This will free time for you to focus on the people in your building.
3. Make our school comfortable and inviting. Don’t be afraid to make our workplace a home environment. Make people feel welcome. How about a staff member right at the door, greeting all who enter? Or students who open the door for students and families in the morning? These little touches will make us all want to be there even more.
4. Show appreciation. Make your faculty and students feel valued, and not just based on successes with student test scores. I’m talking about celebrating all students’ moments, like “Johnny learned how to button his jacket on his own today.” There are so many precious moments of small and mighty victories. Our students need to be celebrated for these, as does our staff.
5. Forge creative partnerships. We need schools that are true centers of the community, that offer social structures that will support our students’ needs for medical and dental care, food, after-school programs, training for parents on how to advocate for their children, and other services so we can get down to the business of teaching in our classrooms.
6. Be bold. Let’s try out innovative programs and ideas. Trust and support your faculty when they come to you with out-of-the-box thinking. Let’s take some calculated and student-centered chances, believing that we must try something different if we are going to help all children succeed.
7. Be trusting. Let your teachers do their jobs. We don’t need a scripted set of expensive books to teach students how to read - we are professionals who can use classroom data to make decisions. Let us be the professionals that we are. Give us autonomy to make our own decisions based on the standards and our deep knowledge of our students.
8. Love your job. Love kids. A school is not a business. There are so many more layers, and it is much more complex. Our focus is changing students’ lives with the power of education. You must love kids and be willing to fight for them.
9. Give us time. We want to fine-tune our craft as teachers so we can be better for our students. But we need time away from kids. I know this seems counterintuitive, but we need collaborative time to peer coach, lesson plan, lesson study and grow as learners. In Finland, teachers have time to do this, to focus on the craft of teaching. Educators in this top-performing country are in the classroom 600 hours a year, compared to our average in the United States of 1,000. I crave time to grow.
10. Join us in our classrooms. I’m looking for a principal who will jump into my classroom and co-teach with me, who offers to teach on occasion so I can focus on professional development with my peers. I want an instructional leader who yearns to be with students and doesn’t want to lose touch with the reason we all do what we do: children.
11. Inspire me. This is a biggie for me, the most important. I want someone who will push me to get better and who will provide support to help me get there. I want someone who is so passionate it spills over into every classroom in the school.
As I read over my want ad, a smile spreads across my freckled face. I know you’re out there. I can’t wait to work with you. I look forward to our time together with OUR children, where we work hand-in-hand and change lives, one student at a time.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Megan Allen.

A School Like No Other

I have been reading Ron Clark's new book The End of Molasses Classes. In the Preface of the book he wrote, "For me, the best way to initiate change in the way we educate our children was by starting a revolution from the ground up. I decided the most effective way to ignite the revolution would be to build a school unlike any other in the world." In the Introduction he went on to say, "I was on a mission. I wanted to build the best school in the world--a school that would be full of innovation, creativity, and best teachers anywhere."

Clark put into words what I have been feeling in my heart. This is what I want Esperanza Elementary to be--a school like no other. This is my mission.