How to Escape Education's Death Valley

Ken Robinson continues to make so much sense.

TED - Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Just listened to this presentation and had to share the thoughts. Excellent talk by Sir Ken Robinson.

OK Go - Genius to Give a Go Yourself

Normally I do not like music videos. They tend to ruin songs for me. (I like what I conjure in my own head while listening better.) Sometimes, though, someone breaks out and impresses me.

Such is the case with the band Ok Go. My son came home one day and wanted to show me some of their videos because he knew I'd like them. And, boy, do I! They are pure creative genius. They're done in such a way that I can appreciate the songs by themselves, separate from the videos, but I can appreciate the videos for their innovation as well. These are entertaining but educational.

Ok Go has several clever music videos. The following are my three favorite.* 

The first is one big Rube Goldberg machine. A few years ago one of my boys was in a biweekly science class with some other homeschooled boys and I remember on one of the days the boys were tasked with building their own Rube Goldberg. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Watching this video should make kids want to put on their thinking caps and get to work building something themselves. The link above is THE place to go for lesson plans, etc. to take the next step. I'm thinking that with winter coming and the holidays and needing a break in between some other bigger unit studies, we'll take a week or so and have some fun with this. (A Rube Goldberg lesson would be a nice addition to studying physics as well.)  

Incidentally, a peppy song titled "This Too Shall Pass" is handy to have on one's playlist.

The clever video for "The One Moment" isn't just creative and fun to watch but also a highly satisfactory way to ponder the impact and importance of a single moment. (Also, HOW do they get their timing so perfect?)

Finally, the following version of "Needing/Getting" is exceptionally smart. The enormity and scale of the project is insane but impressive. The ability to nail details is inspiring.

*While I do like much of their music and many of their videos, I am not recommending everything they sing and do.

Imagination, Creative Freedom, and a Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz

I remember the first time I was frustrated with the way one of my children was coloring. We'd been doing a unit study on salmon and I had carefully drawn blank shapes of salmon for my kids to color, fully expecting them to color the picture the way salmon actually are. That isn't the way one of them chose to color. I had one of those split personality moments--the kind where I heard myself speaking in a tone and volume not reflective of the kind of mother or teacher I wanted to be, while simultaneously saying to myself inside my own brain, "Well, you are kind of justified. I mean, salmon are so obviously not yellow and purple," while simultaneously arguing with myself inside my own head that I don't want to stifle my children's creativity or be so rigid that learning isn't fun, while simultaneously counter arguing inside my head that this task was not meant to be especially creative, but demonstrate awareness and learning--it was science, not art. It was an exhausting two minutes. I finally calmed down, made more copies of the salmon drawing, and settled on telling my children they needed to color one the way salmon actually look in real life and then they could color one any way they wanted. 

While cleaning out a file of papers today, I came across this poem I found long ago and had forgotten about. It's definitely food for thought.

                    The Little Boy

                    by Helen E. Buckley

                    Once a little boy went to school.

                    He was quite a little boy.

                    And it was quite a big school.

                    But when the little boy

                    Found that he could to go his room

                    By walking right in from the door outside,

                    He was happy.

                    And the school did not seem 

                    Quite so big anymore.

                    One morning,

                    When the little boy had been in school awhile,

                    The teacher said:

                    "Today we are going to make a picture."

                    "Good," thought the little boy.

                    He liked to make pictures.

                    Lions and tigers,

                    Chickens and cows,

                    Trains and boats--

                    And he took out his box of crayons and he began to draw.

                    But the teacher said, "Wait!

                    "It's not the time to begin!"

                    And she waited until everyone looked ready.

                    

                    "Now," said the teacher,

                    "We are going to make flowers."

                    "Good," thought the little boy. He liked to make flowers.

                    And he began to make beautiful ones

                    With his pink and orange and blue crayons.

                     But the teacher said, "Wait!

                     "And I will show you how."

                     And it was a red flower with a green stem.

                     "There," said the teacher.

                     "Now you may begin."

                     The little boy looked at the teacher's flower.

                     Then he looked at his own flower.

                     He liked his flower better than the teacher's.

                     But he did not say this.

                     He just turned his paper over.

                     And made a flower like the teacher's.

                     It was red with a green stem.

                     On another day,

                     When the little boy had opened

                     The door from the outside all by himself,

                     The teacher said:

                     "Today we are going to make something with clay."

                     "Good," thought the little boy. 

                     He liked clay.

                     He could make all kinds of things with clay:

                     Snakes and snowmen,

                     Elephants and mice,

                     Cars and trucks--

                     And he began to pull and pinch

                     His ball of clay.

                     But the teacher said: 

                     "Wait! It's not time to begin!"

                     And she waited until everyone looked ready.

                    "Now," said the teacher.

                    "We are going to make a dish."

                    "Good," thought the little boy.

                    He liked to make dishes,

                    And he began to make some

                    That were all shapes and sizes.

                    But the teacher said, "Wait!

                    "And I will show you how."

                    And she showed everyone how to make

                    One deep dish.

                   "There," said the teacher.

                   "Now you may begin."

                   The little boy looked at the teacher's dish.

                   Then he looked at his own.

                   He liked his dishes better than the teacher's.

                   But he did not say this.

                   He just rolled his clay into a big ball again.

                   And made a dish like the teacher's.

                   It was a deep dish.

                   And pretty soon

                  The little boy learned to wait.

                   And to watch.

                   And to make things just like the teacher.

                   And pretty soon

                  He didn't make things of his own anymore.

                  Then it happened

                  That the little boy and his family

                  Moved to another house

                  In another city.

                  And the little boy

                  Had to go to another school.

                  This school was even bigger

                  Than the other.

                  And there was no door from the outside

                  Into his room.

                  He had to go up some big steps

                  To get to his room.

                  And the first day

                  He was there,

                  The teacher said:

                  "Today we are going to make a picture."

                  "Good," thought the little boy.

                  And he waited for the teacher

                  To tell him what to do.

                  But the teacher didn't say anything.

                  She just walked around the room.

                  When she came to the little boy,

                  She said, "Don't you want to make a picture?"

                  "Yes" said the little boy.

                  "What are we going to make?"

                  "I don't know until you make it," said the teacher.

                  "How shall I make it?" asked the little boy.

                  "Why, any way you like," said the teacher.

                  "And any color?" asked the little boy.

                  "Any color," said the teacher.

                  "If everyone made the same picture, 

                  And used the same colors,

                  How would I know who made what,

                  And which was which?"

                 "I don't know," said the little boy.

                 And he began to make a red flower with a green stem.

Obviously, there are times in life when precision or exactness or sameness are what is called for. Art isn't one of them. Neither is writing. Sometimes teachers think the only way to properly teach is to have children merely copy them. Because we're trying to teach, help, better, challenge, grow children into educated, capable people and, because it's our job to show them and be examples, we think our example is THE way to do it. But there is a difference between teaching technique, form, rules, etc. and dominating a mind or an outcome. We can teach that flowers have petals, pistils, stems, and leaves and let children draw their own based on a live flower. We can give guided assignments/challenges without dictating. We can demonstrate watercolors or shading or any other medium or technique and let children practice and experiment. We can observe great art and artists or great writing and writers and point out what makes it so. And we can still give children creative freedom.

Just think--what would the world be like if someone had stifled Dr. Seuss and he never created pink trees or a Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz because they just don't exist?  What would the world be like if no one ever thought outside the box? We'd have no Mary Poppins, no Star Wars, no Narnia. We'd all be huddled around campfires--not because we want to be but because we have to be. No one would be reading this blog (though maybe they aren't anyway!). We'd live dark, bleak, hard lives. It's the purple-and-yellow-salmon-colorers and the wiggly-can't-sit-still-botherers and the "I-like-mine-betterers" that do most of the inventing and problem solving in this world. 

Just think about that.

"You think I'm not listening, but I am."

There are obvious differences between homeschooling and public school classes, and though the above is written in terms of a high school or college class, the premise works for homeschooling as well (though I wouldn't refer to one of my children as "the annoying kid"). You see, the facets of human nature that would make one late to a high school class or make one disruptive exist in all humans, regardless of where their education takes place. In my home it sometimes looks like too frequent and insanely marathonic bathroom visits (and no, these are not due to any health/medical issues, but have led to the removal of reading material in said rooms, though even that hasn't remedied the "issue"); kids getting way too comfortable on couches with blankets and nodding off while we read or watch an educational video; headphones for their math on the computer which project a lot more pop/rock music than math lecture; or squabbling with a sibling over anything and everything just because. Yet when I get exasperated and ask them to repeat what I just read, much of the time they can quote it. When I think a kid is completely checked out and decide to administer a pop quiz to prove my point, the one who can answer all the questions is the one who least looked like he was paying attention. Just goes to show that appearances aren't everything and there is not just one type of atmosphere or position or attitude or attention span necessary for learning. It could be that a kid like the one mentioned above studies on his own outside of class, but as one of my sons likes to tell me, "You think I'm not listening, but I am." 

That begs the question:  how many other things do I say or do, outside of what I want them to hear and pay attention to, that they really are noticing? What am I teaching when I'm not teaching?

Presidential Adaptation

You may recall my review of The Presidential game from about a month ago. Today we adaptated it for more players. Grabbing chips, coinage, etc. from other games, we made it a six-player (thus six-candidate) game by including the Green Party, the Constitution Party, the Libertarians, and an Independent candidate. We learned about the ideologies and goals of those parties as we played.

As I looked up information on those other "major" parties, I discovered that there are 31 nationally ranked "minor" parties, as well as regional parties, the majority of whom I'd never heard of. Even though we disagreed with most of the platforms and philosophies, it was fascinating to read about such parties as the Transhumanist Party, the Black Riders Liberation Party, and the United States Pirate Party.

In real life, of course, this country is still dominated by a two-party system, regardless of how many other political parties there are. That's unfortunate in many ways. Though our adaptation isn't likely to be a reality any time soon, it did ignite learning and discussion in addition to changing the dynamic of our game play.

Five Birthday Cakes - Stonework Play

I don't know whether to laugh, or cry, or smash something. 

I just read an article in the Deseret News titled, "Why Creativity Experts Believe Storytelling and Creating with Stones May Help Unleash Creativity in Young and Old."  It tells of an American education consultant's experience in 2011 in classrooms in Kathmandu, Nepal and how she revolutionized their education, using stones. Basically, she let the kids get out of their seats, go outside, and touch and handle and create and move and do. You know, the things kids are supposed to be doing.

My emotional response is due in part to the appearance that Nepalese children, who have nothing, are having a better experience than American children, who have everything. Why? Because somewhere along the way someone here decided that children should be treated as mechanical objects to be programmed and used and managed and controlled rather than as living, breathing, sensing beings full of life that need to be... living and breathing and sensing life. Somewhere along the way someone decided that things that can be counted count more than anything else--certainly more than happy, healthy children. And somewhere along the way everyone else got caught up in the counting and failed to notice that with all of our everything, we aren't giving our children anything that matters.

That this article was written as though it's the discovery of a lifetime makes my head spin. Hallelujah that people are seeing it--yes! But none of it is new. While this may be "uncharted territory" simply because in all our counting we've never counted this--it's the way children learned for years and years and years--in much happier, bygone days.

Read the article. And then take your kids outside.

Please, Mrs. Mitchell!

PLEASE, Mrs. Mitchell!  Homeschool Dennis!

Today's Dennis the Menace cartoon has me buzzing, if you can't tell. The idea that education, or life, is all about sitting still and conforming chaps my soul. There is a time and a place to be still, and children can and should learn, but being forced to sit still and stand in lines and sit still for 6-plus hours a day is abusive, plain and simple.  I can't do it, and don't know many adults who can. Why do we expect it of children? And to imply that a lack of focus is the fault of a child and not in any way the result of being in a stuffy room with 30 other children... all day... being tested, tested, tested instead of engaged in something worthwhile and interesting... at what point did simple sense escape Earth's atmosphere?  For my part, I often think and focus better when I'm... MOVING.

So I say to all the Mrs. Mitchell's out there, get your boy out of the classroom and outdoors. Don't feel badly. Edison's and Einstein's mothers were also told their sons weren't fit for school. Hallelujah that they weren't! 

While I Was an Ugly Duckling

H.P. Paull's 1872 English translation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling" concludes with the now beautiful swan saying,

"I never dreamed of such happiness as this, 

while I was an ugly duckling."

The loneliness and heartbreak of before was gone once this creature came to know who and what he really was. I've been thinking about this today as I began a literature unit with my children on the works of Hans Christian Andersen. I can't help but correlate it to the happiness, healing, and purpose that comes when one knows, above all else, that he or she is a beloved and eternal Child of God, created in the image of Heavenly Parents, possessing a divine nature and enormous potential. That knowledge changes everything. 

I've also been considering this phrase in relation to the realm of education. "The Ugly Duckling" is in many ways autobiographical. Hans Christian was very different from those around him and was often rejected in his personal life. No one today would say that he wasn't born to write stories, yet he was miserable as a student and had difficulties in his education:  he was a poor speller, was treated badly, and educators actually discouraged him from writing. Not surprisingly, however, it was exactly those things that he was not--stiff and artificially formal in his writing like the Victorians would have demanded--that made his stories so universal and wonderful. His was a unique voice and genius. He was not the ugly duckling his educators might have believed, but a beautiful creature who, thankfully, discovered who he was, spread his wings, and soared through the stories he gave the world. How often in today's approach to children and education do we confuse ducks and swans (and hens, robins, chickadees) and shame them for what they are not and hold them back from discovering who they are? How often do we work against them instead of with them?

Of course, I can't discuss "The Ugly Duckling" without also stopping to think of how I treat others. Was there a time that I labeled someone, made assumptions at first glance? Was there a time that I only saw what was on the outside, or didn't value someone for who they are? And that brings me to a most profound quote by C.S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory that I return to again and again to remind myself to be careful, because no one should ever feel like an ugly duckling.

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

Education for Life

I LOVE this!  Created by Karen DeBeus at SimplyLivingForHim.com (check out her blog, this woman has a great heart and head!) it echoes what I believe is so right and true. The purpose of education is NOT so one can pass a government test. Education is about molding hearts, heads, and hands for a productive mortal life and preparing for the progression of Eternal Life.

Becoming

Tonight was Seminary Graduation for my oldest child.  <Sigh.>  I have so many thoughts running through my head (many incomplete because I am both overwhelmed at the amount of stimuli and also emotionally tentative in wanting to see them through) that I don't know if anything I write here will be much more than rambling.  I remember this time of my life still very vividly and cannot believe it was as many years ago as it was and, except for the fact that it's very true and real, I cannot believe my firstborn is old enough to be "here."

My son spoke tonight, one of just two graduates of the 72 in our stake to be asked to do so, as a representative of our stake to Seminary Council.  He did a terrific job and it was one of those snippets in time when I was reassured that he's more mature than I sometimes think (or fear) and that no matter how much I may want to turn back the clock, he's ready and the time is right.  And, I like who he's become.

As we receive high school graduation announcements from friends and continue to experience many "lasts," I am forced to mull the educational choices we've made and to revisit what I believe.  I've never been one to be bothered by walking upstream or to be afraid of being different; in fact I kind of thrive on it.  At this point in time, however, I can't help but ponder just how different our choices have been.  When I see so many people I love and respect doing all the same things and going through all the same motions, I just... wonder.

I hate the system.  I hate the box.*  I hate the philosophies of men and the subsequent pervasive structures and organizations that turn into expectations and regulations.  I stiffen at hoops to jump through and forms to fill out. I'm finding that I value less and less documented achievement in the form of diplomas and degrees.  Yet I live in a world that emphasizes and embraces all of these things, and so many of my fellow mortal sojourners don't even hesitate to get in line. Again... I wonder.

But tonight, at Seminary Graduation, I heard some statements that really pinpoint the heart of what I believe and where I'm coming from, why I do what I do and choose what I choose.

First, my son shared this quote from Elder Neal A. Maxwell:

"As we look about us we perceive that unfortunately some Church members are in the 'broad' way; most are scattered all along the straight and narrow path.  The enlightened are moving forward steadily toward becoming men and women of Christ.  Others are moving, but only irregularly.  Some are dawdling.  Still others are milling round the exits and entrances.  A few have turned back or been turned aside."

He then talked about how now that he and his classmates will no longer have Seminary teachers and parents to daily nudge them toward prayer and scripture study and church attendance, it is up to each of them to choose these things for themselves.  They can leave these things behind them, or they can choose to keep them as part of their lives and to consciously endeavor to become men and women of Christ.

Then one of the Seminary teachers, as he presented the graduates, shared the following thoughts.

"We live in a world with an overabundance of information.  Wisdom gets lost in knowledge and knowledge gets lost in information.  We need to turn that around.  Information should turn into knowledge and knowledge should turn into wisdom."

 "The world wants you to know something; the Gospel of Jesus Christ wants you to become something."

It reminded me of 2 Nephi 9:28-29:

"O that cunning plan of the evil one!  O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men!  When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not.  And they shall perish.  

 But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God." 

Twenty some years ago when I was where my son is now, I was frustrated with what I did and did not know and at how little, I realized, my high school diploma meant.  Even as an A student, I felt that all it said was that I finished something someone said I had to do.  I suppose that it isn't fair to say it meant nothing, nor would it be correct to say that I hadn't been "becoming" in any way through my public schooling as all experiences join to mold us into whatever we are.  Certainly my graduation epiphany was the catalyst for me to want something different and to make deliberate choices that shaped who I've become so far and what my children are becoming.  I realized then what I believe now:   Not all information is of the same importance.  Likewise, not all knowledge has the same value.  It's not the certificates of achievement that matter--it's who you become.

*"The box" is the standardized, compartmentalized, one-size-fits-all approach to compulsory education.