Remember when we were younger, playing in a sandbox? We weren’t concerned with whether or not our castles were perfect; we learned what worked and what didn’t by experimentation. How much water? How much sand? How tall can we build before it collapses? Yet somehow that sense of play and creativity fades over time as we age.
And it’s disappearing at an earlier age than ever before.
Many students today are suffering from an acute case of creative paralysis. The culture of continual standardized testing, along with the stigma attached to earning poor grades, has given us a particular kind of learner: the answer checkers.
You can identify these students by their eagerness to find out if they have given the right answer, regardless of the learning implicit behind the question. They are not interested in learning so much as they are interested in being right and earning the points and praise associated with being right.
When students and teachers lose sight of the learning in a classroom and focus solely on external reward, we create a motivation that disconnects us from the needs of the world our students will face.
Not all learning in life has a right answer. Not often in our adult lives do these opportunities to pencil in a bubble or fill in the blank present themselves as part of our daily work. More often, we are asked to problem solve, be creative or evaluate the benefits and disadvantages of many possible options (rarely A, B, C or D).
We need to find ways to ask students to be creative and solve problems. We need to create a classroom and school culture that allows us to fail and revisit those failures to see true growth in learning.
In my time as both an English and technology teacher I have seen firsthand what can be done to begin to foster this creative sense in students.
Teachers and families need to model healthy responses to failure. How often do we simply give up in front of students because of our lack of comfort or skill with something new to us: a piece of technology, a difficult math problem, a challenging piece of reading?
Let’s make sure that we all persist and model that persistence for our students.
Failure alone is not progress. Learning comes from reflecting on our failures and devising a new approach to achieving those goals. Do we accept responsibility for our failures and explicitly plan for our next attempt with our students? How might we better show students what we are thinking when we have another try at a difficult learning experience?
We need to embrace academic risk-taking. If the culture in our classrooms and living rooms is one in which we shut down anything that is not “the correct response,” no one will dare venture a guess that leads them closer to true learning.
Take the time to honor the creative tasks kids engage in all on their own. It is possible your child’s Minecraft adventures have led him to some amazing creations and discoveries. Your child might be learning some fundamental math skills by braiding you yet another elastic bracelet.
The YouTube channel your teen maintains might be teaching him or her important communication skills, marketing techniques and branding. It is important we ask our students how they have been creative and in what ways they have tried to overcome a difficult problem.
The answer checkers in our society are rapidly being replaced by automation. Why memorize the 50 state capitols when you can ask Siri or Google? In our highly connected and fast-paced economy we need people who are capable of picking up new learning frequently, even if it means stumbling along the way.
Many employers now say that skills like persistence, leadership and collaboration are as important as the academic and technical skills that were so important for success in the last generation of American workers.
In my time working with students, I can honestly say that the biggest obstacle for the majority of them is not their deficits in academics like math and reading, but their willingness to keep trying in systems that have found numerous ways to look for their failures.
If you believe you cannot learn something new, that your past will dictate your future, regardless of your efforts, then school and society has failed you. And that is a collective failure we need to find a way to openly and honestly address.
Jeffrey Bailey, who teaches technology to grades nine through 12 at Mountain Valley High School, is the 2014 Oxford County Teacher of the Year.