tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post5294863371752533215..comments2024-02-16T08:32:46.618+00:00Comments on Donald Clark Plan B: Let’s ban the word ‘creative’ in education….Donald Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00796341486328270474noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-36388020820042052552015-06-03T09:29:36.349+00:002015-06-03T09:29:36.349+00:00Ken Robinson's desire for teachers to engage a...Ken Robinson's desire for teachers to engage all the kids in the classroom through more creative teaching methods is (a) worthy (b) not new - he would be the first to admit that good teachers do this naturally.<br /><br />What is problematical is that the vast majority of teachers are in effect products of factory style education and many are zombified by bad management. Many of them work at a school since there is a routine and would not survive outside the institution, so they are inherently lacking in creativity. The good ones are considered weird by a system that uses regression to the mean as it's primary drive.<br /><br />So, Ken's exhortations are not inherently bad, but the application of them by crap public sector managers is bad and the 'raw materials' i.e. the teachers are, for the most part, not able or willing to step up to the challenge of better and more engaging teaching. This is confounded by numbskulls in Government who invent more checklists, grids and algorithms for teachers to follow, enforced by even more mindless people at Ofsted.<br /><br />PeterPeter Cookhttp://www.academy-of-rock.co.uknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-89543099183302895092015-06-02T18:41:57.076+00:002015-06-02T18:41:57.076+00:00Thanks Carl. Always appreciate your input. I'm...Thanks Carl. Always appreciate your input. I'm not against all abstract words, far from it, only those that seem to be used without any real understanding of what is meant when they are uttered or written. There is a literature around creativity that attempts to define creativity, which I discussed in some detail in my pice on Ken Robinson. My beef is that the majority of Robonson acolytes are shooting blind, making no real effort to define creativity or come up with practical ideas. I also agree with the comparison with rote learning in other parts of the world but to caricature our schools as prisons or factories, devoid of cretaivity is really throwing the baby out with hte bathwater. True, it's not black and white, but that's what I'm accusing those who fetishise creativity of doing, at the expense of subtlety, vocational skills and the real needs in schools. I'm not speaking as a philistine here. I'm the Deputy Chair of a large arts organisation but I have become weary with the endless rhetoric around the topic, which, as I say, is largely down to Robinson's TED talks. Those, I have no time for http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=RobinsonDonald Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00796341486328270474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-51229477021227498612015-06-02T18:03:33.849+00:002015-06-02T18:03:33.849+00:00Hi Donald,
I think you're in danger of throwi...Hi Donald,<br /><br />I think you're in danger of throwing the baby out with the proverbial here. As seems to happen with discussions these days, one can quickly get tired of certain words which are bandied about ad nauseam on the internet. But we banish some such words at our peril. 'Creativty' may be a vague term, but so is 'freedom', 'knowledge' and even 'learning'. Vague terms, in fact, dominate natural language and should not be dismissed just because they are vague.<br /><br />Most Western schooling is much more creative than, say, education in a madrassa and that is something to be lauded. Creativity - as you know (I'm not lecturing here, just noting) - is best when it is rigorous, and it is certainly possible to set rigorous tasks which require creative input from students, rather than repetition or rote. In most conversations between Western educators and those in China and India there is some kind of discussion about how to move from less rote to more creative tasks and assessment - and I think with good reason.<br /><br />It is not black and white. At one end of the spectrum there is hidebound rote learning, of little use outside totalitarian systems. At the other is perhaps the overly progressive guff tried out in many schools in this country and much criticized by many sensible people. But in the middle there is a ton of stuff to do with getting students to think for themselves, design projects, put together new material from different disciplines etc which is significant for its creativity. If something is not rigorous, let's make it more so, rather than banning the over-arching idea.carl gombrichhttp://www.carlgombrich.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-17612349711423072802015-06-01T23:11:45.868+00:002015-06-01T23:11:45.868+00:00To be fair Chris. reading that 'Playing...'...To be fair Chris. reading that 'Playing...'sentence again - you're right, it's a bit harsh - I've deleted it but stand by the rest of the paragraph.Donald Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00796341486328270474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-88970399130333680362015-06-01T23:03:48.841+00:002015-06-01T23:03:48.841+00:00One could but it seems to me that saying teachers ...One could but it seems to me that saying teachers are no more creative than most other people, and I include myself, seems less than offensive and quite possibly true.Donald Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00796341486328270474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21077063.post-36584808134111031852015-06-01T22:59:43.981+00:002015-06-01T22:59:43.981+00:00"Playing Devil’s advocate, one could argue th..."Playing Devil’s advocate, one could argue that going into teaching shows a less than convincing attitude towards risk and creative output. That is not to attack teachers or teaching but to recognise that most real teaching skills are not fundamentally, creative tasks. It’s a blood, sweat and tears practice." Playing devil's advocate one could argue that Myth 6 in particular is patronising and offensive http://st-peters.bournemouth.sch.uk/photo/2014/08/06/dear-risk-taking-youve-changed/chris francishttp://devnicely.co.uknoreply@blogger.com