Changing Education Paradigms

I really like this video from Sir Ken Robinson. I first heard Sir Ken Robinson when I saw his TED talk called Do Schools Kill Creativity?. This video is 11 minutes long and worth it to watch. His themes resonate with me and many others. I can see how modern education has boxed students into "academic" or "non academic" and how this limits human potential and creativity. He makes the point that our current system came of age during the age of industrialism and serves the interests of industrialism. His point is that education is modeled in the image of industrialism (schools are run on bells, subjects are separate, facilities are separate, kids are separated by age groups) and the production line mentality of education which includes more and more standardized testing is what is killing divergent thinking (the ability to see lots of possible answers or ways to interpret a question). Of 1500 kindergartners tested for divergent thinking the percentage of them who were scored at genius level were 98%. These same kindergartners were re-tested 5 years later and scored 50%. Are our educational institutions killing divergent thinking which is a vital part of creativity? As a teacher in the 21st century, how can I create a classroom that fosters and encourages divergent thinking? How can I foster my own divergent thinking and become a better model for my students?

Here are some ideas on how we can do this (I'm practicing my divergent thinking right now!)

• engage in new activities regularly
• if something seems difficult, it's probably worth doing
• do it and learn new ways of solving problems
• free write in a journal daily
• look at an object and think of as many different uses for it as possible
• participate in improvisational skits/drama
• play word association games
• write choose your own adventure stories (I used to love those books!)
• describe how ideas look, taste, feel, sound, and smell
• solving riddles, puzzles, and brain teasers
• brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm!