Creativity in Public Schools

In addition to the readings this week, we also were asked to watch a video on the failings of public schools and creativity. I have to admit that once I saw that it was a twenty minute video, I was reluctant to watch it, but the speaker quickly got my attention with his humor and I was hooked. I enjoyed the video so much that I forwarded it to the faculty in my school.

The speaker makes some compelling arguments for why the public schools are failing and why we need to allow kids to be creative and actually assist them in finding whatever avenue suits them best. As a society, I think we have failed our students with our push of standardized testing and the notion that every child must fit a certain mold. As the speaker states, if we don’t try and fail at new creative endeavors, we will no longer create anything new and exciting.

In chapter fourteen, Ashburn/Floden make some valid and strong points for affordances. However, one of their strongest points seems to revolve around technology. They state, “The main point is that teachers cannot know or evaluate every possible technology that might be useful, but they need to learn strategies for choosing and evaluating a few technologies until they develop a portfolio that infuses their teaching with appropriate tools” (p. 157). This is a huge point that is often overlooked by administrators. Many times, teachers are given an over abundance of technology and the thought is that some if not all will stick. This reasoning does not only not work, but can also be detrimental to the psyche of a teacher who has a technology phobia. The more times teachers feel unsuccessful with technology, the more likely the will be resistant to using it in their classrooms.

Those teachers that struggle with technology must find a way to balance all this new technology and their old teaching practices. Ashburn/Floden state, “The teacher learns through her own experience how students respond to activities that use the technology, what activities are effective, what strategies and routines are beneficial, and a host of other complex knowledge about how the technology works in her classroom” (p. 158). I think that this is important to note. Not all classes are the same and not all students are the same. From year to year, how students respond to certain technology will vary and this can be dependent on learning styles, abilities, or past uses of technology. Every teacher must figure out on his/her own what works for any given class. Sometimes what works for one class will not work for the next.

A striking statistic that I found in Ashburn/Floden is that “even though the numbers have improved--- the student-to-computer ratio in the United States has decreased to about six to one” (p. 159). This makes it extremely difficult for a teacher to assign work to be done on a computer, when many students don’t have access to one at home. I know that many people feel that the students have access to pcs in school, but it all depends on their schedule. Many students, particularly those who are struggling students, do not have any study halls because all their free periods are take up by extra help classes, which basically only leaves lunch time when certain students came find their way to a computer. How to remedy that situation, I have no ideas. It seems that technology is only going to create a larger gap between the have’s and have not’s.