NCCE workshop - Chris Hayden and Allan Dunn - Cool Tools 4 Tech Teachers

This workshop was a complete disappointment. But there was one valuable aspect that came from it—a video he shared of a guy named Sir Ken Robinson talking about education and creativity.

He said, “Kids starting in school today will retire in 2065, but we have no idea what the world will look like in 5 years – yet we’re supposed to prepare them for the world.” What does this mean for us as teachers and places of “education” and “preparation for the world”? He thinks it means that we need to teach kids to be creative. I would add adaptive to change (King’s message) He argues that we educate out of students the ability to be creative. That kids, at a very young age, are artists, and creative, etc. As adults, we are no longer those things. I think there is some truth to that, not completely. I think there’s some developmental stuff that goes on as we age that tells us to be more self-conscious and not free feel like we’re great at everything we do, but I grant that we educators hone in on only a select group of skills, creativity is not necessarily one of them. He talked about how in all cultures across the world we list the same subjects as our priority and art as the least priority. Among the subjects in art, theater and dance are at the bottom. Why? He then talks about academics, you know, the professor-types, that see their bodies as used only for transporting their brains, really one half of their brains, from place to place.

There is some very scary truth to this. Just think that back when I was in college, grad school even! No one had laptops! My transition from college to real world is so different, and we had no idea. What I am that has allowed me to function is adaptable. Open to change, curious, risk-taking, and shall I say, creative? Imagine what our students will encounter when they leave school. Are these the bare minimum skills we need to teach? I don't think that's in the GLEs.

Check out the video at http://tedblog.typepad.com/tedblog/2006/06/sir_ken_robinso.html#