Several years ago, Sir Ken Robinson gave a rousing TED Talk about the new revolution in education. His message: Schools must cultivate creativity. It was the same message that we read about in the radical 70’s with writers like Jonathan Kozol, George Dennison and Postman & Weingartner. Schools need to inspire student learning not squash it. Now with the controversy over the use of standardized tests to measure teacher performance, I’ve had to wonder: “What did I miss? Where’s the revolution? Is it over or did it never happen? It’s the same old dehumanizing and life-hating notion of education that has always been around”. A long time ago, George Bernard said it best:” My education was interrupted most during the time that I spent in school”. So how can we account for this startling lack of awareness among the powers that be? They just don’t get it.
I believe the underlying cause is at least three fold, the separate but related reasons of 1. a profound disdain for the spontaneity of joyfulness of children 2. an ignorance of the relationship between emotions and learning and 3. a need to control what can’t really be measured quantitatively, or in other words, a need to control everything.
Should we despair at the thought that after all these years, nothing has really changed, and for the foreseeable future, probably won’t change? I think not. There are teachers that get it but they may be few and far between. How can one distinguish them for all the rest?
