Learning and Creativity

Inefficiency Experts

“In business we have efficiency experts, but where are the inefficiency experts? We need them as well, because a workplace that is devoted only to productivity may suffer serious loss of enchantment.”

             Thomas Moore (The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life)

My sons were fortunate enough to have an elementary school mathematics teacher who taught entire lessons using Leggo toys, Play School people and sometimes even Barbie dolls. She made a subject that could be dry and academic, both fun and entertaining. They also had teachers who handed out a stack of paper covered with math problems, then sat at her desk while they labored. The difference in what and how much they learned was like night and day.

I've had many conversations over the last few weeks about the failure of the schools in my city to educate children. Everyone agrees that the most devastating change in education is the insertion of testing and measuring to the exclusion of all else. Children learn best in an experiential environment, where they can bring all five of their senses to bear on the target lesson. When we began evaluating exclusively through test taking, both for teachers and children, we took the enchantment out of learning. Let's face it, children are all about having fun; their job is to imagine and play. When education brings play into the equation, children learn without effort.

I heard a snippet of an interview yesterday in which the researcher said fewer than thirty percent of our children are entering college with the ability to think critically and problem solve. Education is not stuffing facts into categories and memorizing them for a test. Education is engaging the whole human being in the love of learning. And love is a soul function. When we take the soul (I am not talking about religion here) out of the classroom and replaced it with testing, we lose the heart of education itself.

As adults, most of us function best in a workplace where we mix individual productivity with camaraderie; where we have teams for brainstorming and creative problem solving; where we learn through the exchange of ideas, and where everybody brings their individual skills and talents to the table. Our children function best in this kind of climate too. If we want them to become productive adults, we should teach them in a way that fosters their creativity and enjoyment of the work itself.

                                       In the spirit,

                                      Jane