Robinson explains that a teacher’s job is to be creative; a teacher’s job is not to deliver information. So often, we believe our goal is to get information to students. Yes, that’s important, but, as Robinson says, our other goals are to “mentor, stimulate, provoke, engage” and “if there is no learning going on, there is no education going on” (Source).
Many of my colleagues are “engaged in the task of teaching but not actually fulfilling it” (Source). What should a teacher be doing? Back in January of 2012, I wrote the “Superteachers” series stemming from my six years of teaching experience. I first defined the term “superteacher” and then listed a few qualities that separate a teacher from a superteacher. Those qualities include creativity; a passion for learning; obviously doing the work (engaging in the act of teaching but also the act of learning); optimism; and mentorship/developing leadership potential. To learn more about the series, please click here.
Robinson tells us in his TED Talk that the one and only role of a teacher is “to facilitate learning” (Source). Learning doesn’t come from lecturing. It comes from collaboration, discussion, and activity. In order to join the teaching and learning revolution, one must make a commitment to the qualities Robinson describes in his TED Talk as well as the qualities of a superteacher. What additional qualities do you think a superteacher possesses? How would you define “superteacher” ?
The amazing articles I read this week all have to do with education. Superteachers, you’ll be pleased with these three! Gekker examines how to make sure learning takes place in the classroom; Gatto wants us to take back our education; and Dlugan analyzes Sir Ken Robinson’s famous TED Talk “Schools kill creativity.”
Katherine Gekker’s “The Struggle to Ensure that Learning Takes Place” covers her experience with students who fail her English class. She talks about catching a student plagiarizing an essay; the student, as they often do, denies plagiarism occurred. Gekker writes:
“Finally Helen admitted that a friend ‘helped’ her write the paper—but contended there was nothing wrong with that.
‘When someone else does the work for you, no learning took place,’ I said.
She seemed baffled, questioning what I meant by ‘no learning took place.’
It was my turn to be baffled by a student who did not seem to understand the basic point of college” (Source).
Gekker’s story about Helen (not the student’s real name, of course) resonates with me because as an English and Public Speaking teacher, I so often see plagiarism. It comes in many forms. Students copy and paste essays from the Internet; they have friends or family members write their papers for them; or they just forget to cite sources properly. It seems to me that students who purposefully plagiarize are the saddest kind of students… These people care nothing about learning.
Gekker’s struggle to see students learn – even if they have to learn through failure – relates directly to John Taylor Gatto’s “Take Back Your Education.” Garr Reynolds Tweeted the article last week, and I enjoyed it so much that I’ve been re-reading it over and over. Gatto discusses the problem Gekker and other English teachers face each day. Gatto’s first line hit me hard; he writes, “Nobody gives you an education. If you want one, you have to take it” (Source). This is something I see in every class I teach. A rare few students hunger and thirst for learning; they want to learn so badly that it’s oozing out of them. They understand the importance of learning and that a teacher’s job is to facilitate learning and not to transfer an education into them by osmosis.
Gatto writes, “Only you can educate you—and you can’t do it by memorizing. You have to find out who you are by experience and by risk-taking, then pursue your own nature intensely. School routines are set up to discourage you from self-discovery” (Source). And this idea leads me to one of my favorite TED Talks of all time: Sir Ken Robinson’s “Schools Kill Creativity.” Watch it here.
Andrew Dlugan of Six Minutes analyzes ”Schools Kill Creativity” and does a masterful job of it. Robinson’s speech is masterfully crafted and delivered, and his message is one I come back to again and again as I think about education. Does the education system itself create students who care nothing about learning? These ideas from Gekker, Gatto, and Robinson will certainly plague me well into the weekend.
Superteachers, what great things have you been reading this week?
On Friday, when I came home from an insanely long day of work, my husband handed me a package from the library. I’d forgotten I’d even asked to check out Sir Ken Robinson’s Out Of Our Minds, and since the book had been such a long waiting list, I assumed I’d get it in sometime in 2013. I started reading it this morning, and I love it!
Throughout history, great presenters had a delivery “flaw.” Consider Barbara Walters’ rhotacism, Winston Churchill’s lisp, or Moses’s stutter (Source). One of my favorite films on the subject is The King’s Speech, an absolutely beautiful movie based on King George VI’s overcoming a stammer.
Take Sir Ken Robinson for example. Robinson contracted polio when he was four years old, and you can see that he has difficulty walking at the beginning of the TED Talk below.
Despite Robinson’s inability to move around the stage, every other element of his delivery is flawless. Note his strong eye contact with the audience, his meaningful facial expressions, the energy in his voice, his authentic smile, etc.
All speakers must overcome delivery challenges to become amazing presenters. What is your greatest delivery challenge? How are you working to overcome that obstacle?
Superteachers embody five key qualities. Part One on Creativity covers the first of these five qualities. You can review Superteachers: An Introduction here.
Creativity in education seems like an oxymoron with the stack of standardized tests, long and boring lectures, and busy work. Superteachers know that the modern system of education with its emphasis on standardized testing does not work. Sir Ken Robinson emphasizes creativity in education. Robinson “is an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation” (Source). Watch his assessment of modern education here:
“Imagination is not the same as creativity. Creativity takes the process of imagination to another level. My definition of creativity is ‘the process of having original ideas that have value.’ Imagination can be entirely internal. You could be imaginative all day long without anyone noticing. But you never say that someone was creative if that person never did anything. To be creative you actually have to do something. It involves putting your imagination to work to make something new, to come up with new solutions to problems, even to think of new problems or questions.
You can think of creativity as applied imagination” (Source).
I love Robinson’s definition because creativity and imagination are all but gone from the classroom. Why? And how can we as superteachers work to infuse creativity in coursework?
A regular teacher lectures, assigns reading from books, distributes homework, and grades students based on a standardized test. A superteacher knows none of that works. The opposite of creativity is lecture. Confucius lived around 500 BC and explained, “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” Superteachers focus on doing so that students can create, apply, and, ultimately, understand. Superteachers know that lecture doesn’t work.
NPR’s “Physicists Seek To Lose The Lecture As Teaching Tool” explains that listening to someone talk is not an effective way to learn any subject (Source). The article focuses on Harvard physics professor Eric Mazur. Mazur is a superteacher. He also used to lecture. Mazur realized, however, that a “traditional lecture-based physics course produces little or no change in most students’ fundamental understanding of how the physical world works” (Source). What does he do now? Instead of lecture, Mazur superteaches using discussion (he calls it “peer instruction”) and application. If lecture doesn’t work, superteachers find something that does work to teach students. How? They get creative.
Like Eric Mazur, Dr. Tae is an example of a creative superteacher. Dr. Tae believes students can’t learn by just sitting there, and he wants to build a new culture of teaching and learning. Since school sucks, superteachers have to transform education into something that actually focuses on learning. Unlike school, learning does NOT suck. Watch Dr. Tae’s take on education:
Dr. Tae’s ideas on education resonate with me because he focuses on the university level, and I teach in higher education. We hold our universities in such high regard but, really, the education most students receive is depersonalized. College students are not engaged; they’re asleep, emailing, and Facebooking. There is no lively exchange of ideas. So how do we get education to be a place where learning occurs?
Pann Baltz says, “Although most people might look for signs of creativity in the appearance of the bulletin boards, student made projects, centers, and displays in a classroom, I feel that the truly creative classroom goes way beyond what can be seen with the eyes. It is a place where bodies and minds actively pursue new knowledge. Having a creative classroom means that the teacher takes risks on a daily basis and encourages his/her students to do the same” (Source). Superteachers are creative. They don’t do what all the other teachers do. They don’t want depersonalized education; they want every single student in their class to feel engaged and connected. Superteachers want students participating.
In “Creativity in Education,” Morris offers a wonderful view of what creativity looks like in the classroom. When the classroom environment is more creative, students feel comfortable showing their curiosity. They question and protest information. Since students feel free to challenge information, they work together to see that information more clearly. Together, they make connections between ideas. Those connections allow students to see what is AND what could be; those connections allow students to see and to evaluate the world around them. The students get to the answers together, and collaboration forces each student to actively participate in learning. Together, students explore ideas, and they hear many ideas from multiple points of view. This allows students to be more open-minded to both ideas and results. Students also have the freedom to constructively criticize not only material but one another to push everyone to a higher state of being – a better state of learning (Source).
In my class, I use many tools to push my students out of “sit back and listen to boring lecture” mode and into “creative thinking” mode. To get to that higher level of understanding, we use group discussion; group presentations; student-led teaching and discussion; participation and play using many of the suggestions from Garr Reynolds’ The Naked Presenter text; and application. What tools do you use to enhance creativity in your classroom? Please share with us in the “Comments” section!
In his TED Talk “On Music and Passion,” Benjamin Zander says that the goal of a musical conductor is to make his audience’s eyes shine. Shining eyes come from the passion people feel from hearing, witnessing, and feeling beautiful creativity. He says you can use this tool as a parent: Who are you being that your children don’t have shining eyes? I think you can use this tool as a teacher: Who are you being that your students don’t have shining eyes? (Source).
For my current course, we spend a fair amount of time discussing storytelling in presentations. The students’ first presentation is a Narrative Introductory Speech to introduce themselves to me and to their classmates, and we cover the importance of narrative in all speeches.
We examine Sir Ken Robinson’s “Schools Kill Creativity” TED Talk to see how Robinson masterfully incorporates storytelling in his speeches, and then we move on to crafting the Narrative Introductory Speeches with the help of a flash fiction piece called “How To Touch A Bleeding Dog” by Rod Kessler. This is definitely one of my favorite classes because it incorporates two of my greatest loves: storytelling and public speaking. Please view a portion of my lecture below.
Feel free to ask any questions you may have about the lecture content or visual presentation. You can always email me at alexrister1@gmail.com.
