CNN currently has a news link titled Six Steps to Creative Breakthroughs. They are:
- Look behind you - Investigate the history of what worked, what did not work, and what might have worked given different scenarios.
- Lose the routine - In other words, 'Play!' This might be reading, hitting seminars, attending conferences, etc. Taking time away from the routine of preparing, teaching, grading can have great rewards.
- Use the brains you hired - Let employees (i.e., teachers snd ) take risks and not be penalized for failure.
- Get cozy with customers - Get to know the needs of students, parents, and the community.
- Share the load - Use resources in house, at the local college, or in the community to get things done.
- Try to fail quickly - Quickly move from thinking about change, to doing it. Set benchmarks to determine if the innovation is working. Commit but don't be afraid to admit defeat.
These steps are powerful if put in terms of K-12 education. I wonder how many schools are willing to embrace this mentality? Should they?
Jayson W. Richardson
University of North Carolina Wilmington
In Pune, India, many educationalists like Dr. Arun Nigvekar have come together to form Seamless Education Academy, that is the first and only Creativersity in India. they have very recently launched a blog (www.seamlesseducationacademy.blogspot.com) as well. it seems here that they want to give a focus to the creative genius in their students in RJ, Sound Engineering, Gemmology, Animation and Broadcast Media. i think that initiatives like these are a ray of hope and really need to be commended.
Thanks for the great synopsis of what we need to keep in the forefront. I think that number three is especially important because we cannot truly move forward without teachers being on-board.
I keep coming back to a blog post by Larry Ferlazzo last week where he noted the difference between involvement and engagement. Ferlazzo was talking about this in terms of parents when he said,"when we’re involving parents, ideas and energy tends to come from the schools and from government mandates. When we’re engaging parents, ideas tend to be elicited from parents by school staff in the context of developing trusting relationships."
I think that his comments are true with teachers as well. We need to engage all stakeholders in order to gain momentum for the changes that all of us need to make!