C – Creative Thoughts

C – Creative Thoughts

When I started teaching in 1973, I was part of a unique group of teachers in a newly formed school district. I taught 6th grade. 

What made us unique was everything was new in the school I worked in. I was one of six new 6th-grade teachers. The middle school we were hired to teach in had just been built, though as 6th-grade teachers, we did not start working in the physical middle school until two years after the new high school building had been completed.

This teaching position was exciting because we had yet to set a curriculum. The New York State Education Department had published its recommended curriculum, but most had not been mandated yet. Even though we adopted most of the recommendations, we were free to teach it the way we thought best.

There was a lot of planning in those early years. Our union was just getting its feet wet, so there were no contractual restrictions on how much time we were asked to spend planning during and outside school hours. And plan we did. As a group, we met about ten hours every week between faculty meetings and grade-level meetings, in addition to our own time outside of school hours, developing our curriculum and discovering our teaching styles. 

As the years of teaching in the district passed, I maintained that focus. I always tried something new that I hadn’t done the previous year. I discarded and initiated programs and projects that kept me excited about my work. I applied for grants and got them to fund innovative projects. I was the first to bring the Internet into a classroom and helped to wire up my elementary school so that other classes could engage in online learning and sharing. 

My students benefited from my excitement as I created several project-oriented learning experiences. One such experience was the $60,000 inheritance project, in which each student would inherit that amount of money, provided they spent it according to some conditions I set up. After three weeks of working on this project, where each student had to search through catalogs for things to buy, find out car prices, research stock prices, keep an accounting record of money spent, and learn how to use a spreadsheet, one student came up to me and asked, “When are we going to start doing math again?” not even aware that they had been doing more math than ever before.

Another experience was teaching the geography of the United States, Canada, and Mexico by taking the class on a virtual year-long field trip to those countries. Students had to find out gas and airplane costs, sights to visit on their travels, and report about things they learned. My favorite event happened by chance when we were visiting Canada. It was a snowy school day, and enough snow was on the athletic field for me to utilize the Physical Education Department’s cross-country skis, so we skied through Canada that day in the school’s backyard. 

Not only was my creative mind at work throughout all of this, but the planning that went on in the student’s minds as we worked grew and flourished. 

Truth be told, I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Jump ahead to where education had come to when I retired in 2006. I left teaching just as more mandates from the state and institutionalized programs were being brought into the district. So many of those teachers still in the field have no time to tap into their creative talents. Until COVID hit in 2020, more district-wide writing programs that have been adopted focused more on form and rules than creative thought. I was subbing in a class where a consultant to the district was demonstrating a lesson to other teachers and told the 3rd graders, “Today, we are going to do some free writing. Here’s what you have to do.”

The math curriculum is now a district continuum. Students follow a strict sequence of how to do math. There is no way, I could determine, that a teacher could encourage a student who figured out a unique way of solving a math problem to do it that way. The tests require that you show your work and that it conforms to the prescribed method. 

Planning is easy. Just follow the guides set by the district or company supplying the program. 

As a writer and a storyteller, I have suggested to teachers that I could help by conducting storytelling or writing workshops or performances, which research shows have improved learning and creativity. In response, I usually get, “That sounds like a great idea, but we don’t have enough time to put it into our plans. We don’t even have enough time to accomplish what we’re supposed to.” 

 The consequences of education choices are dire. We need to acknowledge this truth and move forward, not stagnate. 

As famed educator and advisor Sir Ken Robinson has said, “Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement. And it’s the one thing that I believe we are systematically jeopardizing in the way we educate our children and ourselves.” 

It’s time to reawaken our and our children’s minds and allow our creativity to enhance what we do.