Publish at October 11 2022 Updated April 17 2024
We are facing important professional social changes where diplomas are being replaced by competencies and hierarchical structures replaced by group structures and decision circles.
Schools are the last to mutate, they have been waiting, observing, experimenting little or no longer for over 30 years. Applied creativity is the key skill that has deserted the classrooms. Why?
In its desire to control quality and school settings, the educational system has had the effect of sterilizing, of neutralizing creative impulses and initiatives that go beyond the defined programs. And this sterilization has spread to the schools of education.
Is this a choice, a consequence? It's hard to say, because it also has to do with whether teachers are destined to become teachers or to stay in their jobs when they have worn out their motivation.
Do we want a future where what counts is to fit into a box called a diploma with a salary at the end?
Are we ready to step out of our comfort zones where, instead of foolishly reading the egalitarian textbook, the teacher is invited to show adaptability and agility in the face of his or her students in order to no longer fit them into a box, but to lead them to a professional goal.
This is a choice. The question is, do we still have the resources to implement the solution? And, if we don't have them anymore, how do we reformat the system to make it resilient and agile?
The traditional school form is becoming obsolete in many quarters, and this obsolescence is the common thread running through most of the issues and tensions that run through the school today from top to bottom, including the teacher himself whenever it is time to "do the class" or give voice to public debate. And as Einstein would have said, "We can't solve problems with the same way of thinking that created them. We need air to make the school breathe; we need a project, a projective and desirable image of a "completely different school". In short, school reform will be a cultural change or it will not be...
In our view, this eternal flattening is not the result of budget shortages. It is not the result of the inertia inherent in the status of teachers. Nor is it due to conservatism, which is said to be more active and more massive in education than elsewhere. It is rather, first of all, due to the weight of structures.
"When I was a pedagogical accompanier in a network [a federation of organizing authorities - Editor's note], I had set out to organize the implementation of project classes. It was incredible, it worked like a charm! At one point, the big boss said to me, "It's very nice what you're doing, but no more than 70 classes at a time. He kept his word, by the sixty-ninth I was screwed." Innovative teachers will tell you this after a few hours of flying, and many outside actors who collaborate with the school world quickly realize it: there is something fossilized in the school universe,...".
Source: In La Revue Nouvelle 2016/5 (No. 5) - L'école par (au moins) quatre chemins by Thomas Lemaigre - https:https://www.cairn.info/revue-nouvelle-2016-5-page-25.htm
Is the most comfortable solution for instructional management the one that actually serves a purpose? Is training wise and serious students what is necessary and desirable? That is the fundamental question to ask.
Whatever the field, it's the same thing. From the school of cartoons, the audiovisual professions to the school of Political Science or even the more academic law school, the same profile is sought: a student who stands out by his personality, his originality, his creativity... yet everything that one had to put on the back burner, or even hide, during his schooling.
In fact, they are looking for all the students who have been smothered slowly during their school years... And for those who have wisely managed to be in the mold, it will take time to get them out of it, out of this mold, so that they have the means to take risks, to invest themselves personally, to be creative beyond what they were taught, to put themselves forward, to be a force of proposal after years where they were offered everything they needed to know, to know, to do."
Source: https://matrajectoire.com/competences-professionnelles/
(Just a quick aside to thank all the teachers who fight so that the child can build himself while respecting his personality and creativity. Some caring, open-minded teachers who want to make sense of what schooling is all about are doing a wonderful job. Unfortunately, it is a struggle that must be fought within a system fraught with liabilities and inertia.)
So why, I say, are we doing in school the opposite of what parents naturally do to grow their children between the ages of 0 and 3? In school:
- Dreams have no place. School is something serious, and we learn to be reasonable and reasoned.
- Personal ideas disturb the course planned by the teacher, who respects a program.
- The imagination must follow a protocol: thesis, antithesis, synthesis, or must go through an expected theorem, so as not to get out of the defined evaluation criteria.
- Invention must be done elsewhere, at home or in leisure if all goes well. Rejected or even suppressed. Invention and creativity are stamped "error," "fault," or even "failure" because "failure to follow instructions" or "misunderstanding" ...
"Bad student"! Here we go!"
Source: https://matrajectoire.com/competences-professionnelles/
Creativity in neuroscience is defined as the ability to produce something new and adapted to a context. The criterion of adaptation is very important because it is possible to generate very original things by chance, but if it is not appropriate or does not meet a purpose or intention, it cannot be called creativity.
Creativity for us is a capability, not an outcome. What we study is primarily the ability of people to implement processes. This capacity is of course linked to the creative achievement of individuals in real life, but this is not the only factor, creativity is multidimensional."
Source: https://institutducerveau-icm.org/fr/creativite-neuroscience
You have to fit the mold to get good grades. Restrain one's originality, thus one's personality and ideas, so as not to disturb the intended learning.
How many times can one "fall" to learn one's first step? Hundreds of times when learning to walk. But in school, we don't have the opportunity for this exploration.
The first time we "fall" it passes, but we are already picked up with the idea that the result we achieved "isn't right," "not correct," "wrong," is a "mistake."
The second time, not only is the result judged just as negatively, but our gait or attitude, and quickly our person, takes a hit. "You're not doing things right," "you haven't learned," "you're not following directions," "you're not doing the right thing."
We're a far cry from what Edison teaches us in his famous quote, "I have not failed. I have simply found 10,000 solutions that don't work.". The mistake is no longer there to learn and elevate us. It installs doubt on our personal skills, and through them, on ourselves. Our self-confidence, worse, our self-esteem, begins to fail."
Source: https://matrajectoire.com/competences-professionnelles/
There are 3 main approaches, i.e., 3 categories of experimental tasks, to assess the creativity of individuals. These tasks are also used to explore the brain basis of creativity in neuroimaging.
So this type of problem allows us to study the ability to get out of the impasse, to change perspectives and restructure our mental conceptualization of the problem to consider other types of possible answers than those automatically and immediately evoked. The second aspect of creativity that these problems allow us to study is that of what we call insight.
In fact, these problems have the particularity of eliciting a phenomenon of "Eureka" (or insight), i.e., the solution comes to us very suddenly, without us being able to explain how the solution came to us, unlike a problem that is solved algorithmically or analytically, in which we are able to explain all the steps.
Source: https://institutducerveau-icm.org/fr/creativite-neuroscience/
...to be egalitarianized in the face of social dysfunction. This is a social necessity but not a professional goal to be achieved.
"The school must enable students to acquire the basic skills required for their professional and social integration into society. It is the responsibility of the compulsory school to offer all children entrusted to it the opportunity to develop under favorable conditions. However, the equity of our schools is being questioned. Indeed, not all children benefit from the same opportunities, for reasons beyond their control.
In its position paper on education policy "The city is a school", the Cities for Education Initiative defined in 2011 the field of action "Opportunities for all", which is a call for equal opportunities for students:
"Switzerland has a highly developed industry and service sector. In view of this situation, we cannot afford to make the success of education depend primarily on the language, origin and/or socio-economic background of children.
All children, regardless of their background, must be allowed to develop according to their abilities and aptitudes. Thereafter, they must take responsibility for themselves and for society."
Schools in urban centers are particularly challenged to ensure that all students can achieve appropriate minimum standards because of the heterogeneity of families. Where students come from should not impact their academic success."
Source: Equity in Schools: https://staedteinitiative-bildung.ch/cmsfiles/fr-equite_a_lecole.pdf
Gerold Lauber, President
"Equality is that all students must learn the same thing, in the same way, despite their different abilities. All must meet the same criteria, despite diverse needs and particularities. Equality is when everyone has bread and in the same quantity. Whether one is hungry or not, deficient or not able to eat everything.
Equity is meeting the needs of students according to their particularities and the way they learn. So that everyone can have the same chance to succeed, but differently. So that students with different characteristics can be treated accordingly to those differences. To give to all, always the same, implies aiming for "a common mold," where each person must be able to fit in to find his or her niche, whether or not he or she is capable of doing so, whether or not that mold allows him or her to thrive.
It is not selfish to want to stimulate more bright young people who will have much to give to society in return. Just as it's not selfish to take care of students who have different learning needs, respond accordingly, and give them more time to advance.
Just as you wouldn't ask a child with prosthetics to run as fast as everyone else. It doesn't imply that he can't walk on his own and that he can successfully complete the race with a little more time. And the kids who have Olympic athlete skills to learn, it's kind of sad to ask them not to express those beautiful strengths.
It's actually peculiar that we detect future athletes early and train them specifically to develop their full potential, but at the intelligence level, we don't find it necessary to do so. What if along the way, through boredom, disinterest and lack of appreciation, we lose a phenomenal amount of future intellectual athletes? As well as everything they could have given back to society."
Source: https://centrehapax.com/2020/08/equite-scolaire-plutot-que-legalite-eleve-surdoue-2/
Image source: DepositPhotos - apid
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