'How secondary schools stop kids being creative...'

This little article makes interesting - though not surprising - reading. I expect a reasonably intelligent person would find similar creativity-crushing influences in a primary school if they knew what they were looking for.

About 4 years ago I read an article by an author/researcher who believed that the restriction on weapon/hero/adventure play in nurseries and schools was stifling boys' creativity. When I discussed it with someone at the time, they thought it was a total overexaggeration. I'm not so sure; I remember the time when my nearly-5 year old ds1 decided to stop drawing aeroplanes after one of the private nursery staff told him he mustn't draw guns on it. Considering he'd barely lifted a writing implement until a few months previous, it was such a frustratingly annoying thing and my heart went out to my little boy.

Anyway, back to the article in the blog title...I've snipped a bit of the original, to give the gist of it:

'How secondary schools stop kids, especially boys, being creative - by a top children's author' The Times Online 9 Febhttp://timesonline.typepad.com/schoolgate/2009/02/how-secondary-s.html


"To be creative, you have to be wrong most of the time. Unfortunately, being wrong doesn’t go down very well at school. In fact, I think creativity is being educated out of kids when they get into Secondary School, and it’s a big problem....

...I often get the impression that teachers are drawn to the ideas from their girl pupils, whereas the imaginative world of the boys seems mysterious – sometimes even dangerous. I can sympathise with teachers who are afraid to be seen to be encouraging violent thoughts. But most boys’ imaginations run most quickly to two extremes: the violent and the absurd. I happen to think that’s exciting, but teachers seem to want to foster creativity within certain ‘safe’ parameters. Creativity is not safe.

I would love to see, in the context of an English lesson, the classroom transformed into an environment which rewards wacky, crazy-stupid and yes, even sometimes violent ideas. Until it is, boys’ creativity will continue to be ‘educated’ out of them at the upper end of Primary Schools and the lower end of Secondary Schools. And they will continue to give up on reading..."

And 'The Booker Prize' goes to...Jack the dog!

The storm kettle has arrived!!

Jack seems to think we've bought him a new dog toy.

(And no, I don't normally keep camping equipment on the lounge floor)

Are you wondering why my blogging has suddenly become more frequent? Displacement activity of course...still haven't done my homework from last term's writing course (er, yeah, the one that was meant to be in several weeks before Christmas).

I can do the week-to-week writing stuff, cos that's fun, but can't seem to summon up enough mental energy to complete anything longer. Besides, with my short attention span, it's far more fun to start something and ditch it for something new the following week, than to persevere and stick to it. Ho hum..sounds scarily like my attitude to home educating.

We did something in a class the other week that was fun. We took a piece of writing that each of us had been working on, printed it out, cut it up into its separate words and then rearranged it to make interesting sentences. Here are some of the ones I came up with:

'Who am I? I rise with unfamiliar legs, waffle-dusting the fluff with each of my functional toes.'

'Coordinated clouds weave wooden skylarks in A minor'

'I notice that a metal head can strangle the line of aesthetic'

I quite like the idea of waffle-dusting with my toes, particularly if they are functional. I'm not sure how difficult waffle-dusting would be if you didn't have functional toes.

The original piece was a descriptive essay about 3 different beds. Most of the sentences were far improved in the muddled around product. Ok, so it was a bit dodgy in places where I had to try and make a sentence out of the leftover words (3 'and' s and 4 'bed' s and 1 'duvet'- not a great combination for exciting writing). But it's a fun technique to give 'added value' to writing - a bit like turning boring old potatoes into a pack of fab cheese and onion flavour crisps. And yeah, I write alot of potatoes...

So I now feel inspired to do something similar with the children (no, I don't mean cutting them up with scissors and rearranging their parts, though there are days when that might be tempting). I thought I might take some poems or song lyrics, preferably ones that they know fairly well, and get them to chop them up and rearrange them into something else. Of course I haven't told the kids that I'm going to do that.

Hmm...I'm not quite sure how to approach it with the kids. I have to totally not emphasise the possible educational slant (a guaranteed put-off). Though if I just leave some printed poems with a pair of scissors on the table, in the hope that a child might get the urge to cut it up and rearrange it, I'm not sure they would tune into my subtle approach. And of course the dog might just go and eat it. Or maybe (thinking really abstractly) the dog might tear up the piece of paper - scissors are kinda tricky without opposable thumbs - scatter it on the floor in a really artistic manner and make his own marvellous contribution to world of literature.

I need to get out more...

'Give Children books, not SATs'

Two posts in one day?

Saw this link on an email list and thought I'd refer to it here.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/michael-rosen-give-children-books-not-sats-910225.html
Michael Rosen: 'Give children books, not SATs'

'...."Testing does something to children, something to teachers, something to parents, something to the whole conversation about education," he says. His everyday speech, you notice, has the same lively stream of consciousness as his poetry.
But by far his biggest concern is what testing has done to his greatest love: books. Literacy standards at 14 fell this year, according to Key Stage 3 tests. Rosen is currently tub-thumping on behalf of the National Year of Reading, a campaign to celebrate the written word, and has written a poem for the cause – printed exclusively today . What he wants above all is to re-inject a sense of enthusiasm into the study of literature in schools. Love books, he says, and school will be a cinch; over-test children, sterilise the English language, and you only make it harder...'

Here's the poem. It's lost some of the formatting when I cut and pasted it, so I've tried to restore it a bit. Sorry Michael, probably made a pig's ear out of it...

'Words Are Us', by Michael Rosen

In the beginning was the word
And the word is ours:

The names of places
The names of flowers
The names of names

Words are ours

Page-turners
For early learners

How to boil an egg
Or mend a leg

Words are ours

Wall charts
Love hearts

Sports reports
Short retorts

Jam jar labels
Timetables

Words are ours

Following the instructions
For furniture constructions

Ancient mythologies
Online anthologies

Who she wrote for
Who to vote for

Joke collections
Results of elections

Words are ours

The tale's got you gripped
Have you learned your script?

The method of an experiment
Ingredients for merriment

W8n 4ur txt
Re: whts nxt

Print media
Wikipedia

Words are ours

Subtitles on TV
Details on your CV

Book of great speeches
Guide to the best beaches

Looking for chapters
on velociraptors

Words are ours

The mystery of history
The history of mystery

The views of news
The news of views

Words to explain
the words for pain

Doing geography
Autobiography

What to do in payphones
Goodbyes on gravestones

Words are ours.

www.michaelrosen.co.uk