Binoculars or Common Core. Which Choice Will Allow Creativity to Flourish and Allow School Districts to Operate on Budget?

The video "Give Your Kids Binoculars and Get Out of the Way" with Neil deGrasse Tyson contains advice on how to get kids interested in science.

Spoiler Alert.  It has NOTHING to do with the implementation/adoption of Common Core standards or more federal involvement in education. He believes parents (and maybe teachers, too?) should be getting "out of the way" and encouraging children's curiosity.  He contends children create disorder in the lives of the adults around them and what do adults do?  They stifle the child's curiosity. 

Will Common Core will help kids explore and feed their curiosity...or just put them in a common box like everybody else?

From the video transcript:

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Neil deGrasse Tyson: I'm often asked by parents what advice can I give them to help get kids interested in science? And I have only one bit of advice. Get out of their way. Kids are born curious. Period. I don’t care about your economic background. I don’t care what town you’re born in, what city, what country. If you’re a child, you are curious about your environment. You’re overturning rocks. You’re plucking leaves off of trees and petals off of flowers, looking inside, and you’re doing things that create disorder in the lives of the adults around you.

And so then so what do adults do? They say, “Don’t pluck the petals off the flowers. I just spent money on that. Don’t play with the egg. It might break. Don’t....”  Everything is a don’t. We spend the first year teaching them to walk and talk and the rest of their lives telling them to shut up and sit down.

So you get out of their way. And you know what you do? You put things in their midst that help them explore. Help ‘em explore. Why don’t you get a pair of binoculars, just leave it there one day? Watch ‘em pick it up. And watch ‘em look around. They’ll do all kinds of things with it.

For me at age 11, I had a pair of binoculars and looked up to the moon, and the moon wasn’t just bigger, it was better. There were mountains and valleys and craters and shadows. And it came alive. Not the full moon because there are no shadows cast when the moon is full; got to wait for it to be half moon or crescent moon, and look at the edge between light and dark with a simple pair of binoculars. 

I was transformed by picking up a pair of binoculars and looking up, and that’s hard to do for a city kid because when you look up you just see buildings -- and really your first thought is to look in people’s windows. So to look out of the space -- out of living space -- and look up to the sky, binoculars go far, literally and figuratively. That’s what got me started on the universe. It might get some kids you know started the same way.

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I guess buying binoculars would be too expensive for school districts to buy.  Oh, no, wait.  Kirkwood School District decided it needed iPads for all their students to the cost of almost $2 Million by 2015.  How long will these iPads be appropriate before they are outdated due to new technology?  From kirkwood.patch.com:

With an estimated total of roughly $1.8 million for the cost of the project, the first phase will cost $325,000. The price includes an iPad Mini, a case and basic applications on the device. Students in 3rd grade and higher will be able to take the iPads home.  

What wasn't mentioned in this article was the move to use iPads is part of Common Core implementation.   For approximately 5,000 students in the district, the cost comes out to $360.00 per iPad.  A good pair of binoculars cost less than that and they don't have software that becomes obsolete in a few years.  But binoculars  aren't part of Smarter Balanced Assessment Common Core technology requirements, are they?  How much will new applications cost the district?  How much insurance will KSD parents have to pay for 3rd graders who have trouble locating their coats much less an iPad?  Did KSD understand that the iPads are only one part of required technology by SBAC?

From Smarter Balanced Releases Technology Strategy Framework and System Requirements Specifications:
 

This framework provides two levels of technology specifications: minimum requirements for existing devices and recommended guidelines for new purchases. Students using technology that meets only the minimum specifications may experience periods of slowness during the assessment, while technology consistent with the recommended guidelines will likely result in a more fluid testing experience.

In addition to the hardware and bandwidth requirements, eligible devices must also have a 10” class screen, a mechanical keyboard, headphones, wired or wireless Internet access, and administrative tools to temporarily disable features, functionalities, and applications that could present a security risk during test administration. The technology specifications apply only to the Smarter Balanced assessments and should not be considered minimum specifications to support instruction, which may require additional technology.

Is there any more hardware, bandwith, device, other technological expenses the district will need to incur for Common Core implementation?  How much additional money is needed to support instruction?  These are questions to ask the district at the June 4 Common Core meeting in Kirkwood and if there is a bond increase wanted by the district, how much this increase is due to Common Core implementation.

Those binoculars are sounding better and better. They are cheaper and are student directed as opposed to the top down standardized consortia owned standards and assessments.



Details on Kirkwood School District meeting:

06/04/13
North Kirkwood Middle School Library, 11287 Manchester Road
6:00pm - 7:30pm

Dr. Williams, superintendent of schools, is hosting a school/community conversation on Tuesday, June 4 from 6-7:30 p.m. in the North Kirkwood Middle School Library, 11287 Manchester Road.  Dr. Williams and administrative services team will answer questions and listen to suggestions from the school community.  The community is encouraged to attend.

  

Is Creativity Antithetical to Common Core?

What is Cafe Communications?  From "about us" on cafecommunications. eu:

In old times, one would have said: advertising.

One and a half decade ago, professionals would have defined it as ATL, BTL and PR communication.

Around the turn of the millennium, Café Group was founded to develop integrated communication solutions for its clients.

Nowadays, all three definitions are still correct, but none of them describes the essence. Café Communications’ activity has become just as diverse as communication channels, advertisers’ needs, creative processes and the system of agency services.

So if one actually would like to see the point, here is what to note: we build and manage brands. As all Café Communications’ partner companies do: either by their own means, independently or together, in cooperation with others.

This is why Café is the ‘haunt of communication’.

Cafe Communications does for private clients what the education refomers have done for the school choice and common core industry.  The reformers attempt to integrate education solutions for its clients, the "free marketers" making money from the taxpayers, not from private industry.  Education reformers exist to build and manage brands (schools and students) via common core implementation and the privatization of public schools .  Venture capitalists divert taxpayer money into quasi public schools operating on blueprints other than the traditional public school model, and students and teachers are then managed by these top down reforms.   Pre-determined educational vendors are making a fortune on supplying the software, text, assessments mandated by the common core consortia and federal government.

Cafe Communications produced a video for its clients showing them how new and effective ideas are produced.  It takes time to be creative and the company used "the world's most talented people's" (schoolchildren) art assignments to illustrate its premise.  When the children were given little time or autonomy to produce a drawing, the results were utilitarian and sterile.  When the children were allowed more time to complete the assignment, the creativity unleashed was amazing.  When the children were allowed to draw their own ideas, no child's artwork was common to another child's interpretation of the assignment.

As you view the video, think about how this video translates into common core school assignments in today's public schools. 

•  Do you think assessments taken every 3 weeks in school creates/fosters creativity?
•  Can teachers foster creativity with "one size fits all" mandates? 
•  How can a teacher be innovative when mandates take away time from the creative daydreaming that oftentimes translates into big ideas?  

From the beginning of the video:  

Our clients want us to do more work in less time.

How can we make them understand that for new, effective ideas we need more time?

We sent them this film to show them how creativity works.

 "How creativity is affected by time."

The words at the last 15 seconds of this video need to be copied down and sent to every school board, administrator, teacher, governor and education reformer when he/she assures you common core and "one size fits all" is the answer to education reform. 

A College Essay Revisited. Humor and Creativity Never Go out of Style.

I picked up this following story on an email thread.   This story has been around since 1935 with different variations.  It has its roots in England as royalty was initially incorporated into the writing assignment. 

The variation on folklore reminds me of the variation on clothing fashions of today.  What's new is old, right?

If you remember wedge shoes and peasant dresses from the 70's, you might just be too old to wear them in 2012.  Body shapes change and what looked good on you when  you were 15 years old just doesn't look or feel the same 30 or 40 years later.  Enjoy those high heels when you are young!  Something happens to your feet as you age.  Maybe a great college essay would be to chronicle the effects of gravity on the human body through the decades.  Or maybe not.  As I exclaimed a few years ago watching aging relatives, "I've seen the future and it's not pretty!"

However, the flirting with passing fashion doesn't hold true with wit or knowledge.  Those attributes remain constant and should be appreciated and studied.   Consider this essay a modern (and American) twist on a humorous story.

Creativity, Common Core, Racial Diversity (or Guilt). The Sunday Education Weekly Reader 03.25.12

Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader for 3.25.12.  This week's visual soundbites from Twitter:

•  I didn't make the connection of "collaboration" this tweeter took away from the article.  I find it fascinating the creative genius in all students could very well be squashed by a common curriculum, common timetable for learning, and shared experiences.  What do you think after reading?...VERY GOOD article...Creativity, Critical Thinking and Collaboration key for 21st Century...How to Be Creative http://on.wsj.com/zvUCgJ via @WSJ

• Will focusing on the increasing non-fiction requirement of Common Core allow indoctrination of a particular viewpoint?  "Their teacher, Sarah Brown Wessling (the 2010 National Teacher of the Year), let them choose books about those real-world topics as part of a unit on truth. Students are dissecting the sources, statistics, and anecdotes the authors use to make their arguments in books like Branded by Alissa Quart and Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich....I'm relying on different kinds of strategies and a lot more explicit teaching," she said. "We spend a lot of time talking about attributes of nonfiction, like how to read an interview. Or how to tell the difference between fact and opinion."  Read readers' opinions on Amazon about Nickel and Dimed and the questions raised about Ehrenreich's writing....is it truly factual or imbued with her own biases?  Will teachers teach students how to learn to separate the writer's voice between fact and editorializing?  Will teachers be able to conquer their own biases in this exercise?  ....Because of its emphasis in common-core #standards, millions of teachers faced w/ increasing their use of nonfiction: http://bit.ly/GHrOw7

• "We achieve more when we stop grouping people, stop guilting teachers, and start treating students as the unique individual learners that they are.  Stop with the constant focus on our differences."....Quote from the blog "The Activist Next Door"....embedded in the tweeted article....Pacific Educational Group: Radicalism for Kids, on the Taxpayers' Dime http://shar.es/p5eaC 

  

Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader Visual Soundbites for 02.10.12

Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader.  The visual soundbites from Twitter for 02.12.12:

• As Scott Joftus said, it IS the Wild West in Education.  Scads of money to be made in education...those dot.com investors had to go somewhere.....For those of you following the explosion of education startups, an interactive map of the new players http://www.newschools.org/entrepreneurs/edtechmap

• From Japan, an article on an alternative learning process.....the Donguri method because "it attaches a high value to [children's] thinking processes."...but how will this method fit on a computer assessment sheet?.....EDUCATION RENAISSANCE / Drawing pictures helps kids develop math skills: This piece--the final installment in a ... bit.ly/zT9FAK

•  This story comes from Britain.  Just substitute "USA" in place of the word "Britain" and it's the same argument.  Must be that global push for education.  Teachers seem to be the number one villain in the education wars everywhere...Teachers, stop being so defensive. It's time to embrace the no-excuses culture | Will Hutton - http://bit.ly/AcbsDi

•  Interesting video from an Asian student on how Asian parents and US parents view grades. A teenager's view of Tiger Mom parenting.  Seems as if the parents have embraced the "no-excuses" culture..... Education and culture! If every student's parents were Asian an A would = average wp.me/pz20Z-4sH

•  Are you a student adhering to the "Road Less Traveled" blueprint?  Check out these scholarships actually rewarding creativity, rather than what you spew out on a data set.....These are 4 unique scholarships that could land you some serious college cash! http://ow.ly/90PuF

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Educational wisdom from Twitter focusing on student responsibility for his/her own future:

DREAM = Dedication . Responsibility . Education . Attitude . Motivation.