Discussing Our Mission

The new mission statement:

Grace St. Luke's Episcopal School

prepares

boys and girls

to become

creative problems solvers,

confident lifelong learners,

and 

responsible citizens 

in their communities and the world.

 - approved by the Board of Trustees, May 2010

In our three professional learning conversations this year, we will discuss practical implications, challenges, opportunities, questions, and concerns stemming from the new mission statement. Each session will be devoted to discussion of the three stated student outcomes of the mission statement.

Wednesday, September 22nd
Creative Problem Solvers

Wednesday, January 19 
Confident Lifelong Learners

Wednesday,  April 20th
Responsible citizens in their communities and the world

Creative Problem Solvers

Creative problem-solving is the process of developing a solution to a problem for which there is not pre-determined right answer. There are many parts to this process, all of which can be taught for mastery. Some of the steps are identification of the problem, exposure of the assumptions that underpin our understanding of the problem, generating solution needs, gathering necessary information needed to develop a solution, solution creation and communication.
 
Creative problem-solving is grounded in higher order thinking skills and synthesis of information rather than matching an answer to a problem that is given.

Creative problem-solving always requires creativity. Creativity is to be understood in this way as generating new - new perspective, new use of information, new combination of information. Creativity is the act of creating or developing.

One cannot be creative in solving a problem for which there is one well-known and expected right answer.

Teaching in the 21st Century: Why Creativity Now by Ken Robinson

Creativity is a process that involves critical thinking and critical judgment as well as imaginative insights. The societal challenges we face currently are without precedent in history. Students that are in school today will have the responsibility to solve these overbearing problems of our society: poverty in the world, economic disparities, social unrest and conflict, limited global resources to name a few.

Our Creativity Crisis

Over the summer, two articles about the importance of creativity and developing disciplines thinking skills were published. Both are worth reading because they add to the conversations that are ongoing in education about teaching 21st century skills.

Newsweek:  The Creativity Crisis by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Fast Company:  The Most Important Quality for CEOs? Creativity

How Creative Are You?

 Newsweek slideshow:  How Creative are You?

This slideshow offers a few completed tests of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT).  The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) purports to measure one's ability to build on ideas, have original ideas, to use a varied perspective like seeing an object from a different angle. Although the test is visual and based in drawing, it is not a measure of artistic ability.

The TTCT is a 90 minutes test and has three parts:

1. Thinking Creatively with Pictures measures creative thinking using three picture-based exercises to assess five mental characteristics: fluency, originality, elaboration, abstractness of titles, and resistance to closure.

2. The Figural TTCT contains abstract pictures and the examinee is requested to state what the image might be. 

3. The Verbal  TTCT:  contains presents the examinee with a situation and gives the examinee the opportunity to ask questions, to improve products, and to “just suppose.” 

The TTCT is normed for age 5+.

Points are deducted from the score for responses that are very common and points are awarded for originality.

Teaching (Math) Creatively

Dan Meyer is a high school math teacher who spoke at TEDxNYed 2010. Dan says that the way we teach math is not preparing our students to expect and know how to solve complex problems because we teach right answer learning, not necessarily thinking.  His talk is quite convincing.  If we want problem solvers, we need to prepare them by giving them the necessary motivation and skills: perseverance, reasoning, relevance, initiative, problem formulation, confidence, creative and imaginative thinking.  Dan is talking about math, but really his ideas about how and what we teach applies to all subjects and all ages.

What can Students Do?

What can students do?  The answer to this question lies in what you believe about the process of education and the role of the student.  Reggio thought gets at this issue by articulating their vision of the child as genius and capable. This is in contrast to the mechanistic view of education that we have inherited from the Industrial Age which seems the child more as a blank slate to which we must rigorously add consistent, compatible and uniform inputs, like building a car or any assembled item on a production line.

If you believe children are already genius and subscribe to the idea that they need facilitators to define the path and be ready to help find knowledge and resource as needed, then you will offer students a wholly different learning environment and learning experience, one that is potentially problem-solving oriented, process-oriented, entrepreneurial and focused on skills and thinking development more so than content kill and drill.

What can students do?  This video is from one of Tina Seelig's classes on entrepreneurialism at Stanford. These student are just a little older than middle school or high school students, but what they can do is nothing short of change the world.   High school students, middle school students, and younger kids can as well....., that is, if we let them; if we help them, if we provide the proving grounds.


Do Bands



Adora Svitak:  What Adults Can Learn From Kids



Change the World in 5 Minutes - Everyday at School

Previous Professional Learning Conversations

School Year 2009 - 2010
The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner, 21st century survival skills

Making Learning Whole by David Perkins, teaching for understanding: "It's about the learning!"

Blooms 3.0, technology is an essential tool.


Disrupting Class:  How Disruptive Innovation Will Change How the World Learns by Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn, and Curtis Johnson:  Learning as we know it, is obsolete.


Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, why we don't do what we say is needed.


Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink, understanding motivation.

School Year 2008 - 2009 
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, and the changed world is changing education

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule The Future by Daniel Pink; is a whole new school needed?

Out of Our Minds by Sir Ken Robinson:  are schools killing creativity?

Five Minds for the Future by Dr. Howard Gardner: varied learners and strengths focus

"Digital Native, Digital Immigrants" by Marc Prensky

What is Your Learning Story? -- setting a path forward that helps us stay ahead

School Year 2007 - 2008
The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating A Generation of Unhappy and Disconnected Children by Madeline Levine

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck

Totally Wired: What Tweens and Teens Are Really Doing Online by Anastasia Goodstein

The Path to Purpose:  Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life by William Damon


Your Child's Strength: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them by Jenifer Fox

Other:
Not Much Just Chillin':  The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers by Linda Perlstein