Ken Robinson "Gets" Creativity

Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple learning styles…

In this video from TED talks he makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

   

Why you should listen to him:

Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers that we are not developing critical minds. Students with restless bodies and questioning brains -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized in our schools. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? "Everyone should watch this."

What is TED? Billed as "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world," TED is a small nonprofit devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading," and its archives are housed at http://www.ted.com/

TED started in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become broader. The annual conferences in Long Beach and Oxford bring together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.

A Bad Haircut May Have Led Adam Lanza to Shoot Innocent Children in Newtown

New reports out today suggest that Sandy Hook killer Adam Lanza may have suffered from a permanently bad hair day prior to shooting 20 children and the 7 adults that included his own mother in Newtown CT last week.

According to representatives from Nancy Lanza's snow removal service who visited the house regularly and peeked in the windows, Lanza’s unmanageable cowlicks were a primary factor in the young man’s reported inability to look anyone directly in the eye. Confirming this fact, the Lanza's pool boy recalled, “No matter how many times Nancy combed his hair jauntily to the side, Adam always looked like someone had placed a bowl upside down on his head and squarely trimmed around the circumference.”

Former classmates say they were obviously aware of the bad hairdos but chose to pretend not to notice--finding clever but subtle ways instead to leave combs and coupons to Vidal Sassoon’s in Lanza’s backpack. Janet Padiddle who attended sixth grade with Lanza said sadly,  “I even offered him my tube of BedHead once but he just stared at the floor.”

“It was weird,” says Pete Neet, owner of a Newtown bar where the Lanza's sometimes stopped in for change for their parking meters. “You had the feeling Adam wanted his hair to be completely unmovable. It was like he just plastered it wet to his head in the morning and then he’d be afraid to turn his head all day in case it might mess up. Some people thought he had a stiff neck but it was the hair.”

Also present at the bar we visited, Nancy’s plumber who cleaned the home’s drains last year and noticed there were no loose hairs in the boy’s bathroom but lots of posters of Donald the pink-hatted trombone-playing character from Fat Albert. “It was scary. I think that cartoon kid, Dumb Donald, may have been Adam’s fashion hero.”

“If you look at photos of those Sandy Hook kids,” the town drunk mused from his regular barstool in the aforesaid establishment, “every one of them had lovely hair. I think Adam was pissed off that everybody in town had nicer hair than him.”

After several drinks, our reporters also spoke late in the evening to a woman who cleans a number of parsonages in the Newtown area and who may have uncovered the real key to Adam Lanza’s rage: “From what I heard at Molly Maid when I punched in this morning, Nancy was at her wit’s end with Adam's hair and ready to shave it all off. That, coupled with the fact that she’d refused to cut the crusts off his PB&J sandwich the night before the shooting was just jelly on Adam’s toast. He couldn’t cope with potential baldness and he just went shit-ass hair-hog crazy.”

According to Dr. Lena McWig, the town’s court-appointed barber, there may indeed be a direct link between unattractive hair and criminal intent. “We often find a bad haircut precedes these acts of extreme violence,” she reported.  “You can tell a lot about a mass murderer's motives from his do. It’s just too bad that with kids that might have violent potential we don’t check into their hair before disaster strikes. There is pre-emptive help out there in the form of salon-quality hair products if parents would just educate themselves. Nancy Lanza obviously could have afforded some top of the line mousse for Adam if she’d just been aware.”

But of course, there are others out there who can’t even afford a good shampoo. And most health insurance won’t cover hair improvement. Connecticut voters say they hope this is something President Obama will look into in the near future.

In Related Stories:

. Lanza’s Dental Hygienist Reveals an Overabundance of Plaque May Have Led to the Rage that Resulted in Newtown Disaster

. Last Remaining Six-Degree-Separated Peripheral Resident of Newtown Refuses Interview: Press Forced to Contact School Crossing Guards in The United Arab Emirates for Comment

FLORIDA EDUCATION BILL A FRIGHTENING PRECEDENT FOR THE NATION

EXCERPTED FROM WASHINGTON POST: THE ANSWER SHEET
by Valerie Strauss  (Book mark "The Answer Sheet" for updates on education)

Florida's Education Disaster     

It's now up to to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) to decide whether to sign legislation that would end job security for teachers and link their pay to student test scores. House Bill 7189 passed the chamber ...after hours of impassioned debate....Teachers, parents and students have been loudly protesting the legislation, which, if it becomes law, would:

• Make Florida the first state to eliminate tenure for new teachers, putting them all on one-year contracts for the first five years.
• Eliminate class experience and advanced degrees (in most cases) as factors in teacher evaluations and pay increases.
• Require that at least 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation, and pay increases, be based on standardized test scores. Test experts say this method is faulty because teachers can’t control every factor that affects the test-taking process.
• Require the creation of a slew of new standardized tests for every subject, in every grade that is not already assessed. This must come as good news to companies that create tests and that prepare students for taking tests. There could be a lot of new business for them in Florida

[T]he bill passed by the House...requires all school districts in the state to develop end-of-course exams that will determine “learning gains” made by students ( a plan that also would require exams to be given at the beginning of the school year, too, so that student progress can be measured). It doesn't, however, explain what a student “learning gain” -- on which teachers will be judged-- actually is. Within a few years, Florida second-graders could, perhaps, sit down, with pencil in hand, to take a test on how well they did in art class that year. What kind of test? Nobody knows. The bill doesn’t say.

It isn't surprising that no teachers were involved in the drafting of the legislation. Opponents of the bill accuse its sponsors of disliking teachers and trying to tear down public education.

The new tests will cost millions of dollars. A legislator from Duval County told the House that the state Education Department is developing three end-of course exams right now, at a cost of more than $1 million. The Miami-Dade County school system alone has something like 900 course offerings. To pay for the course development and performance pay for teachers and other parts of the legislation, 5 percent of federal, state and local Florida Education Finance Program funds are to be set aside beginning in 2011. That’s about $900 million.

But here’s the catch: It’s not new money. It would come out of the already stretched budgets of county school systems. School officials say they can't possibly afford this.

The backers of the bill say these are details that can be worked out later in rules by the Department of Education. That’s the same thing they said when former Florida governor Jeb Bush pushed through a statewide standardized testing program called the FCAT. The legislation had few details, which had to be worked out over years. The adults fiddled while students had to suffer taking tests that had no meaning.

The bill has been hailed by some conservatives outside the state, including Stanford University economist Eric Hanusek, who praised Florida in the April edition of Education Next magazine for being "poised to lead the nation in crafting student policies." Even though money is so tight, the Republican legislators somehow found money for private schools through tax-credit scholarships, and that bill is moving swiftly too.

Education historian Diane Ravitch, a former official in the administration of president George H.W. Bush who once supported NCLB, has looked at data and changed her mind, saying it actually harmed education, in part by emphasizing high-stakes standardized tests. The New York University professor wrote an open letter to the Florida legislature expressing her opposition to the state's reform approach.

You also might think that the Democratic administration of President Obama would say something about all of this. But so far, there has been silence. I asked the Education Department if Secretary Arne Duncan had taken a position on any of this, and the answer came back today. It was simple: “No.”

I wish Secretary Duncan would call up the governor and tell him that if he signs this bill, the state will have a hard time keeping and recruiting good teachers. Who would want to work there? You can see the effect that all of this is having on teachers and parents by going to a page on Facebook called “testing is not teaching,” at http://www.facebook.com/testingisnotteaching

Here’s what one teacher wrote on the day the Senate passed its version of the bill. It’s enough to make you cry:

What a devastating day for teachers...and the teaching professionals state-wide. Not in all my 17 years as a special education teacher have I been so disheartened! I just can’t make ends meet...and it’s going to come a time, as my mom says, to "fish or cut bait".  I think I’ll be leaving this profession. 

Follow Valerie's blog all day, every day by bookmarking washingtonpost.com/answersheet  

Email Governor Crist at Charlie.Crist@myflorida.com.  

Email Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, at arne.duncan@ed.gov. 

This bill is an outrage and you should care!

 READ MORE IN THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES:  Q & A on Florida's Senate Bill 6

IN MY OPINION: Saying we won't pay teachers whose students aren't doing well on standardized tests, by the way, is NOT a business-inspired bottom-line or production-based move, despite what your legislators may say. Can you imagine a mine where miners continue to bring the same amount of ore to the surface they always have, but where the ore in the mine contains less gold than it once did? If the mine owners said, "Ah! This poor quality gold must be the fault of lazy miners--we'll cut their pay in half and that'll motivate 'em to do better and produce better ore," I imagine any first-year business major would respond, "Well, now that's just crazy." Maybe we should take a look at the mine first? Maybe it's in the resources and not the worker bees where the problem lies?

I've been in business. I've been in education. And I can tell you, blaming and punishing your loyal employees for your own mistakes is not a useful managerial strategy. It is bound to lead to a failed business venture for the public schools, which is exactly where conservative politicians in the back pockets of the School Improvement Industry are hoping it will lead. This bill has nothing to do with concern on the part Florida legislators for your children or the future of education. It has everything to do with expanding so-called free markets with the further privatization of traditionally government-supported services in arenas like education (social security/justice/defense/"homeland security"/basic welfare/housing/mental health/health care) where you are dealing with the American citizen's basic rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of progress.  ~ Kaitlin

I LOVE THIS FROM Catherine Nicholas Uden ON THE DISCUSSION BOARD,

"Paying teachers based on student test scores"

"WANTED: FLORIDA TEACHERS. NO JOB SECURITY. UNPREDICTABLE SALARY. POOR WORKING CONDITIONS. YEARS OF EXPERIENCE AND ADVANCED DEGREES ARE MEANINGLESS. MUST PAY FOR SUPPLIES WITH MONEY FROM YOUR OWN POCKET. BRING YOUR MAGIC WAND."

Miami-Dade schools brace for teacher walkout  (read the story)

Below: Jonathan Kozol on This is America: Letters to a Young Teacher

No School Left Unsold: Arne Duncan, New Education Czar's Record in Chicago

Privatization, union-busting (charter and contract schools operate union-free), excessive standardized testing, teacher-blaming, military schooling, and the rollback of community input on school decisions - these are the interrelated hallmarks of private school graduate Arne Duncan's six and a half years at the helm of Chicago Public Schools. It's all very consistent with the legacy of his predecessor and mentor, the roving urban schools chief and leading privatization enthusiast Paul Vallas. Read more at Z Magazine...

Once again, my heroes at JibJab videos are up to no political good ... (see more videos at JibJab.com...)

Ask Obama Transition Team to Appoint Special Prosecutor on War Crimes and Use of Torture

The Obama transition team is taking questions again at Change.gov, throwing open the site this week for citizen input. Ari Melber at The Nation suggests we ask:

"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"

That question ranked sixth in voting last time -- out of over 10,000 submissions -- but the transition team only answered the top five questions. Now that Vice President Cheney confessed his support for waterboarding on national television, flouting the rule of law, the issue is even more urgent..

Read Melber's editorial, with these helpful instructions for action, at The Nation....

Keep Your Eyes Trained on the Human Rights Front...

California Court Decrees Private Schools Can Expel Lesbians

A private religious high school can expel students it believes are lesbians because the school isn't covered by California civil rights laws, a state appeals court has ruled...read about it at the San Francisco Chronicle

(The ruling is the first to consider a religious school's status under California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, which forbids discrimination by businesses and was amended in 2005 to include discrimination based on sexual orientation. State education law also forbids anti-gay bias, but that law applies only to public schools.)


Young Turks Commentator on Why We Can't Just "Move On"
Past the Bush War Crimes

"John Barry has written what I will call the "move on" defense of the Bush administration in this week's Newsweek. The idea is that it is fairly clear that the Bush administration violated the law in several instances, but since we already know this and his party has already lost an election, let's just move on already.

You can read the piece here and you can see that I am not exaggerating at all. That is truly his argument. In fact, we will have Barry on the show on Monday to talk to him about this article.

If I seem incredulous at that argument, that's because I am. They never taught me that one in law school. "Look, your honor, we know my client committed this crime, we've already caught him and the victim is already dead. So, let's just move on already!"

Read the rest of Uygur's editorial at Huffington Post...

DISSIDENT VOICE: PRESIDENT OBAMA NEEDS TO INCLUDE OVERSEAS ACTIVITIES IN HIS "NEW" RULES OF AMERICAN DISENGAGEMENT IN TORTURE

When President Obama declared flatly this week that “the United States will not torture” many people wrongly believed that he’d shut the practice down, when in fact he’d merely repositioned it.

Obama’s Executive Order bans some — not all — US officials from torturing but it does not ban any of them, himself included, from sponsoring torture overseas. Indeed, his policy change affects only a slight percentage of US-culpable tortures and could be completely consistent with an increase in US-backed torture worldwide.

For every torment inflicted directly by Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and the secret prisons, there were many times more being meted out by US-sponsored foreign forces.

Read the article at Dissident Voice...

Obama transition team holds meetings every week with religious groups to discuss policy...

"Heading up religious outreach for Obama's transition team is Joshua DuBois, a Pentecostal and onetime associate pastor who directed religious outreach for the Obama campaign. Mark Linton, the Obama campaign's Catholic outreach director, is leading the effort to design an Obama administration version of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and Mara Vanderslice, an evangelical Democratic operative who has helped spearhead the party's post-2004 religious outreach offensive, is now Obama's outreach liaison to religious communities. In the eight weeks since Obama was elected president, members of Washington, D.C.-based religious groups have attended roughly a dozen meetings with Obama's transition team, on topics ranging from domestic poverty and the plight of White House faith-based initiatives..." (Read more from Dan Gilgoff at Newsweek...)