What 21st C Learners Need, But Aren’t Getting:

12 ways we are failing our childrenAssociate Professor David Cropley

A Call to Action• Introduction.• A common thread of 21st C Schooling.• Creativity!• A bleak picture?• What we are doing wrong!• Designing the 21st C Teaching Paradigm

Introduction• A “provocation”:

• “Something that causes indignation or anger”.• I’m going to generalise anything negative that I

can.• “Catalyst”, rather than a “provocation”.• What matters is how we react – explanatory style:

• Pessimism – permanent, pervasive, personal – “the system is broken, everything is a mess, I am part of the problem”.

• Optimism – impermanent, localised, general – “this is a temporary blip, the are islands of excellence on which we can build, I am part of the solution”.

• Don’t shoot the messenger!

21st C Schooling – A Common Thread• Complex & uncertain

future• Expert learners• Creativity, innovation• Creative individuals• Problem solving

strategies• 21st Century

competencies• Real-life problems• Adaptability• Curiosity, imagination• Entrepreneurialism• Flexibility

Creativity

Problem Solving

Innovation

Creativity• As far back as 1950, psychologists (Guilford,

1950) began to see human intellectual ability as more than just speed, accuracy and correctness – i.e. convergent thinking.

• Suggested it should be conceived of more broadly:• Ability to generate alternatives,• See multiple possibilities.

• Divergent thinking!• Creativity = the ability to generate effective novelty.

• We do this this, typically, in response to problems.

Creativity• Creativity, problem solving, is an important part

of education.• It was recognised as important in 1950.• Our pre-reading makes it clear that it’s important

in 2014.

• So how are we doing?

A Bleak Picture?• Kim (2011, 2013) – Creativity Crisis!• Declining creativity, even as IQ going up (Flynn

Effect).

• Biggest decline around age 9, but declines seen at all age levels.

• Fluency – ability to generate lots of ideas.• Originality – ability to generate unusual ideas.• Elaboration – ability to develop the ideas.

• Creative Strengths – relates to personality factors associated with creativity.

Why is this Happening?

Decline

Pressures

Barriers

Pressures• In general, moves towards, or emphasis of,

convergent thinking.

• The “one-right-answer”!• Q: 2+2?• A: 4

• Standardised testing focus?

Barriers• Do we understand what we are looking for?

• Do we value creativity in students?

Barriers – What are we looking for?Characteristic Traditional TeacherMakes up the rules as he/she goes along.

1 19

Is impulsive. 2 16Is a non-conformist. 3 15Is emotional. 4 18

In Dawson, V. L., D’Andrea, T., Affinito, R. and Westby, E. L. (1999).

Barriers – How do we Value Creativity? • A 1995 study* found that teachers’ judgements of

their favourite students negatively correlated with characteristics of creativity.

• The teachers tended to dislike the creative children!

• Not confined to teachers/schools.

• Disconnect between rhetoric and action/implementation.*Westby, E. L. and Dawson, V. L. (1995)

What are we doing wrong?*• We define problems for children:

• They don’t learn how to identify problems and make good choices.

• We discourage questioning & analysing assumptions:• Children don’t learn how to ask the right

questions.• We reinforce the assumption that creative ideas

sell themselves:• Children don’t learn how to persuade other

people of the value of their ideas.• We discourage idea generation:

• And we are destructively critical when it happens.*Sternberg, R. J. (2007).

What are we doing wrong?• Knowledge is a double-edged sword:

• More knowledge = more creativity, so let’s fill their heads with declarative knowledge.

• We discourage children from identifying and surmounting obstacles:

• By pre-chewing everything for children, they never learn how to overcome difficulties, or how to persevere. We teach them to be pessimists.

• We discourage any risk-taking:• Children don’t develop a sense of how to assess

risks. They know that perfect test scores are rewarded and they learn to play it safe.

• We discourage tolerance of ambiguity:• We remove all uncertainty and discomfort, and

teach children that close enough is good enough.

What are we doing wrong?• We send the message that children have limited

abilities:• We discourage success and self-belief, and

set the bar low.• We prevent children from finding what they love to

do:• We force our interests on children and push

them into things that they find boring.• We teach children to expect immediate rewards for

the smallest accomplishments:• We create an expectation that success should

come easily. We fail to develop an understanding of the value of incremental hard work.

• We provide an environment that shuns creativity:• We do not role model creative thinking and

problem solving, or the personal qualities that go with it.

Discouraging the Habit• We are not creating opportunities for students to

engage in creativity.

• We actively discourage students from behaving creatively, on the rare occasions that opportunities do arise.

• We are not rewarding them when they think and behave creatively.

Designing the 21st C Teaching Paradigm• Creativity (innovation, problem solving) are

critical elements of the 21st C teaching paradigm.• We have 1 over-arching design problem, and• 12 design sub-problems to solve.• How do we develop the creativity habit in 21st C

Schooling?• How do we design learning that:

• Allows children to define and redefine problems?• Encourages them to question & analyse

assumptions?• …• …• Provides an environment that fosters creativity?

• Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5, 444-454. • Kim, K. H. (2011). The creativity crisis: The decrease in creative

thinking scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Creativity Research Journal, 23(4), 285-295.

• Kim, K. H., & Coxon, S. V. (2013). The Creativity Crisis, Possible Causes, and What Schools Can Do. In J. B. Jones & L. J. Flint (Eds.), The Creative Imperative (pp. 53-68). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

• Westby, E. L., & Dawson, V. L. (1995). Creativity: Asset or burden in the classroom? Creativity Research Journal, 8, 1-10.

• Dawson, V. L., D’Andrea, T., Affinito, R. and Westby, E. L. (1999). Predicting Creative Behavior: A Reexamination of the Divergence Between Traditional and Teacher-Defined Concepts of Creativity, Creativity Research Journal, 12, pp. 57-66.

• Sternberg, R. J. (2007). Creativity as a habit. In A.-G. Tan (Ed.), Creativity: A Handbook for Teachers (pp. 3-25). Singapore: World Scientific.

• Cropley, D. H. (2014). Fighting the Slump: A Multifaceted Exercise for Fostering Creativity in Children, International Journal of Creativity and Problem Solving, October.

• Cropley, A. J., & Cropley, D. H. (2013). The dark side of creativity in the classroom: The paradox of classroom teaching. In J. B. Jones & L. J. Flint (Eds.), The Creative Imperative: School Librarians and Teachers Cultivating Curiosity Together (pp. 39-52): ABC-CLIO.

https://unisa-au.academia.edu/DavidCropley