Are children less creative now than thirty, forty or fifty years ago? You would think so when you listen to the abundance of experts who regularly inhabit our media. Surely, our students are not being educated with the knowledge, reasoning skills and creativity for which our nation has been famous (added sarcasm).

But did we not always teach creativity and reasoning? And, what about the experts? Did they not receive their education during a time when education was knowledge-based and boring?

But we must do something, you say. My hypothesis is that the more we force educational changes, the more we error in our children’s lives. I contend that human behavior is not always quantifiable.

You must teach knowledge. Fill them with knowledge and reasoning skills; but do not sacrifice knowledge in an attempt to front-load reasoning and creativity. You must know something in order to use it. Consider tennis. You can teach all of the lessons for applying tennis skills you want. But unless you let them play tennis, the student will never learn.

Children need to play. But with current educational reasoning and modern parenting, play has become work and competition. When play occurs at a child’s pace it becomes imaginative and unplanned. They will then create and invent because they were given the time to explore and given the knowledge necessary as a basis tobuild upon.

The forcing of advanced depth of knowledge teaching and added assessment testing is counterproductive to learning. Previous teaching methods included large amounts of knowledge, then working through comprehension of that knowledge, and then later assisting the students through application and evaluation. Today we consider that boring and filled with unnecessary, low level learning. It is my opinion that children will develop far greater curiosity and creativity if they are able to build upon a strong base of knowledge and comprehension.

Depth of knowledge questioning is great, but it must be combined with knowledge. Force higher levels of reasoning and it will oppose a child’s nature to instinctively create and learn. Children naturally ask why. If we frustrate them with an overabundance of our own questions of why, they will pull back. And they have pulled back.

Build their schema. Build their world of content. They will ask why. Any teacher can easily supplement their learning with application work. But if you overdo the depth of knowledge up front, then the beautiful world of a child retracts. They start to view reasoning and questioning as the painful adult world.

Forcing creativity can, in-fact, lead to less creativity. Do I have hard data? Parents – do you not know this to be true? Teachers (who actually spend time with children), is this not true?Creativity is natural. Use it; do not overpower and frustrate it.

Again, consider the generations of our experts and inventors - the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers. Did all of those inventors need common core? Common core and forced depth of knowledge questioning is leading to less desire to learn and testing confusion.

Good teachers have always been encouraged to present and teach to clear objectives. Common Core testing prohibits students and teachers from have clear knowledge of the testing material.

To help illustrate this idea, I challenge administrators and state bureaucrats to take the students’ classes and tests. Experience the burden of Common Core testing and questioning before you inflict it.

Consider what we are doing to children. We decided to increase standardized testing, and increase the number of math and English classes, which made it necessary to eliminate study halls, shop classes, home economics classes, art classes, computer classes, music classes, and physical education classes. Then we started to complain that children are not ready for real world experiences and occupations.

Without those classes, students also lost tactile and conceptual learning. Those classes brought investigation, problem solving and inter-departmental studies. They were very true STEM classes without the fancy title. They also brought self worth and accomplishment to students.

Today, our schools take the wonder of learning and replace it with cardboard, tape and Legos and call it STEM (is there any wonder that few children relish the classes?). If we want our students to be prepared, we should bring back the things that made them prepared.

But then again, maybe all we want is to have students that can play computer games, and use an iPhone. Maybe texting and mind altering social media is really all we want (yes, I am being sarcastic).

We emphasize spending more time on small screens such as iPads, iPhones and laptops. Children then become less able to handle social situations. They spend their lives physically unproductive and staring at screens. What they produce, they cannot touch with their hands. The socializing received from online groups is often very negative.

Especially for Educational Leaders and Government Officials

Please consider these important steps prior to leadership, legislation and regulation.

Try These Real Leadership Operatives and End Blind Failures

1)Be a student for a full day. Better yet, try a week if you have the courage!

2)Teach in a classroom for a day. Start at breakfast duty and complete the day. Do not enter the school with an entourage or wearing a suit. Do not announce yourself. Just blend in and teach.

3)Teach for one full week. While at the school, make an honest attempt to discern what is taught and how the day is organized. In other words, ask questions.

4)Take the tests. Make your own choice of which test to take. I suggest you take the eighth grade assessment tests. Take the entire set of tests under the same rules as the students.

5)Be honest.

** I will have much more regarding education in the months to come.

Email Novatropos