Creative Schools

1. Chapter 1: Back to Basics

1.1. The standards movement has backfired in the government's face

1.1.1. Poor engagement in students is causing half a million of them to drop out per year

1.1.2. Teacher's are leaving the profession at alarming rates - more than 250,000 per year

1.1.3. Half of African-American and Latino students fail to graduate from high school

1.2. The education system has failed the thousands of students that drop out

1.2.1. Strong correlation between drop outs and people in prison

1.2.2. More money is spent annually on correctional institutions and education ones

2. Chapter 2: Changing Metaphors

2.1. Engagement in students is critical component to their success in school

2.1.1. Minddrive program offered opportunities to students that everyone else had given up on

2.1.2. Higher graduation rates and college attendees

2.1.3. Minddrive program has built confidence within its students. Major buy in - even to the point where they are willing to give up Saturdays to work on projects.

2.2. Education has 4 purposes: economic, cultural, social, and personal

2.2.1. External interests like businesses and the economy help shape education

2.2.2. Living respectfully with diversity isn't just the ethical choice, it's the practical one

2.2.3. Schools need to foster the importance of participating in elections and being active within communities

2.2.4. Human issues like boredom, disengagement, stress, bullying, anxiety, depression, and dropping out are human issues and need human responses to help fix.

3. Chapter 3: Changing Schools

3.1. Standardization and testing often lead to dismal results

3.1.1. U.S. experiencing high levels of high school nongraduates, largely unchanged levels of literacy, and widespread disaffection

3.1.2. Finland chose not to go the route of standardization and testing and regularly appear at or close to the top of PISA rankings in math, reading, and science

3.1.3. Finnish schools required to follow a broad and balanced curriculum that foster creativity along with practical and vocational programs unlike standardized schools

3.1.4. Many visit Finland from around the world to look at their education model

3.2. The complexity of schools can help them change

3.2.1. New tools for learning can help customize education for every learner

3.2.2. New technologies are facilitating new partnerships between students and teachers

4. Chatper 5: The Art of Teaching

4.1. Teachers' roles often vary and can often be beneficial for their profession, but may also offer hindrances

4.1.1. Great deal of time is taken up with clerical work, meetings, discipline, etc. and may take away from their job

4.1.2. Teachers can act as mentors and guides who can help their students with confidence

4.2. Creativity isn't about reinventing the wheel, but rather offering fresh ideas that may offer different perspectives

4.2.1. Neil Johnston creating engaging environment with music through scores of video games, popular music, or creation apps like Garageband

4.2.2. Teaching as an entertainment tool - AsapSCIENCE - uses combination of real science and clever graphics

5. Chapter 4: Natural Born Learners

5.1. For many students, problems in their education don't stem from the fact that they cannot learn, but from the process of how they are required to learn

5.1.1. Many classrooms require students to sit at desks, facing the front, and listening to lectures

5.1.2. A lot of assessing and time spent preparing for those assessments

5.1.3. Subjects are split up into periods taught by different teachers. Students must start, stop, switch, and repeat throughout the day.

5.2. Personalization seems to be surrounding us in our everyday life, but hasn't taken a strong hold in education

5.2.1. Teachers need to apply opportunities for students to pursue interests and strengths

5.2.2. All about passion - students in Smokey Road Middle School are an example of how their passion for something helped their time in school

5.2.3. Rates how students learn need to be adjusted to fit their needs

6. Chapter 7: Testing, Testing

6.1. Standardized testing has become and obsession instead of a means of educational improvement

6.1.1. Students spend much of their time at school sitting at desks preparing for, taking, or debriefing from tests

6.1.2. Monty Neill comments on how districts buy cheap, badly made tests that are supposed to predict how students will test at the end of the year causing more prep, benchmark tests used in between, etc.

6.1.3. Teaching to the tests is extremely common because so much depends on their results

6.1.4. Pressure to raise scores has reduced the range of assessments that teachers use

6.2. Formal and informal assessments should support students learning and achievement

6.2.1. Effective assessment motivates students to do well by providing constructive feedback to help them understand their progress and offer encouragement

6.2.2. Provides information on what students have actually achieved and offers comparisons to others

6.2.3. Sets clear and relevant standards that can raise students' aspirations

7. Chapter 6: What's Worth Knowing?

7.1. Academic subjects are too limiting as a basis for planning the school curriculum

7.1.1. Knowledge continually evolves which makes planning difficult because of keeping up

7.1.2. Boundaries between different subjects constantly overlap

7.1.3. Having the curriculum in terms of disciplines (mixture of theory and practice) opens up possibilities of interdisciplinary activities

7.1.4. Right balance of disciplines can cater to students' personalized learning

7.2. Fostering students whose real talents and enthusiasms are for practical application of knowledge should be at the center, and not the edges of curriculum

7.2.1. A way to keep students in school and engaged is to provide many experiences in which students do some of their learning outside of school

7.2.2. Big Picture Learning has core idea that education is responsibility of everyone in the community - learning in real-world situations

7.2.3. Traditional curriculum and practices tend to not fully prepare students with life skills and stifle students' drive for learning by limiting times and restricting choices about what they want to excel in

8. Chapter 8: Principles for Principals

8.1. Leaders shouldn't have all the ideas, but rather encourage a culture where everyone has them or an opportunity to create them

8.1.1. Leadership is about vision and management is about implementation

8.1.2. High performance is driven by motivation in everyone involved

8.1.3. Need to offer support, resources, and skills to do the job

8.2. Great principals know their job is to build community among the students, teachers, parents, and staff

8.2.1. More likely to succeed if everyone believes in changes enough to give them a chance

8.2.2. Grangeton program (mentioned in chapter 2) was so successful because Richard Gerver nurtured changes in a reasonable manner allowing more freedom than that of something brought on by the government (not in a hasty manner). The successful transformation took place way faster than originally predicted because of these reasons

9. Chapter 9: Bring It All Back Home

9.1. Strong parental involvement has a direct correlation to student motivation and achievement

9.1.1. According to A New Wave of Evidence, parents that talk to their children about school, expect them to do well, help them plan for college, experience that their children do better in school

9.1.2. Schools that connect with families experience students with higher attendance, enjoy school more, get better grades, and have higher graduation rates

9.1.3. Building successful school-parent relationships helps with school improvement

9.2. Over-parenting leads to a lifelong dependency by children

9.2.1. Colleges reporting that parents are trying to sign up their children for classes, workplaces are reporting that parents are trying to negotiate first contracts for their children, and adult-children are moving back home

9.2.2. Students don't learn to problem-solve well

9.2.3. Students not experiencing failure will develop a fear of experiencing it which could help lead to depression or anxiety

10. Chapter 10: Changing the Climate

10.1. There is a need for local and national agencies to change

10.1.1. South Carolina has made drastic changes to prioritize technology, and PBLs while allowing teachers more freedom

10.1.2. A strong feeling through South Carolina that new forms of assessment through the state were needed

10.2. The standards movement is not working, therefore there is the need for the change

10.2.1. No Child Left Behind was largely based on policies that originated in Texas, but now that state is leading the way to more personalized strategies

10.2.2. A bill in Texas offers new paths for students to graduation that recognize that students have different goals for their futures

10.2.3. The bill in Texas is flexible and doesn't have to be applied towards college - it can be applied towards students working towards an employable skill or one that will get them a job