As a parent of TWO sons that are “twice exceptional” — as in gifted and having special needs — I can tell you that they both lose their creative streak during school.

It is not only the classroom environment, the “old school” teaching, the hectic pace of the daily routine, but it is the ridiculous notion that is continually imposed that we have to do it “this way” or “that way”.

Perfect example: My 15yo has been using Inspiration to take notes and draft reports since he was 8, when we first worked together on his report on the funnel web spider for third grade. This past fall, he had to write three different research papers for his AP English class — and the teacher INSISTED that he use filecards, written IN PENCIL. His IEP clearly states that he can and should use technology when it is available (and it was), but she didn’t care because she thought it was an important skill to teach. (Why should ANY child need an IEP to tell a teacher that he can and should use technology when it is available?!?!?) Had he been able to use the tools he knew, he would have color-coded his notes based on source, arranged and rearranged the ideas endlessly, and produced papers of a far higher quality than the ones done with filecards.

To drive the point in another direction, my boys are both authors and artists and composers of music — and talented, in the opinion of others besides their proud mom. During the school year, they struggle to find the mindset that allows them to create new work — a bit like “writer’s block” because all of the energy has been zapped out of them by school. They actually “steal time” when they are supposed to be doing homework (or when they are supposed to be sleeping) in order to “relax” by sketching, writing stories or making up new music.

When are they at their most creative? About two weeks into summer.

And then school starts again.

You ask an interesting question. If you took a team of teachers and gave them license to innovate, freed them from the constraints of the testing culture, what would happen, what would they create? Would it be different? How replicable would this experiment be?

I wonder if teachers like you that understand this are plentiful and just drug down by testing and day to day grind or if there really is that much retraining to do.

Thanks for the comment.

“I wonder” is the cornerstone of my 8th grade classroom-modeled and asked daily. I wonder what will happen if I continue this approach in the face of standardized testing?