“Creativity is as important now in education as literacy and we should treat it with with the same status.”
-Ken Robinson
After listening to this TED talk at leastonce a month since I discovered in back in January, I decided I NEEDED to share it. I’ve since become quite a fan of Ken Robinson and enjoy listening to him.
He does his research, poses great questions and is well-spoken. In addition he’s quite funny! I shared this with my husband and even he – who makes his living as a running nerd – thoroughly enjoyed this talk which questions the future of education.
In this video, Ken talks about how children are born creative but our current school system slowly squashes this out of them. He makes the point that schools are preparing our kids for the wrong things and teaching them to devalue the exact talents and abilities they will need to be successful in the future.
We have no idea what the future will look like
Because I strive to bring high-quality, relevant content to my readers, I am constantly doing research to explore current topics in education.
Just as I emphasized in my post about the effect on screen time for kids, while I currently prohibit my toddler daughter from using an iPad, I have no idea what technology will look like in 5 years, let alone 6 months from now!
My views and rules around screen time could easily (and almost certainly will) change and I’m okay with that.
Because our knowledge is evolving so fast and ever changing, I even have difficulty referencing studies in my articles that are over 5 years old!
Kids starting kindergarten now will retire in 2076
Our kindergartners will graduate college as the class of 2031 with 40 years of work ahead of them. What does that look like? What skills do they need?
How can we even possibly begin to know how to prepare our students for the future? Ken explains how the current school model is outdated.
In order to prepare our students for a unpredictable, fast-changing world we need to cultivate their creativity instead of train them to be compliant workers for jobs that no longer exist.
How schools are killing creativity
Children are capable of extraordinary creativity and innovation, yet we squander their talents.
Ken tells a humorous story (4:08) about a 4 year old boy that demonstrates this ability of children to be willing to take chances and not worry about making mistakes. If little kids don’t know something, they will try anyway. They have no fear of being wrong.
However, kids quickly lose this capacity.
Constant high-stakes testing quickly emphasizes to children that mistakes are the worst things that you can make. They come at a high cost – to kids, teachers and schools. The real danger in all this is that…
If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. – Ken Robinson
Our schools today are still teaching mostly content – things to be memorized. We teach children that knowledge is something to be passed down – not discovered – and that what’s most important is one’s individual knowledge alone (forget collaboration).
Schools were initially designed to prepare kids to work in the Industrial Revolution – and unfortunately they haven’t changed much. There still is a hierarchy of subjects that is pretty much the same around the world – first comes math and literacy, then the humanities and finally the arts.
Even within the arts we value art & music before drama and dance. Ken challenges the traditional hierarchy – why don’t we teach dance 5 days a week like we do math? What message does this send to kids and are we actually helping them?
How do we prepare kids for a world we know nothing about?
“Many highly-talented,brilliant, creative people think they’re not,because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatized.” – Ken Robinson
We have big problems today like climate change, sustainability and the exponentially evolving world of technology – my husband has already convinced me that artificial intelligence will take over civilization in our lifetime. These big problems of our time require us to do research, find novel solutions and think creativity.
How can we prepare kids for this ever-changing world that we have no idea what will look like? What skills do children need to solve these big problems?
What can we do as schools and teachers?
We need to not just give answers, but encourage questions. Place less emphasis on individual standardized tests and follow a new report card that demonstrates real skills. Teach children to value and learn from their mistakes and how to discover knowledge by working together.
Finally we need to give kids the time to create, innovate, tinker and experiment.
I believe that if we really want to prepare our kids for their future, we need kids to be able to do the following things:
stay curious and ask questions
be willing to be wrong, take risks & learn from mistakes
think creatively, problem solve & come up with novel solutions
gather information from a variety of sources, analyze information & think critically
collaborate with others & build on their ideas
understand and love the natural environment to be motivated to preserve our planet
Final food for thought
In the end of the talk (15:00), Ken tells the story of Gillian Lynne, a famous choreographer and multi-millionaire known most for her awarding winning choreography of Cats.
I love this story because it is so powerful and challenges the way we think about how kids should learn and behave.
At the young age of 8, Gillian constantly disturbed other kids in class, was always forgetting her homework and couldn’t sit still – sound familiar? The school wanted her to be evaluated for a learning disability. Her mother took her to the doctor and after engaging with Gillian said to her mother, “Gillian isn’t sick – she’s a dancer. Take her to a dance school.”
Her mother followed this advice and Gillian’s whole world changed. When she stepped into the dance school she realized she was at the right place. “I can’t tell you how wonderful it was.We walked in this room and it was full of people like me.People who couldn’t sit still.People who had to move to think.“
I love listening to this story again and again to remind myself of the wonderful capabilities of children.
By limiting them to the strict rules of what success in school looks like and labeling them based on that assumption of success, we are unable to recognize – and therefore squash – their amazing talents.
Let me hear your reactions to this TED Talk
How is your school preparing kids for this unpredictable future?
Is the emphasis on 21st century skills helping shape our curriculum for the better? What about Common Core?
What skills do you hope to develop in your own children to help them be successful adults?
Writing workshop is a great way to get students immersed in the writing process, but the same old routine everyday can cause kids to lose inspiration.
In addition, the long block of continuous, usually independent, writing can be agonizing for some students.
While many teachers have to follow a strict curriculum, just adding in a few fun days or choices during writing workshop can keep your students motivated and making progress.
Here are some creative ways to keep kids excited about writing!
Let them write with a black marker
Imagine trying to get all your ideas on paper while simultaneously trying to do your best handwriting. These are two very distinct tasks!
Luckily, most adults don’t even have to worry about this because we write on a computer. However, handwriting for kids requires a lot of different skills (fine motor control, remembering how to form individual letters) using up a lot more concentration and brain power than an adult.
Brainstorming and creative thinking is impeded when a student is trying to focus on handwriting during writing workshop.
Take the stress out of writing by letting children use a black (or dark colored) marker when writing in their journal.
Not only is this fun – kids feel like they are breaking the rules a bit – it really helps a variety of students you’re probably familiar with in your classroom:
The dark line lover
These kids go over their pencil lines again and again making them very dark and sometimes even ripping their paper. For some students it’s a sensory thing and they enjoy the feeling of the pencil on the paper. For others it’s almost obsessive compulsive – they focus so much on the lines they forget about their writing.
The feather gripper
These students have a very light grip on their pencil. Their letters are shaky, too big or hard to read. These student usually have some fine motor issues and the stress of a pencil only exacerbates their anxiety towards writing workshop.
Remember – if a student actually needs to work on fine motor skills – more pencil is not always the answer. Address the real problem by helping them gain core and hand strength through play.
The eraser addict
These kids are often perfectionists. They want their writing to look a certain way and will keep erasing and rewriting. Sometimes they even erase whole words and sentences as they second guess their ideas or the quality of their work.
If a student makes a mistake with a marker, they can cross it out and move on. The most important thing for kids during writing workshop is to stay in the flow of writing.
Writing with a marker also teaches kids to be more comfortable making mistakes.
When writing with a marker, students have to come to terms with the fact the writing is messy. Children need to feel comfortable making mistakes because that’s how we all learn! Teach children to be comfortable making mistakes by pointing out your own in the classroom.
When I write my morning message on chart paper I cross out any mistakes and leave it up there for the kids to see. Young kids love finding out adults make mistakes too!
Add some variety to your writing center
Just as in the real world (infographics, newspapers, street signs, menus, books, Facebook posts…) there are many different types of writing for students to engage in. Students, even young ones, shouldn’t be confined to only writing about real life stories – or “small moments” – day after day.
When you have flexibility in your writing assignments, provide kids a variety of materials to choose from to produce different types of writing. As long as they are writing the whole time, let them be!
Here are some of my favorite things to include in my writing center:
Lists
A numbered list from 1 – 10 is surprisingly very appealing to young students. They use it to jot down ideas, make a pretend shopping list, and a lot more things I am just not creative enough to think of.
My only rule is – no names. You don’t want someone listing their best friends or deciding who to invite to their birthday party.
Postcards
These are just fun! While they might not have been to see a real tiger on a safari – their best friend may currently be obsessed with the animal.
Encourage kids to pick out postcards that are about something their recipient really likes. Students can send notes to classmates and put the postcards in cubbies or mailboxes in the classroom.
Birthday & get well cards
These usually just have a short phrase like “Get well soon!” and a picture on the front but are blank inside. I used to make my own with clip art in Word – save time and download the examples above here!
Kids enjoy making cards for friends who are out sick, a little brother with the stomach flu and Dad’s birthday.
Blank note cards & envelopes
An easy way to collect these – and other notepads that charities and other organizations mail out – is to solicit parents. This is just another fun way for students to write notes to family members or friends. Securing their note or letter in an envelope makes the process all that more exciting.
Comic strips
This is my all time favorite! This really allows kids who enjoy drawing a chance to make up a story. Give kids some ideas on how comics and word bubbles work by reading and having available Mo Willems’s Piggy & Gerald books and Phonics Comics in the classroom.
Ready to revamp writing workshop?
Want these printable templates (comic strips, cards & lists) to print and stock your classroom with? Sign up here to receive these and free goodies from Blue Mango!
Don’t forget to just create a writing rich environment! Have pads of paper and a variety of writing utensils in the drama center, small whiteboards or chalkboards open during free time and let kids help you label the classroom.
What are your creative ideas to keep your kids engaged in writing workshop? Share your comments below!
Screen time is a complicated topic for anyone trying to teach or raise a child today.
Technology is evolving so fast that we have no personal experience, advice from our mothers nor data on long term consequences to easily distinguish what’s right and wrong for our kids.
As the creator of a children’s app, I struggle with issue constantly. Am I a hypocrite for having my kindergarten students use my handwriting & phonics app during literacy centers, yet I don’t let my daughter near an iPad?
Perhaps, but I believe the issue has varying shades of gray. I think it’s naive to say that all technology and screen time is bad for kids – especially considering how rapidly things are changing – but at the same time I do think there is reason to be cautious.
How can we figure out what tech is good or bad? What will help our children learn?
Today I’m going to explore this tricky topic to hopefully give you some insight into how to make the best decision for your family, your kids and your students.
I look forward to sharing with you:
Why I decided to create a children’s app
The current research behind limiting screen time for kids
How tech can enhance kids’ learning & quality of life
My personal guidelines on screen time at home
Why I decided to create a children’s app
My experience as an early childhood specialist and a mother, as well as my personal beliefs, have led me to value under-scheduling, experiences in nature, physical activity and unstructured open-ended play that fosters creativity, curiosity and problem solving skills.
This tends to put me in an anti-technology camp, so what changed?
One day I realized I couldn’t fight the future. iPads were here and kids were using them. If students were going to spend 15 minutes in the car anyway playing on an iPad, why not have them work on skills that they really needed?
I also began to notice so many children were being referred to OT just to learn handwriting. In addition, I wanted to give my students who were showing signs of language disabilities and dyslexia the additional practice at home to learn their phonics sounds and letter formation – without expensive therapy.
Ollie’s Handwriting & Phonics was a way to bring an affordable tutor into the home. Based on research and using multi-sensory techniques, the app teaches children how to form letters correctly (and won’t allow them to practice bad habits) and reinforces phonics sounds.
It’s meant to be a teaching app, not a game and I was actually nervous that the app would not be super fun and appealing to children because of all the fast-paced, colorful and noisy games out there now for the iPad.
However, to my delight it’s been very successful – popular with school districts and special education teachers. I think Ollie’s Handwriting & Phonics app is a valuable tool for many students.
However, it is just that – a tool.
It does not replace the unstructured outdoor free play that is necessary to build the core, upper body strength and finger dexterity to develop strong fine motor skills. Just 5 to 10 minutes a day would be hugely beneficial to a child with dyslexia or dysgraphia.
Is screen time for kids that bad?
So what does the current research on screen time say? According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) children under age 2 should have no screen time at all and kids as well as teens should be limited to 1 – 2 hours of screen time a day – and this should be high-quality content.
Studies have shown that excessive media use can lead to attention problems, school difficulties, sleep and eating disorders, and obesity. – AAP
The AAP’s reasoning behind no screen time for infants and toddlers under 2 is that their brains are developing so rapidly that they learn best from interacting with people and not screens. Screen time replaces valuable learning time.
The AAP suggests that parents do not allow screens in children’s bedrooms, turn the TV off during dinner and try to be present with their child when engaging in media to help guide their experience.
So why should we take these recommendations seriously? Is 20 minutes a day of PBS’s Daniel Tiger really harming an 18 month old?
What does the research say?
The topic of screen time for kids is a lot more complex today than when it was first researched 15 years ago. The AAP’s original recommendations came out in 1999, well before an interactive tablet like the iPad was brought to the market in 2010.
When examining the research, I was careful to look at when studies were conducted (pre or post iPad), the age of the children in the study (screen time seems to have different effects on kids under 3) and the type of screen time engaged in (passive TV watching, movies, video games or interactive tablets).
The simple answer is – it’s complicated.
However, I compiled my findings here to help you understand my decisions around screen time as a mom and an early childhood educator and to help you make the best decision for your students and family.
Screen time affects attention & executive function
There is no evidence showing that screen time is educational for infants and toddlers, but there is some evidence that it may be harmful.
Children over age 3, however, can benefit from a limited amount of carefully monitored screen time experience with quality content, but excessive screen time harms healthy growth and development, regardless of content. (2012)
I wasn’t interested in unfounded claims that screen time causes ADHD (or obesity) – that oversimplifies things. However, TV viewing and playing video games do seem to have an effect on children’s attention, behavior and executive functioning skills.
TV viewing for very young children has been linked to attention problems.
In this study (2004), watching TV at a young age (1-3 year olds) was associated with attention problems at age 7 and was directly related to how many hours a day the child watched. Another study (2007) showed that viewing violent or noneducational, nonviolent TV shows (or movies) under the age of 3 was also linked to attention problems.
Screen time also has an effect on older children.
The amount of time watching TV as well as playing video games were both associated with increased attention problems in children. Kids who exceeded the AAP’s recommendation of 2 hours of screen time a day were twice as likely to have attention problems. (2010)
Children who spent more time using computers or watching TV had more behavior problems regardless of their level of physical activity. (2010)
Perhaps most concerning to me is a study (2011) that showed that viewing fast-paced cartoons, whether educational or not, significantly impaired 4 year olds’ executive functioning skills.
Screen time replaces other activities necessary for healthy growth & development
While these above studies are all slightly scary to me, I’m most concerned about the activities screen time often replaces – unstructured outdoor and imaginative play and human interactions.
Children benefit most from having a lot of time for hands-on creative and active play, time in nature, and face-to-face interactions with caring adults. (2012)
Kids today spend an average of 7.5 hours outside of school on a screen. (2010) What time does that leave for anything else?
Developing fine motor skills & imaginative play
Unstructured outdoor free play is essential for the proper development of gross & fine motor skills and ultimately handwriting. My research and interviews with experts emphasized this point time and time again in my 3 part series on The Unconventional Guide to Improving Handwriting Skills.
Set aside the electronics – the tablets, smart phones, video game systems, and remote controls. Just because they use the hands doesn’t mean they develop the hands. – Christie Kiley, pediatric OT, founder of Mama OT
Pediatric occupational therapists are seeing an increase in the amount of children today who lack the core strength, upper body strength and finger dexterity necessary for the proper development of their fine motor skills.
Their recommendations? Let kids spend more time in unstructured play outdoors.
The more time children spend watching TV, the less time they spend in creative play. Whether indoors or out, open-ended imaginative play is important for learning.
Kids need time to be curious and direct their own play by pretending, physically manipulating objects, experimenting and tinkering to figure out how things work.
Rachel Coley, pediatric OT and founder of CanDo Kiddo talks about the importance of unstructured play.
I personally emphasize “old school” backyard play and unstructured social play outside at early ages because they offer self-directed exploration through movement, foster curiosity and imagination, and promote social problem-solving – all key developmental tasks of the early years.
The ability of a child to turn a ball, a hula hoop, a rope and a cardboard box into an elaborate pirate ship or make up their own tossing game is a skill called ideation. It’s often overlooked but is very important to motor and cognitive development.
Communicating, connecting & interacting in person
Children learn best from real human interactions. Infants begin social learning from the moment they’re born through face-to-face interactions with parents and caregivers. Preschoolers and elementary students hone these skills as they negotiate conflicts in play and collaborate in groups to solve problems.
Even middle schoolers have a greater difficulty reading emotions because their screen time use is replacing interacting with real people!
Researchers at UCLA found that 6th graders who were sent to an outdoor education camp for 5 days (with no access to electronic devices) were significantly better at recognizing facial emotions and understanding nonverbal cues than 6th graders who were allowed continual access to their mobile devices and screens.
Interestingly, researchers advised educators to be aware that adding more computers and iPads to a classroom may inadvertently be taking away an important piece of social learning that should be going on in the classroom.
Even educational TV has its consequences
Many TV shows, videos and apps boast about educational benefits but there is little evidence to support most of these claims. Just because a company says something is educational, doesn’t mean there is any scientific research to base their claims.
Babies learn language through face to face interactions with their caregivers. If a young child is not interacting live with a person (this could be virtually), they do not gain any new vocabulary.
Children under 4 years old who either started watching TV at less than a year old or watched TV for more than 2 hours a day were 6 times as likely to have language delays than their peers!
So it’s no surprise that “educational” TV and videos marketed for infants and toddlers – like Baby Einstein – don’t do a thing to help kids build language skills.
Also, surprisingly, educational shows (and even well-meaning books like the Bernstein Bears!) can actually increase a type of aggression in children.
Coined “relational aggression” in the book NurtureShock – it’s when kids are manipulative and controlling of their peers such as telling kids they can’t be their friend if they don’t get their way.
The problem with many of these educational shows is that they focus on the problem and negative behaviors for so long that it’s all kids remember. The short wrap up at the end of the show where everyone is forgiven and friends again is forgotten. Children just end up learning new ways to be mean!
These researchers found that after watching an episode of Clifford the Big Red Dog – which focused on a 3-legged dog and was supposed to be about overcoming differences, friendship and kindness – actually resulted in kids being less tolerant!
Needless to say, “educational” is not always the answer.
How tech can enhance kids’ learning & quality of life
I think it’s pretty clear that using screen time as a babysitter, especially for children under 3, is detrimental to their growth and development.
In addition, passive TV or video watching does not seem to be helpful for kids’ learning and can be harmful. Even though children have more access to mobile devices today, television use is still what children engage in most.
However, most of the studies mentioned do not address interactive tablet or smart phone use or intentional computer use such as researching information, Skyping with family (more on this below) or playing creative computer games such as Minecraft – did you know kids can actually learn to code in the game?
“Screen time” prior to 2010 really means just watching TV and video games. What does screen time mean today in 2015 and can we lump all screens together?
More recent studies (from 2011 – 2014) recognize that tech is constantly changing and we don’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water. These studies advise caution around screen time but also emphasize the intentional use of technology for children.
Screen time is best when it’s interactive, has an adult engaging with a child and is of carefully chosen content.
Technology is amazing – just think about how it has positively enhanced the lives of students with special needs! Children with autism can communicate with iPads.
Little girls with Rett syndrome who are unable to speak and have no functional use of their hands are able to use a Tobii (an assistive communication device that reads eye gaze) to talk.
Before these kind of tools, people used to think that girls with Rett were cognitively impaired – I worked with a little girl for over a year and can tell you that is not the case!
I believe there is enough information out there to be cautious with screen time and young kids. I don’t see there is enough evidence that watching TV or videos, even educational ones, is beneficial for the development of young children.
In addition, I see it as replacing higher quality activities that require fine motor skills, critical thinking, creativity, interacting with people and learning from experience. Lastly, there is no research that shows kids who are not exposed to electronic devices before kindergarten are at a disadvantage.
My daughter is currently 21 months and will turn 2 this June 2015. Here are my current guidelines:
1. Absolutely No:
TV watching – This is an easy one since we don’t have a TV!
Watching of any videos – YouTube, songs, stories, movies or educational shows
Playing with the phone or iPad
2. I Limit my time on my phone in front of my daughter.
Kids get their habits from parents. She knows my husband and I work on our computers and often check our phones (texting is addictive) or use them to take pictures.
However, we try to not use them too much in front of her – especially during mealtimes and family outings – mainly because it means we’re engrossed in Facebook instead of interacting with our daughter!
3. FaceTime & Skype are OK in limited amounts.
When you’re in Denver and the rest of your family is in Philadelphia, Boston, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Honolulu and the Netherlands – you can’t discount how amazing it is today to talk live virtually with your family.
I used to feel guilty about this “screen time” but this new study got my really excited and I’m learning to relax a little more as a mom.
I still limit this time because Reagan just gets really irritable. She wants to play with the computer or phone, it gets her all wound up and when we have to end the session she throws a tantrum.
Final thoughts
We’re not perfect – Reagan’s having a great time at the beach but notice Dad in the background!
New research is constantly coming out and the world and the many uses of “screens” is changing fast. While I advise parents to be cautious, I don’t think we can still lump all screen time together and declare it evil. We just don’t know what the future might bring!
An educational iPad app that helps kids with dyslexia or dysgraphia learn their letters and sounds is very different from watching cartoons on TV – I hope you agree!
I look forward to giving an update on this article in the future. I know my views and guidelines may change in a year or even six months as technology, education and our world is constantly changing!
What does screen time mean for you?
My daughter is very young and currently the “only” so it’s easy just to keep her in the dark about a lot of cool things on screens. But I’m curious…
What do your family’s screen time habits look like?
