How is the current educational process prohibiting creativity? How does standardized testing prohibit it?
A teacher at my school has a little post-it note on his desk with the mantra “If you can’t measure it, it didn’t happen.” I respect him a lot and think he’s one of the best teachers in our school. But that idea is part of the reason our educational system is not designed to teach creativity. Measuring progress is important to ensure learning is taking place. Unfortunately, measuring creativity is extremely difficult. Part of this difficulty is a result of teacher limitations. Crockett and his co-authors try to present an example of creativity at work on page 80 of their book. Their example shows a small color palette and some unique fonts. Those colors and fonts are supposed to be hip and cool. I know this because they said so, not because I know anything about design. The final logo they make looks okay to me, but if you told me, it was bland and uninspired, that is what I would believe. The educational system asks teachers to monitor and measure student achievement. As a result, if left to their own devices, teachers will measure achievement in ways they can understand.
Standardized testing only exacerbates this problem. Results from these tests are used for all sorts of non-academic purposes because teaching is unfortunately an extremely political career. Schools receive funding depending on state-wide testing. Teacher contracts are renewed or not based on how well their students perform. Of course, there are opportunities for individual teachers to promote creativity within the confines of standardized testing. But this requires a lot of extra work from the teacher and since the end goal is high test scores instead of creativity, there is less impetus from school administrations to promote teacher training stressing creativity. This is the main reason why modern educational systems prevent the teaching of creativity. The risks to various stakeholders are too high to make any mistakes and the rewards for success are barely acknowledged. The idea that measurement is the only way to ensure something has happened is hurting our students because it forces teachers and students to focus on what is being measured, not what ought to be taught.
Crockett, L., Jukes, I., & Churches, A. (2011). Literacy is not enough: 21st century fluencies for the digital age. 21st Century Fluency Project.
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