David Price

Creativity, Policy and Pedagogy:

How do we shift our thinking to enable our voices to become significant in

educational reform debates?

David Price

WEAA, Newcastle 2009

Context:

• Global, industrialised, model of education has run its course - new paradigms needed

• Opportunity exists for arts advocates to join with education reformers to press for 21st century view of learning - but only in a language and framework which governments understand

• ‘Creativity’ widely touted as one of the cornerstones of reform, BUT language and dislocation of the concept (plus its ghetto-isation in the arts subjects) has led to disappointing results so far

• We have to frame our arguments as positive solutions to improving schooling if we’re to get centre-stage

Content:

1. Locating our arguments within the mindset of inter-governmental competition (OECD, PISA, TIMMS, etc)

2. Challenges around shifting school culture to promote creativity

3. Two cases studies of two international education programmes I lead: Learning Futures & Musical Futures

4. Some re-framing concepts?

5. Some questions for us to consider?

“…if we’re going to hold schools ‘accountable’, it should be for something that standardised tests do not and cannot measure: the creation of an environment that supports and enhances students’ interest in learning”

Alfie Kohn, The Schools Our Children Deserve

Historically, top-down, government initiatives obsessively focused upon ‘achievement’ and ‘accountability’

Have studiously ignored ‘interest/engagement’ of the person at the centre - the student

The irony is, as Kohn, reminds us......

When interest appears,

achievement usually follows.

How can we foster the right environment for creative learning in

school? The way (some) schools are organised impedes creative

learning through:

Pedagogy

Curriculum

Culture

Non-arts teachers freeze at the word ‘creativity’, yet relax at notion of engagement - therefore talk about engagement, creativity will take care of itself

What can we learn from the way young people learn creatively outside schools and can/should we try to integrate it with what goes on in the classroom?

Learning Futures A Case Study in Engaging Pedagogy

UK Programme in 40+ schools 2009 - 2012

Hypothesises that drivers for whole school change (and system change) need to shift attention to the engagement of students, and the integration of other locations and partners for learning which have happened outside school

Theoretical framework for our interventions is as follows.....

New Models of Engagement Needed

Engagement historically seen as ‘instrument’ to raise standards

Traditional model supports compliance

Classic model of student engagement is the three-legged stool:

Behaviour

Cognition Emotion

We need to re-think the concept of Engagement!

School

Relationship between student & teachers

Family

Support for student from

parents, siblings, carers

Community

Peers, friends, mentors, other adults

Learning Futures:The Four Ps of Deep Engagement?

Placed: located in the world they are interested in ( family, immediate community, wider world); relevant to their lives outside school; utilises internet technologies to locate it in their lives

Principled: appeals to their moral purpose; values-driven; engage passion, it matters to them

Purposeful: results in action/product/service of practical benefit; fosters a sense of ‘agency- they can change the world; answers the question ‘so what?’

Prolonged: supported by family, carers, peers beyond school; has life (and reward) beyond the exam; can be extended through independent (and inter-dependent) informal learning

Characteristics of engaging pedagogy?

Fosters independent (and interdependent) learning

Subverts power relationships/authorityIs highly socialIs enquiry drivenBlends knowledge and skillsIncorporates student voiceWorks from near to the far (starts where they’re at)

When engagement appears, creativity

usually follows.

Musical Futures: Case Study of a radical approach to engaging and creative

pedagogies

Musical Futures: In Practice

•Radical approach to T&L in secondary school music

•Curriculum and pedagogy are co-constructed

•Non-formal teaching and informal learning in formal environment

•Competence-based, theory when needed

•Project as enquiry based intervention

Musical Futures:In Operation

• Sustained funder commitment (Paul Hamlyn Foundation)

• From 20 schools to >1000 currently and pilots in Australia, Canada, USA, Thailand, Cyprus, Italy

• Scaled - up through developing relevant materials, CPD and networks

• Importance of practitioner testimony and student involvement

• Government endorsement: a radical experiment, driven by arts subjects, has now become government poicy!

Musical Futures - The 7 Re’s which steered our

ship....• What’s wrong with this picture? (Reflect)

• What can we do that’s different? (Respond)

• Will it be OK if we screw up? (Request)

• How can we engage with students as joint enquirers? (Recruit)

• What’s working? What’s not? (Reflect / React)

• How can we prove it’s working? (Research)

• How can we transfer/scale up what’s working? (Repeat elsewhere)

Questions:

How do we change the organisation of learning to allow

for students to become more engaged & creative?

How do we define teaching which fosters creativity?

How can schools become more engaged & creative

with our communities, parents, learning styles,

locations? What stops them from doing so?

How do we position our advocacy so that it is

irresistible to governments?

What are the best forms of networks to support our

advocacy?

Follow-up?

• www.musicalfutures.org

• www.numu.org

• www.davidprice.org.uk

• www.davidpricesblog.blogspot.com

• [email protected]