Before going further, a bit about me.  I teach mainly high level English classes to students, who for the most part, enjoy school, but not in the way I want them to.  I also have spent many years in the trenches working with those who saw no meaning in education.  They wanted to be a bit more creative, they wanted to be a bit more expressive.  But, these courses have slowly eroded to nothingness.

Now, just because I teach the high level classes doesn't mean that my students love learning.  I have noticed over the years that they lack in critical thought.  From time to time I test them on this by throwing outlandish statements like I am no longer allowed to speak French due to the PATRIOT Act.  They bought this without question.

Along these same lines of buying whatever authority says, they are having a more difficult time digging deeper into their studies.  They have been taught, it seems, that there must be a concrete answer: A,B,C,or D (sometimes E).  Obama agrees:

(Cross posted at DailyKos)

...teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests.

I could not agree more, as this is what teachers and education have been reduced to.  As NCLB has taken stronger hold, teachers have become masterful at preparing students to take tests.  In doing so, we have taught them that all answers are concrete and few are derived from critical thought.  The question immediately arises: how do we reverse this?

Obama talks about bringing more art, music, and diverse social studies courses back into the curriculum.  This is how we do it.  Creative, elective courses show students that by using creative thought, they can come by the answers on their own.  But, NCLB has taught them that answers cannot be derived this way.  With each passing year, we reduce the number of creative electives offered to students.  And in place, they have more courses that teach to a test.

Our number of art classes has so dropped that we had to let go of one art teacher, a foreign language teacher, and one section of creative writing in the last couple of years.  The number of students enrolled in those classes still available has also dropped.  Each year I hear students say they wish they could take a philosophy class, but there is no longer room in their schedule because they have to take another core class to increase their test scores.

NCLB has done a wonderful job in telling students that creativity and curiosity will get them nowhere.  That all society wants to see is high test scores.  Moreover, for a student to have any value in society she must have good test scores, so they believe.  Like our cultural definition of success (that he who has the most is the happiest and most successful), they believe that to have any meaning, they must have high test scores and good grades.  A curious, creative mind is meaningless under NCLB.

Thus, school becomes about the material, quantifiable attributes of grades and test scores; rather than about developing a critical, creative mind.  Students don't reflect on what they have learned.  They focus mainly on the material aspects of learning.  They ask what do I have to do to get a higher grade?  While this shows some determination, it lacks the curiosity about why a sentence is constructed the way it is.  

If we want to improve education, we need to let students find value in creativity.  Obama has made a call to bring these courses back to the forefront of schools.  Creative courses do encourage curiosity.  In encouraging curiosity, students become more critical in their thinking.

Even though one cannot quantify a beautiful poem, we can show them the power of their words.  More important, we need to let them have some fun.  Learning should not only be about "drill and kill," but should also include an opportunity to express critical, creative though.

(Cross posted at DailyKos)