Is creativity at odds with a culture of standardized testing?
We have a major problem with our education systems, not just in America, but in many of the old, industrialized countries. If you have a system as in the United States where there’s a 30 percent high school dropout rate—in the African American/Latino communities it’s over 50 percent, and in some of the Native American communities it’s nearly 80 percent—you can’t just blame the kids for it. With that amount of waste, there’s something wrong with the system— with impersonal forms of education, with people sitting in rows and not discovering the things that impassion them or invigorate them or turn them on. That’s increasingly the case with this culture of standardized testing. It’s totally counterproductive. Looking back at our own education, we came alive in certain sorts of lessons with certain teachers when we were given an opportunity to do things that invigorated us. And when you find things you’re good at, you tend to get better at everything because your confidence is up and your
