Creativity vs. Discipline

There is a tug-​​of-​​war going on in edu­ca­tion. Let me say at the out­set that I’m fully aware the debate isn’t as clear cut, nor are the debaters as cleanly divided, as I present things here. The debate does exist, though.

At one end of the rope we have a team decry­ing the col­lapse of rigor and dis­ci­pline in schools, ask­ing for more account­abil­ity and a return to focused instruc­tion on the essen­tial skills of read­ing and math. Michelle Rhee is one of the out­spo­ken anchors for this approach. She bluntly dis­par­ages any approach to edu­ca­tion that, in her words, is too “touchy-​​feely.” If it doesn’t result in improved stu­dent per­for­mance, it doesn’t belong in her schools. And she isn’t afraid to ruth­lessly remove any­one or any­thing that she feels will slow down progress towards her goal of mak­ing Wash­ing­ton, DC, schools the best in the country.

At the other end we have those who believe that the basics have changed, and that stu­dents now need less empha­sis on rou­tine skills and more on cre­ativ­ity, prob­lem solv­ing, and inter­per­sonal rela­tion­ships. Karl Fisch gives just one exam­ple of the change here. (As an aside, if you haven’t seen his “Shift Hap­pens” video, stop read­ing now and go watch it. Really.) Daniel Pink argues in his book A Whole New Mind that this shift will require an entirely dif­fer­ent kind of edu­ca­tion: one that indeed focuses on the right-​​brain skills of social col­lab­o­ra­tion and cre­ativ­ity. See this post of his for one example.

But isn’t this the whole point of dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion? Dean Shareski clearly explains why we can’t have just one approach to edu­ca­tion for all stu­dents. We need to stop look­ing at which sys­tem of edu­ca­tion is going to be more effec­tive for all stu­dents, but what each indi­vid­ual stu­dent needs to thrive and learn.

Con­sider this state­ment by Jackie Winch, speak­ing about her son, Jef­frey Gold­man. Gold­man has a gifted IQ, and in high school spent a good por­tion of his spare time doing his art­work in public—as graf­fiti.

Gold­man was not a good fit for his school sys­tem and got in trou­ble with mall secu­rity reg­u­larly enough that they knew him by name. Chances are that you do too. He is now known as Chef “Duff” Gold­man, and is the owner of Charm City Cakes and star of the Food Net­work show, Ace of Cakes.

Despite his poor per­for­mance in school, he is a suc­cess. It is his cre­ativ­ity and charisma that have brought him to where he is.

What do we do with this? Duff found a way to thrive despite his school­ing. How many stu­dents don’t rise up like he did and achieve their potential?

I’m not argu­ing here that we need to throw out rigor and dis­ci­pline in school. Quite the con­trary. There are many stu­dents who need it and thrive on it and for whom the struc­tured envi­ron­ment pro­vides them secu­rity and a safe place to grow. Indeed, kids like Duff could not suc­ceed with­out discipline.

For just as many stu­dents, rigor imposed from out­side sti­fles them, cramps them, and cuts off the shoots that they try to send out into the world. For them, the dis­ci­pline comes from within, and grows out of the relent­less pur­suit of their pas­sions. They don’t need more bound­aries, they need free­dom to explore.

If pub­lic schools had the lux­ury of hand-​​picking the stu­dents who would best fit into their modes of instruc­tion and the design of their cur­ric­ula, then we could allow each team in the tug-​​of-​​war to develop its own schools and cater to the stu­dents who would fit best. But since we don’t, I don’t see any option other than to diver­sify, dif­fer­en­ti­ate, and pro­vide a menu of options for both cur­ricu­lum and instruc­tion which will address all the needs of all the stu­dents who find their way through our doors.