Saturday, August 18, 2012

yong zhao - creativity&testing?

doublethink-the-creativity-testing-conflict

But test scores are not measures of entrepreneurship or creativity. Not even scores on the intensely watched and universally worshiped Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, are good indicators of a nation’s capacity for entrepreneurship and creativity.

In doing research for my book World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students, I found a significant negative relationship between PISA performance and indicators of entrepreneurship.
Comparing the two sets of data shows clearly countries that score high on PISA do not have levels of entrepreneurship that match their stellar scores. More importantly, it seems that countries with higher PISA scores have fewer people confident in their entrepreneurial capabilities.
this part reminds me of blikstein (fablab at stanford) reported on steve hargadon's interview, aug 16, he noted kids from poorer schools claimed they weren't inventors/creators, yet in reality, they fix more things at home in more creative ways than kids from richer schools that have all the tech they need, but also tend to follow rules rather than invent/innovate/create new ways to do things, and who also claim to be inventors/creators.
we tell those kids from poor schools that suck at math, our pisa, ..they feel inadequate.
we tell those kids from richer schools they are good at math, our pisa, ..their abilities don't match the stellar scores we give them.
this isn't about going into any camps/sectors/labels here.. this is noting that no one is winning. we are all poor.


Kim analyzed performance of adults and children on a commonly used creativity measure known as the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. The results indicate a creativity decrease in the last 20 years in all categories. This decline coincided with the movement toward more curriculum standardization and standardized testing in American schools exemplified by the No Child Left Behind Act. “NCLB has stifled any interest in developing individual differences, creative and innovative thinking, or individual potential,
A narrow and uniform curriculum deprives children of opportunities to explore and experiment with their interest and passion, which is the foundation of entrepreneurship. Constantly testing children and telling them they are not good enough depletes their confidence, which is the fuel of innovation. So, by any account, what policymakers have put in place in American schools is precisely what is needed to cancel out their desire for creative and entrepreneurial talents. 

both research and common sense recognize as contradictory … 

another of Yong's posts on pisa here