What a Lawnmower Teaches Us About Education
Posted by Tom Fasano on April 12, 2010 – 10:04 am
My new manual lawn mower
It’s rewarding to have time to work in our yard, which after reseeding has begun to thrive in the rocky soil of our patch of land at the foot of Mt. Baldy Road.
Ours is a tricky yard: a third of an acre of shifting sunlight and shadow that seems to change to direct sunlight by summer. So finding the right time to seed and fertilize requires patience and effort if the yard, which has a nasty habit of turning brown, is to survive and thrive.
While pushing my manual mower, I was thinking about how the older tools are somehow more efficient, and it was difficult not to think the same way about teaching. Despite all the technology, is our teaching better than it was, let’s say, a decade ago? Are the minds of our students taking hold like the struggling grass in my yard? Do we as teachers need to reach for more basic tools?
It’s not a far-fetched analogy: kids need tending, and they need the right tools. I think teachers might be better off putting away the power tools and using the hand tools. A little old-fashioned nurturing goes a long way.
Tags: lawnmowers, teaching
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Creativity is a Thing of the Past
Posted by Tom Fasano on December 14, 2009 – 9:32 am
Last summer I came across a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson titled Do Schools Kill Creativity in which Sir Ken makes the case for reintroducing creativity into our lessons. Watching his video lecture made me feel that magic would soon happen in my classroom. Robinson’s argument is simple: the most effective workers of tomorrow will be the innovators, the creators, those who march to the beat of a different drummer.
Sadly aware that my profession does little now to encourage the kind of creativity Sir Ken was talking about, I faced a challenge—and I’ve now spent the better part of the last 6 months trying to find ways to encourage creativity in my own students.
Toward this end I have been a complete failure.
Creativity is a thing of the past, Ken—something from another age, an anachronism, a dinosaur in Central Park.
Teachers are rarely if ever encouraged to be creative: Spend a few months in a public school teacher’s shoes and you’re going to discover a job bereft of creativity. It’s all about the tests now. Nothing else.
Sorry to burst your bubble, Ken.
Tags: creativity, teaching, teaching styles
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