I’m also reminded of the opportunities I’ve had to learn from Sir Ken Robinson. In addition to his famous TED talks, I have been privileged to see him in person a couple of times and he is not only a very entertaining presenter but he inspires me as a leader to have the courage to try new things even when it feels like “sailing into the headwind.” A few years ago, we used his talk on creativity to inspire our school theme for the year, “Finding Your Talent Within.” This came mostly from the story he told about the music teacher in Liverpool, England back in the late 1950s that had half the Beatles (Paul McCartney and George Harrison) in his class but failed to recognize their talent. We decided as a team that we would focus on getting to know our students’ passions and talents so that we could give them as many opportunities as possible to use their creativity to demonstrate their learning and develop their skills. The key elements Robinson describes that drive human life are diversity, curiosity, and creativity. (Robinson, How to Escape Education’s Death Valley TED 2013) As teachers and leaders we have to create the conditions for students to be able to access these elements during their school day. It’s not enough to provide extra-curricular activities like music, art, sports, etc. We need to be intentional about providing students with the time and means to use their unique creativity and passions to represent their thinking as part of their regular school day. Or as another of my heroes, Maxine Greene, describes it; we want our students to “stir to wideawakeness, to imaginative action, and to renewed consciousness of possibility.”
I thought Adora Svitak captured another key element so well when she talked about how students have the imagination to see the ideal. Since I’ve been focusing my thinking on student agency I was struck by Adora Svitak’s perspective on the problem of kids having little or no say in making the rules. (and this was ten years ago!) We need to encourage our students to dream big and have choices in where they want to go in their learning. That’s how they become confident, independent learners. Or as Svitak describes “our audacity to imagine helps push the boundaries of possibility.” (Svitak, What Adults can Learn from Kids, TED 2010) Her talk will be another good resource for our team as we consider how we can better promote student agency.