Abstract
In much the same way that fashion trends and musical styles come and go, instructional approaches also fall in and out of favor. In the 35 years that I have been involved with education in the U.S., I have seen the pendulum swing from the so-called “open education ” model, to a “drill and kill ”/“back to basics ” mentality, to an age of high-stakes testing. In most U.S. states, high school students now have three opportunities to pass the last of a series of assessments that begin at grade three (age 8). If they do not pass, they do not receive a high school diploma. In addition, teachers often find that pay raises, promotions, and even their job security are tied to their students’ scores. We have moved from a model of educating the “whole child”, to a concern that young Americans perform as well as (if not better than) students in other countries, to the decision that it is the schools that can best be used as the vehicle to equalize opportunities for all. Markedly absent from these reforms has been a concern for the maintenance and growth of student intrinsic motivation and creativity.
Keywords
- Intrinsic Motivation
- Classroom Teacher
- Creative Performance
- Extrinsic Motivation
- Motivational Orientation
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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- 1.
High-stakes tests get their name from the fact that scores on these assessments really do have significant consequences for students, teachers, individual schools and entire school districts. In most U.S. states, high school students now have three opportunities to pass the last of a series of assessments that begin at grade three (age 8). If they do not pass, they do not receive a high school diploma. In addition, teachers often find that pay raises, promotions, and even their job security are tied to their students’ scores (e.g., Fitzgerald 2008).
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Hennessey, B.A. (2015). Assessing Schools on Creativity: A Toolbox for U.S. Teachers and Policymakers and a To-Do List for Researchers Worldwide. In: Tan, AG., Perleth, C. (eds) Creativity, Culture, and Development. Creativity in the Twenty First Century. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-636-2_10
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