Emphasizing The Negative

Am I squelching my students’ creativity? My recent reading on creativity has caused me to raise this question. The authors I am reading point out that teachers primarily teach students what is wrong with their thinking, not what is right with it. In tests and papers students’ attention is drawn to grammatical errors, spelling errors, mistakes in logic. The positive aspects of students’ work may be ignored. The result is that students are conditioned to concentrate on not making mistakes rather than on taking risks. Students become cautious. This dampens creativity and originality. I must admit that when I am correcting students’ work I highlight more errors than accomplishments. I do question, though, how significantly I am hindering their creativity. After hearing students’ explanations for their errors, I think I actually may be encouraging creative thinking.

Learn To Learn

I question whether we are adequately preparing our students for life after college. I say this because of a recent experience in one of my classes.

I asked each student to think of a question regarding the course subject he or she would like answered. The assignment I gave was for each student to find answers to his or her question and report back to the class what was learned about the topic. I received confused looks and was then asked, “But how are we to learn about our topic?” These are college juniors and seniors and they are not clear about how to learn on their own. The next class I spent time talking about how to learn.

Success in any profession--success in life—requires ongoing learning. Students need to develop an attitude of lifelong learning and acquire the ability to teach themselves. What is known in any discipline will change. Current knowledge is quickly outdated in today’s rapidly-changing environment. Success will go to those who can keep pace with change. This requires that our students learn how to learn. That is the knowledge that will prepare them to lead a fulfilling life after college.