Unleash your Students' Talent and Creativity

This past week I had the pleasure of hearing Sir Ken Robinson and George Couros speak at the TASA conference.  It's rare that you get the opportunity to hear amazing thought leaders like this, but to hear two of them in one day was mind-blowing to say the least.  What I found interesting about them is that their messages emphasized the point that creativity in schools is not only essential but critical if we want more kids to be ready to inherit our rapidly changing world.

Now when we think about creativity in schools, we naturally gravitate toward a mindset of more difficulty, more work, or a vast departure from our normal way of doing things, but that was not the case in both of their keynotes.  In George's message, he drove home the point that in order to create the schools that kids deserve, it's all about establishing and maintaining meaningful  relationships with kids that unleash their creativity.   It's about knowing them as individuals and creating the conditions in our classrooms where we leverage our relationships with kids that inspire them to dream and create a future that goes well beyond the confines of the curriculum.

"Your job is to unleash their talent!" +George 

Robinson's message was similar but his approach to making change in schools focused on how we must engage and then empower our kids daily.  We don't know what kids will be when they grow up and neither do they, so we must remember that our job is to create an engaging environment where kids slowly discover that for themselves.  When kids develop confidence in themselves, they unleash their innate passion which is essentially the purpose for which they were born .

When the rhythms of education match the rhythms of a student's learning, kids will never disengage from learning. Sir Ken Robinson

How Can You Unleash their Talent and Creativity?
As you look at your students this week, I encourage you to view them not as what they are or where they're from.  Instead, view them as what they could become and the ultimate place we want them to be one day.  When we look at our kids from the lens of what could be, we create empowering learning environments that change FOR the benefit of kids and their future, not for the content they must learn.