The last several posts have been brought about by the recent news reports detailing some notion s that our children are getting smarter but less creative. This last sentence should, more accurately, be read as: our students are being measured as more intelligent but less creative. I say this because all of this rests upon how and what is being measured. How DO you measure intelligence or creativity?

Well…I spent some time discussing some of the reasons why I am think that these sorts of measurements are problematic, but there is something else to say about why they are put forth as the arbiters of educational accomplishment (for students, teachers, and schools…).

The term ‘intelligence’ and ‘being learned’ are often conflated. Being ‘learned’ would seem to be a worthwhile criterion for evaluating how well schools educate students; on the other hand, ‘intelligence’ is more of an innate ability. Yesterday’s post covered some of the reasons why I don’t think there is much use or validity in using these sorts of scores in any manner in school (i.e. if you can’t tell a student is bright or challenged, a mere number is not going to help anything…).

Both Intelligence and Creativity are held up as prime predictors of later accomplishments and life outcomes for students… That’s why these topics always make the news but there is a far easier to measure and better predictor of success (at least in the USA)…Motivation.

This is interesting, in that all of the hoopla about these test results are critical only in that they predict something later in life for students. These test results are arguably specious in that they are far too inaccurate and vague to be of much real use. If you were to track motivation in students over time, you could see that they would mostly track grades and test results.

I find it interesting that the sometimes inhttp://www.riehler.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=918effable concepts of intelligence and creativity are topics with which we try to quantify (and expect that the results mean something…). On the other hand, motivation is not so much an innate ability, but more develop-able skill (i.e. it can be taught!). Great teachers are usually great motivators. It is the motivation that students take with them that makes a bigger difference in life than whether they are supposed to be creative to intelligent.

With all of the talk and hand wringing about standardized tests, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), teaching for the test, and other memes, here is a quantifiable, measurable result which may have a big impact upon students…but there are few measures of this…

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