Inspiring Creativity and Innovation in K-12. Douglas Reeves

or dully reassuring, it also has a negative effect, leaving the recipients endlessly wondering if they are really doing good work. Just as Goldilocks searched for the “just right” bowl of porridge, the development of a creative culture requires feedback that is accurate, specific, and timely but also humane and decent.

      Feedback for students and teachers can be clear and explicit, and the best formats provide a continuum so that everyone in the school understands how to achieve a higher level of performance. For example, classroom protocols as seemingly obvious as “raise your hand before you speak” could be readily challenged if teachers and students were to consider other means of achieving recognition. Yet the 18th century protocol of raising one’s hand to seek teacher recognition has been handed down from classroom to classroom, as if it were sacred fire rather than an outmoded system of engaging students in thoughtful conversations. Kim Marshall (2014) provides an excellent way to coach teachers on effective feedback techniques by providing a clear continuum of descriptions of professional practices. His rubric for monitoring, assessment, and follow-up includes the following range of professional practices.

      • Highly Effective: Uses a variety of effective methods to check for understanding; immediately unscrambles confusion and clarifies

      • Effective: Frequently checks for understanding and gives students helpful information if they seem confused

      • Improvement Necessary: Uses mediocre methods (such as thumbs-up, thumbs-down) to check for understanding during instruction

      • Does Not Meet Standards: Uses ineffective methods (for example, “Is everyone with me?”) to check for understanding

      Students can also be very helpful in creating a range of performance standards. Larry Ainsworth (1998) makes a compelling case for the clarity and specificity provided by student-generated rubrics. He calls it the playground standard of clarity. When students explain the rules of a game to one another, they don’t use complex or obscure language. They say, “You can go here, but you can’t go there. You can do this, but you can’t do that.” Few kindergarteners I know have arrived home and gleefully exclaimed, “Mommy, I did great in phonemic awareness today!” Yet many report cards continue to use language that alienates parents and is unclear to students. If feedback for students or adults in the school is to have an impact on performance, then it must be clear to the giver as well as the receiver.

Rigorous Decision-Making System

      The second essential element of a creative environment is a rigorous decision-making system. This kind of environment embraces discussion and debate as the fundamental processes for decision making on everything from class rules to criteria for student success to leadership and board policies. This is the opposite of student success defined by a teacher’s syllabus and rubrics and teacher and leadership success defined as compliance with a voluminous scorecard. Indeed, most board policy discussions are not conducted in an atmosphere of discussion and debate but rather behind closed doors from which a single recommendation is forwarded to the board for (almost inevitable) acceptance or rejection.

      Alan Lafley and Roger Martin (2013) set a very high standard for disciplined decision making. They require decision makers to have mutually exclusive alternatives. In contrast to the common practice of presenting a single recommendation for consideration, they require alternatives, debate, and clear acceptance of one alternative and rejection of others. This is effective guidance not only for the boardroom but also for the classroom. The search for comity that infects so many social situations, including the classroom, is the enemy of vigorous debate and rigorous analysis of alternatives. When students believe that the end of every debate results in both sides being right, they arrive to the world outside of school better prepared for cocktail party conversation than a position of responsibility.

      This approach to decision making is not just plucked from the business world and forced on schools. The concept of competing, mutually exclusive decision alternatives is essential in many environments, including nonprofit boards, religious institutions, schools, and symphony orchestras. I once watched James Levine conduct a rehearsal of the Boston Symphony. He asked different musicians for their opinions on the sound and expressive qualities of a particular passage. Although the musicians seemed pleased to have their opinions solicited, they also understood that Levine would consider the alternatives and then make a decision. Rigorous decision making, whether it is the opinion of a story in second grade or a multimillion-dollar technology proposal before a school board, requires that advocates take a position, defend it, critique alternatives, and then understand that, win or lose, they contributed to a culture in which dissent is not a social evil to avoid but a creative imperative to embrace.

Culture That Nurtures Creativity