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BY JEFFREY BROWN July 22, 2011 at 4:27 PM EDT
This week, the Lincoln Center Institute in New York is holding what it bills as the “first national conference focused on making imagination an integral part of American education.” I spoke to its director, Scott Noppe-Brandon, earlier this week:
A transcript is after the jump.
JEFFREY BROWN: Welcome once again to Art Beat. I‟m Jeffrey Brown. This week the Lincoln Center Institute, which is the education arm of Lincoln Center in New York, is holding what it bills as the first national conference focused on making imagination an integral part of American education. Scott Noppe-Brandon is the executive director of the institute, and he joins us now from New York. Welcome to you.
SCOTT NOPPE-BRANDON: Thanks, Jeff. Great to be with you again. JEFFREY BROWN: What do you mean by imagination and why a conference? SCOTT NOPPE-BRANDON: First, imagination for us is the capacity or ability to think of things as if they could be otherwise, to ask the „what if‟ question. Creativity, by the way, for us is imagination enacted, using the formal language of a discipline to enact that imagination. And we take it to innovation, which for us is a new outcome pushing the forum in some way. The question of why a summit or why a discussion around it — the answer or the reason is that we believe if we can bring together influencers from commerce, culture and education, including science and business, we can have a discussion of why
imagination and creativity in relationship to standards and accountability is an important statement for education in the United States today.
JEFFREY BROWN: The argument, if I get from reading the literature, is that imagination is a skill that can and should be taught in the schools. SCOTT NOPPE-BRANDON: Absolutely.
JEFFREY BROWN: Fill that in for me a little bit. What is the problem when it comes to current education?
SCOTT NOPPE-BRANDON: Two things. One is that most of the time when we think about teaching, we‟re thinking about the content area or the discipline alone. We‟re looking at teaching math, teaching science, teaching English, but we‟re not always talking about how you teach it and what‟s the method or the creative tools by which you deliver that. So in that instance we‟re trying to look at how to help no matter what the students are learning and no matter what the teacher is teaching the delivery system or the education process for that. If you look at it from the perspective of how you can help people become more
imaginative, you can build it into education. For us, that‟s through what we call the capacities for imaginative learning, which is a series of habits of mind or ways in which any discipline or any subject can be taught.
JEFFREY BROWN: I know that in the last few years, and you and I talked a couple of years ago about this, and leading up to this conference, you have been looking at experiments and ideas from around the country, practices. Give us an example or two to make this as concrete as possible, so people get how the education of the future might change.
SCOTT NOPPE-BRANDON: We have been working around the country over the last two years since you and I spoke to have what we call „Imagination Conversations,‟ and the conversations have been a series of public discussions with the people from education, culture and commerce to take a look at, to talk about why this is important in that state and how it relates to career
development, job skill development, how it relates to human development, public development, community development In each of those instances what we‟ve discovered is there is a natural want for continued discussion in that
community. So across the country and post the summit, we‟re seeing a
collection of people come together to ask for this type of teaching and learning in their community. In New York City, we are combining with New Visions for public schools to open a series of high schools over the next five years that New Visions will be taking the lead on, we‟re the lead education partner, and these are charter schools, all high schools where imaginative learning is the center piece of all instruction. So what we have is we have advocacy, we have public policy and we‟ve got practical application at the school level both in the classroom and starting schools.
JEFFREY BROWN: What would it would like? What would be an example of putting imagination into the skill set and into the curriculum?
SCOTT NOPPE-BRANDON: It‟s taking issues like how do you get kids to notice deeply. How do you get them to attend to details and information in front of them? How do you get them to notice patterns and make connections and be reflective and tolerate ambiguity? How do you get them to know how to take action, and elements like that combined over time start to build that
cognitive capacity for imaginative thinking. What we‟re saying is, is that there is no real magic here. It‟s not as if we are saying shut your eyes and just dream. We‟re saying let‟s build it into the moment by moment of instruction, whether you are teaching a math course, or a science course or an arts class.
JEFFREY BROWN: I was thinking about the kinds of barriers that you‟re up against. Of course it‟s an era where all kinds of educators, cities are strapped, so that‟s one issue. But what about the — I think you mentioned in part of the literature — about, well, just a sense of fear, a fear of change, a fear of experimenting and if things don‟t go well?
SCOTT NOPPE-BRANDON: I think fear — everyone is afraid of change. It‟s the old adage. Let‟s change; you go first. Or, you know, it‟s a great idea; let‟s do it when we have time. That‟s always going to be there, and I think what we‟re trying to do is show that with this collection of both influencers and
needs that we can put that fear on the backburner a bit and rewrite the narrative or reconsider the perspective. Jeff, one of the things that we have discovered over the last couple years, and this is true in every city and state we‟ve been in, is that everyone wants there to be an improvement in the education system. We
just keep getting into these either/or discussions. Is it accountability, is it standards, is it imagination, is it creativity? Where does fact/reason play into that? We‟re merely trying to say, let‟s put them in the same sentence. Let‟s not have an either/or; let‟s have a both/and discussion. And what I can tell you with 100 percent certainty is that both policy makers in education and in the
communities are not only ready for this, but they‟re hungry for it. Absolutely hungry for this conversation.
JEFFREY BROWN: So you are holding the conference, and finally what comes next? What do you want to come out of it and what happens over the coming year?
SCOTT NOPPE-BRANDON: Post the conference, post the summit, we‟ll continue to do conversations around the country. They‟ll be held in probably another 10 to 15 states post the summit. But we also will be working with the U.S. Department of Education and the teachers‟ unions, some corporations, other cultural organizations to hold a meeting in Washington, D.C., in late fall or early December to take this to the legislative or action steps, not just the talking-about-the-policy steps, and we have commitments from everyone to work with us at that level.
JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Scott Noppe-Brandon is the executive director of the Lincoln Center Institute. Thanks for joining us. SCOTT NOPPE-BRANDON: Thank you so much.
JEFFREY BROWN: And thank you all for joining us once again on Art Beat. I‟m Jeffrey Brown.
TED
Adam Burk Portland, ME United States
TED ATTENDEETEDX ORGANIZER
This conversation is closed.
In your opinion, what should the purpose of education be?
Education is a prominent cultural institution used to perpetuate the prevailing values of a society.
Our modern education system has a sordid past largely rooted in industrialism. It's aim is to
produce economically viable products--employable citizens. Nearly all our tweaks to the system in the last 100+ years are simply attempts to ensure that the products (graduates) are prepared for the work force.
I want to hear from YOU as I believe this conversation is crucial to lay a foundation to create significant and meaningful change.
Here is my answer:
I believe that education should be an empowering process that allows and guides children to develop their passions, critical thinking, compassion, and orientation towards wisdom for timely action.
In other words, self-cultivation should be the purpose of education. Understanding self-cultivation in terms of being a part of a unified field of relationships is key to the growth of a mature culture of peace. When the natural web of our relationships is used to strengthen our depth of knowledge, the feedback from the environment supports timely adjustments and refinements in our emotional and technical developments.
For this conversation, please focus on the question \"in your opinion, what should the purpose of education be?\"
We'll talk about the \"how\" in another conversation.
RELATED TALKS:
Ken Robinson: How schools kill creativity
Liz Coleman: A call to reinvent liberal arts education Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution! Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education
Closing Statement from Adam Burk
Thank you all for joining this conversation. There are beautiful aspirations here of bringing for the best of humanity through the development of individuals, married with tensions to ensure that
society is served and supported and that the basics are not overlooked.
There are currently 365 comments and 365 distinct articulations of \"what the purpose of education should be.\" The process to develop a consensus on this is beyond the scope and purpose of this conversation. However, I do hope that it is understood that this question and its answer are the
shapers of education systems and in turn cultures.
And so I invite you to ponder the question Thomas Brucia raised earlier, \"Who should decide what
the purpose of education is?
http://www.ted.com/conversations/8190/who_should_decide_what_the_pur.html
Once we decide who should be making that decision then we can return to my original question
and ultimately re-inventing education.
Thank you all again for sharing of your selves.
In peace, Adam
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C Medansky
Dec 27 2011: Great conversation and I am very happy for the opportunity to read though all the ideas here.
I certainly agree that our modern education system derived from perpetuating the values of industrialism; the problem is that while basic literacy prepares workers for a position within the industry it does not concern itself with the special abilities that exist in each child allowing them to develop and contribute to society as is best for them.
Although education and literacy are distinct, the emphasis must always be on education. The elements of literacy should be integrated throughout the day in a social manner through music, theatre, games and in the form of group discussions where the educators‟ job is to assist students in transitioning from topic to topic and students learn how the various disciplines are tied into the whole picture of reality.
The purpose of education should be to prepare children for life, nourishing the potential in every child so that each may connect and contribute his/her unique ideas and abilities to society.
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o E Pines
+22
Dec 27 2011: Excellent points! We spend years teaching the math skills that could be taught as a model of approach in a few days as these will essentially done by computer and calculator anyway. In the meantime, the thinking/cooperative skills -- total integration -- necessary for true success in the new global world that has come upon us, are left to float.
The industrial age has been passing to the information age, and now to the global/integral age.
In the 13th century Leonardo of Pisa, \"Fibonacci,\" widely introduced Italy and Europe to the
Hindu-Arabic numeral system and its wonderful arithmetic. It freed them of the hopeless
entanglement and debilitation of commerce and engineering under Roman numerals and abacus.
Who shall come forth for 21st century children so that they may have the tools to untangle the global systemic mess. That they may work as a single vast strategist and tactician with billions of eyes, where all individuals use their unique talents, creativity, and problem solving skills in
mutual concern and guarantee that links into a whole truly greater than the sum of the parts. Who will teach them to map and implement the interactive/interdependent strategies of Nature, on the human level, to achieve a world never before known. Who will bring our children to adapt, evolve, survive and thrive -- to start that great new chapter of human history, to fly forth as the butterfly from the overspent, rapidly decaying cocoon?
C Medansky
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Dec 28 2011: Who is a good question—we must first of all recognize who or what constitutes education. About the age of seven, a child becomes acutely susceptible to suggestion of the values and ideas implicit in society; therefore, we must rethink our programs and systems of education (including the media) in order to provide an appropriate quality education that will enable all children to fulfill their potential and contribute to building a sustainable and just global society.
“Education must simultaneously provide maps of a complex world in constant turmoil and the compass that will enable people to find their way in it.” (Delors Report, Learning: the Treasure Within)
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Mark Hurych
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Dec 28 2011: Nourishing the potential, C. Medansky, is a most excellent purpose.
I wonder whether you would accept that potential as the potential to love, potential to empathize, potential to play, create, to be happy, to spread happiness, to be sensitive to the needs of our planet. I'm speaking about things that occur to me as usually not associated with head thinking or
knowledge learning per se, but rather strength of spirit and heart. Even when we include health and safety (and physical agility, strength and endurance) still--emotional power and well-being often seem at the end of the list so to speak.
C Medansky
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Dec 28 2011: Thanks Mark! In answer to your question: YES, I positively accept that potential as the potential to love, potential to empathize, potential to play, create, to be happy, to spread
happiness, to be sensitive to the needs of our planet, and agree with Jeremy Rifkin (The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis) that distributed and collaborative learning experiences that foster critical thinking skills and greater empathic
engagement go hand-in-hand with curricula emphasizing the interconnectedness of life and geochemical processes, preparing our children to think and act as part of a global family in a shared biosphere.
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Caitlin Luview o +6
Dec 29 2011: This is a beautiful thread with so many wonderful responses. Thank you for the question.
There is nothing more important than education. Lifelong learning is a process we all participate in, knowingly or unknowingly, in each and every moment. We are all interconnected with each other and with nature's systems. This is why I feel that your question, \"In your opinion, what should the purpose of education be?\" is quintessential. The answer must come from a deep causal root of understanding from which all things stem and intertwine. That said, here is an attempt at an answer.
The purpose of education, on all levels, is for each and every person—both within the collective whole of humanity and individually as a vitally necessary, and fully whole and contributing part—to ultimately reach the full realization of what it means to be human.
By explaining and pointing to this foundational root of understanding, in each and every activity, subject, and direction, that the most basic, common law thread that runs through all of nature is the greatest Human Universal known as The Ethic of Reciprocity, also known as The Golden Rule, each person, and all people together have the best opportunity to fully realize their humanity, as empathic, compassionate humans that care for the needs of others in all areas of society.
Human Universals bind us together as one great global human family. The Human Universal called \"The Ethic of Reciprocity,\" also known as \"The Golden Rule,\" expresses itself throughout the world in varying degrees, through phrases such as, \"Do not do to others what you yourself hate,\" \"Do to others what you would want done to you,\" \"Regard your neighbor‟s gain as your gain, and your neighbor‟s loss as your own loss,\" and \"Love your neighbor as yourself,\" to name a few.
If one generation of children were to be educated with this natural law of love and unity as the basis for all decisions, approaches, and mentalities, just imagine the impact.
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Zhiying Li o +6
Dec 15 2011: We Chinese ancestor has a saying教是为了不教 which means Education„s purpose is just making everyone learn how to self-educate. I can't agree with this more ——in my opinion，I need education to make me understand my situation，understand others feeling，maintain interesting to this world，especially the nature.While even as a top-10 in my schoo llife，I can't
get this from our current education system. I only got impatience and comparison，let myself adjust to the society，then lose myself
o Adam Burk 0 TED ATTENDEETEDX ORGANIZER Dec 16 2011: Hello Zhiying, I have spent a lot of time with \"The Great Learning\" and this greatly informs my thinking and attitude. I agree that \"how to self-educate\" is a worthy purpose of education. Best, Adam
Zhiying Li
0
Dec 27 2011: woe，Adam，thanks for your confirm. Really appreciate your sincere attitude and careful consideration. My pleasure to share my view with u
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Steve Wins o +6
Dec 11 2011: In my opinion, the ultimate purpose of education is to help people be the teacher of themselves. I've been working in educational field for three years, and I am always thinking about this question. This is what I found: Education should be the process of helping people realize what they have, what they want, and what they need to do!
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yang hua
0
Dec 15 2011: I agree
o Adam Burk 0 TED ATTENDEETEDX ORGANIZER Dec 16 2011: Hi Steve, I sincerely agree with you. What age students are you working with? Are you finding ways to impart this purpose into your work?
Best, Adam
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Darleen Saunders o +6
Dec 2 2011: We each have differing talents, abilities and interests. If Mozart had gone to a public school today his teachers would have said, \"Great kid, so you got an A in music, but you're failing P.E. and English. You can't just play the piano all day!\" Well, you get the point. So the purpose of education would partly be to discover and develop the natural talents we each posses. To see each person as an individual, to help them discover their inner passions and to help them grow these inner passions as they develop greater skill in them.
I also see education as a way to teach critical thinking skills and to open our minds to higher order thinking.
o Dennis Pratt
+1
Dec 2 2011: Love the Mozart example! It reminded me of a video that conveys your point well! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8limRtHZPs
On the other hand, can their child be giving up too early? I did bottom of the class in math in
3&4th, in 6th I was top. I struggled again in 7th. By grad school no one could touch me. How does a parent \"know\" that their child is not a Mozart, or that the \"It's just not my thing\" is a cop-out?
I agree that 'roundedness' is over-rated. Specialization is how we progress in almost all areas of human endeavor (and may be the principle reason that the one-size-fits-few public schools fail so many children and squander the skills of so many teachers.) After years of observation, I believe my daughter has no proclivity or ability in art; has minimal talent but deep interest in music; and has great interest and talent in science. That her current school forces equal measures of these three seems a mismatch.
http://www.facebook.com/ParentsDecide
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Michael Richards o +5
Dec 2 2011: Because we live in a fast-paced world where that pace is accelerating. We cannot know what children will need to know in the future; we cannot even know HOW learning (or work) will be done because technology is transforming that very rapidly. Therefore, the primary purpose of education should be to learn how to learn.
o James McGuiness
0
Dec 3 2011: Technology pours forth on its own trajectory and if no major reckoning occurs to create some semblance of universal acknowledge that a unique technological phenomenon has happened which provides grounds for departures in which \"ideals\" rather than mere
\"improvements\" are possible, it won't matter that technology will continue to spill forth in continuance of its \"evolutionary\" rather than \"revolutionary\" procession. I have put all of my professional and motivational eggs in one basket I believe represents such a reckoning. I call it \"socio-technological literacy\"--a third literacy above the traditional literacy of the ability to read and write, and above \"technological literacy\" which we generalize to be the ability to \"use a computer\other two is an understanding of the fact that digital technology from the personal computer forward are no longer \"tools\" in the sense that tools had been used since the beginning of
civilization. These devices and their impact on dialogue cause unique adaptations in the human being. We are changed by such \"tools\" and it is absolutely imperative to begin formalizing a literacy around developmental dynamics and the facilitation of human potential through media devices which are \"unspecific\" AS tools.
Through this reckoning--this realization that we are changing from tool operators to beings partially changed by our new tool use, begins to establish a direction for deliberation in
technology design. What is it about ourselves that we can no address and enhance since our tools give us freedom from physical time and space? The answer is, we can address every aspect of reason and development and create unconventional progress synergies that make for micro-economies that fall outside of what has been addressed in Industrial age business. This is how we define the line between the Industrial Revolution and the Information Technology Revolution in earnest.
o Onecae Onecae
0
Dec 4 2011: The primary purpose of education should be to learn how to learn.
This deserves deeper investigation. To learn how to learn is inherently dangerous and disruptive. The process spoils authority while raising the most \"unworthy\" into positions of power. And yet, it is our best hope.
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Nancy Flanagan
Nov 30 2011: A \"good\" education--one that contributes to the positive development of a human being--is always rooted in relationships. In fact, the things we most value in a democracy--participation, community, contribution--are also about relationships. I believe the purpose of education should always be creating good citizens: people who will be productive, but also good family members and neighbors, informed and engaged community members, civic-minded
participants in making the immediate world a better place. The skill set for good citizenship, and the curriculum to lead youth in those positive directions does not, of course, align with what we're actually teaching in schools.
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o Adam Heenan 0
Dec 3 2011: Well-put Nancy. We should remind ourselves what makes us smile in life, and educate towards that. @ClassroomSooth
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Thomas Brucia
Dec 16 2011: The question is \"what should the purpose of education be\" (obviously any ideas in this regard would be the writer's opinion....).
Shouldn't it be \"Who should decide what the purpose of education should be\"?
Next: \"Who should have the right to disagree with the person(s) who has decided what the purpose of education should be?\"
Finally: \"What should the person who disagrees do about that fact?\"
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Clarah Manuhwa
+2
Dec 16 2011: however the question is what should the purpose of education be: it is rooted to challenge the educational systems that have been built for us by this who. A look into the history of education and what its relevance was back then is crucial to see what entailed this decision making process to set up a curriculum fit for the society.
As the world is changing rapidly , so should the past reasoning behind the present educational systems be challenged. In a world that needs to be saved from historys´ effects like war, global warming, poverty, hyper consumption etc ...Todays´ education (both classroom and beyond the classroom) has to be able to shape concerned individuals who can learn from human history and be more innovative than the box allows them, to be. “Education is not to reform students…or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight.” Robert Maynard Hutchins, U of Chicago president 1929-51.
o Adam Burk 0 TED ATTENDEETEDX ORGANIZER Dec 16 2011: Thomas, this is an excellent set of questions that certainly do need to be asked. Thanks for raising them. We've heard some answers in this thread already such as parents should be the ones to decide.
What are your thoughts?
Jason Shaw
0
Dec 19 2011: education connects people with societies/organizations. Each organization or society has a set of 'symmetries' that people need to possess in order to function within them. Education teaches people these symmetries. When schools fail to teach people the right symmetries to work with their target societies, people appear to drop out of school (because they are naturally attracted to educational systems that will provide them those required symmetries).
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