Can't you just tell me how?

In schools today, students are not being challenged creatively like they perhaps should be. Previously in the United States, it was much more content based learning. Dates and facts were what were important, instead of being able to come up with new ideas. Even today, students are not very willing to think outside of the box, and are always demanding a rubric and wondering how many points it is worth. Though this skill could be considered useful in the business world, because they desire to give the teachers exactly what they want, to get the maximum possible number of points.

However, when students find themselves entering the workforce, they are going to witness a rude awakening that they will not be told exactly how to do it. By always telling students how to go about doing something, we are stifling their creativity, and preventing them from coming up with new solutions to problems. This is why it is important to encourage creativity in the schools.

One common theme in schools today for when they want students to be creative is to instead of giving them a test, give them a project instead, because that will allow them to be more creative! While this does encourage them to be slightly more creative than what they might do for a test, often time these projects are thrown together at the last possible minute, and are exactly what the rubric asks for. I fail to see how that is really being creative, when all they are doing is building their project exactly to what the rubric says. Teachers are discouraged from simply teaching to the test, therefore these students should be equally discouraged from basing exactly what the rubric says. Students are afraid to take risks that might jeopardize their grade in any way. In most cases it's not about learning the material, or developing skills, but simply getting through it with the least amount of work possible to get the greatest possible points.

It's interesting that people are developing these skills, because really that's about efficiency, which doesn't have too much of a place with creativity. Trying to encourage students to be less efficient seems almost counter-intuitive, but perhaps that is what needs to happen.