Tonight, Dayton has the opportunity to hear one of those “experts” come in and tell us the secret to education. This one is a “Sir” as in knighted by the queen, as an “educationalist.”

Sir Kenneth Robinson will be giving a free talk at the UD Rec Plex gym at 7:30 pm. But, you can watch these two videos and get a good idea of what he’ll say.

Sir Ken’s specialty is talking about the teaching of creativity. The arts- the non-mass production of education. To bring passion back into learning and the educational process. And while I agree that creativity is one of the most undervalued skills in education these days- and, possibly in life, the problems of our education system may well be mostly moot compared to research about talking to your child before age 5, as pointed out in an opinion piece in today’s NYT:

the key to early learning is talking — specifically, a child’s exposure to language spoken by parents and caretakers from birth to age 3, the more the better. It turns out, evidence is showing, that the much-ridiculed stream of parent-to-child baby talk — Feel Teddy’s nose! It’s so soft! Cars make noise — look, there’s a yellow one! Baby feels hungry? Now Mommy is opening the refrigerator! — is very, very important. (So put those smartphones away!)…

All parents gave their children directives like “Put away your toy!” or “Don’t eat that!” But interaction was more likely to stop there for parents on welfare, while as a family’s income and educational levels rose, those interactions were more likely to be just the beginning.

The disparity was staggering. Children whose families were on welfare heard about 600 words per hour. Working-class children heard 1,200 words per hour, and children from professional families heard 2,100 words. By age 3, a poor child would have heard 30 million fewer words in his home environment than a child from a professional family. And the disparity mattered: the greater the number of words children heard from their parents or caregivers before they were 3, the higher their IQ and the better they did in school. TV talk not only didn’t help, it was detrimental.

via The Power of Talking to Your Baby – NYTimes.com.

What kind of change could we make in Dayton Public Schools performance by rewarding neighborhoods that set up neighborhood reading sessions for pre-k kids every day? A community that reads together may create the kind of learning community that can start to overcome the obstacles of poverty that have proven to decrease student performance.

But, thinking back over my own education- there is one indisputable fact: I remember about half a dozen teachers/professors profoundly- Susan Forde, Steven Young, Larry Geiger, David DiCarlo, Dr. Cleary, Dr. Jacobs- but I don’t remember a single worksheet, standardized test, or even textbook.

Great teachers, who stir up emotions, who challenge you to think, to come up with answers that aren’t fill in the blank, or memorization exercises, are the ones who made the difference.

Our new “Common Core” still suggests that one-size fits all, and that people need to know certain things- instead of how to solve uncertain problems.

Life isn’t as easy as fill in the blank. There are always many different solutions to every problem. That’s why I’m interested in hearing Sir Kenneth tonight- to see if he can make me think about things just a little differently. I hope I see you there.