When You Assess Something, You Are Making An Ass Out Of "U" And...Whoops

"Der Vivisektor" by Gabriel von Max (1883)
http://www.greanvillepost.com/2016/02/07/115395/
(random website attached to photo that looks interesting)
((Hey, this picture may be a good one to use in a "Zoom In" routine.))

Searching Google for "brain on a scale" yields a multitude of images depicting hearts outweighing brains on a scale--a worthy metaphor to consider for our students, to be sure. For them, and indeed, many people, it is truly a creative product to consider:  The idea that what you feel, how you act, and the love you show is more important, more weighty than what you know or how you think.  This idea may have originally been depicted by von Max in this painting from 1883.  If so, to him go the kudos of originality of thought.  Based on the unit he was studying in school about value judgements, I would give him excellent marks for his creative process.  All the other kids in his class wrote five paragraph essays that quoted heavily from the Bible.

As far as the product goes, it would be unfair of me to judge, as I know nothing about art history, but I can tell you this:  Compared to his peers on Google Images, von Max has created an innovative and appropriate depiction of a now cliched metaphor, as well as demonstrating technical proficiency.  See for yourself:

Using the following hastily constructed rubric, I submit that we could get consistently reliable assessment results:

Wait a second...we probably couldn't, based on interrater reliability.  Without more detailed criteria, my rubric is not reliable.  Some may find all of the images lame--or interesting.  Or exactly opposite.  This is complicated, but I see that creating a valid and reliable form of assessment is fundamental to teaching creativity.  We need to be able to find a way to reliably assess with a valid process that encompasses both innovation and appropriateness.  (Phew, knocked out all my vocab in one sentence, and even included the bonus word for the week.)

Anyway, let's try a slightly less-hastily created rubric, with innovation and appropriateness as the axises(sp?):

Better--I think it may be a bit more reliable, but is it valid?  What constitutes "original?"  Original to our students, or original in the history of the world?  And maybe some student truly saw the value of heart vs. mind as a seemingly inappropriate image like this:

Starko mention "Glogster" at the end of one of the chapters (9?) and I wanted to try one out.  Kind of neat, but spendy. It is supposed to be embeddable, but Blogger wouldn't allow it, so I just screenshotted it in.

Clearly, this student just repurposed a Glogster she made for a science project about the water cycle...or did she?  What if the text said something like: 

 Life is a constant process of bouncing between following your heart and following your mind.  As a young water molecule of limitless potential, your mind tells you to move to Lake Tahoe and ski your brains out, but the winds of your heart instead blow you to Seattle, where you become frozen as snow in the mountains, thinking and gazing at higher, now unattainable heights, unattainable because you can't turn back time and float on the jet stream anymore.  Instead you melt and rage downhill, bouncing back and forth, first following one course and then another as you follow your heart and then your mind and then back and forth again and again.  And then you slow down like a mature river, feeling stagnate at first, but then accepting that you are simply merging back with the sea...

 As a depiction of the water cycle, it's a nice enough product, but as a creative way of looking at the question at hand, this student suddenly seems both innovative and surprisingly appropriate in her choice of metaphor.  At least in my judgment.  

Lets take a quick break, and think back to those original images of weighing brains. Brains.  Brains on scales.  Brains in jars...

I feel refreshed, somewhat.   I think my biggest fear in considering assessing for creativity is the potential and power I have to accidentally squelch it.  To be someone who inadvertently shovels dirt on creativity, because I didn't recognize it, or wasn't looking for it.  Creativity is in all of us, I believe, but is easily frightened underground.  For me, writing in a blog has been a much welcomed and anticipated respite from the rest of my schoolwork.  It feels creative to me, and I think it has been creative for me--it has helped me to create meaning from this class in a way I otherwise wouldn't have.  Whether or not it is creative to anyone else depends on who else the audience is, and how much they understand of the context.  I'm not sure if I would have continued if I'd have received any hint of negative feedback.  I only have to look at my "Spring 2016" blog, all one post of it, to be reminded of that.  (I quit that one not even because of actual feedback; I think I quit because I imagined I was rocking the boat, or being different, or something.)

  My challenge, then, is to both recognize it in my students when I can, and also, to create a classroom environment that nurtures it.  Ultimately, this is a lot of snake-chasing-its tail, I think.  Or, as Starko sums up, blind men feeling an elephant.  If one of my students is ever creative enough to trick me into thinking a snake actually is an elephant tail, then what?

Here's my assessment plan, Version 1.0, in no particular order:

• No matter the content or whether the task is sciency or artsy or mathy, find ways to use problem-based, authentic (or authentically simulated) tasks.  It's easier to assess a solution to an authentic problem--and easier to justify that assessment.
• Have a generalized rubric kind of like the one I made above to use as a template for everything--including myself.  I want the students to learn how to use it.
• Model creativity.  I am fairly confident in my ability to be creative myself, but I worry I won't be all that effective at fostering it in others.  BUT, rather than worry about that too much, I've realized that if I can consistently model creativity in how I teach and manage the class, I'll at least have my money where my mouth is. 
• On that note, with young kids at home, I get near constant opportunity to practice all of this.  How much teaching do I do, and how much preaching?  I've been considering a scenario from this past weekend.  We have lots of leaves to rake.  I thought this might be a chance to motivate the boys extrinsically, with the promise of cold, hard cash.  To my surprise, this had no effect, I think because of the fact they have actually saved and held onto a few dollars for once--at least more than they ever have.  So I went to plan B.  I raked up a big pile right next to the swing.  After a few dozen launches into the pile, I offered up the blower and the rake, so they could make the pile bigger.  Here are the results:

The assessment results vary widely depending on the goal.  For the boys, maybe in twenty years I'll be able to assess them based on their attitudes towards work:  Do they look for creative ways to make it fun?  Assessing myself, I thought it was a pretty slick way to get them to work, although the resulting pile was none too neat, and later on Wally got walloped on the cheek by the swing.  Which is a whole other lesson learned (hopefully)--keep your head on a swivel when in the vicinity of a swing.  Or helicopter rotors, or whatever.

To continue:

• In the interest of promoting a creative environment, I thought the mini-checklists were a nice idea, and again, something that works for parenting as well.  "Did I try at least three strategies" to solve that math problem/find my favorite black cargo pants/complete that discussion board assignment?

Why Assess...not sure what punctuation to use...am I asking, or telling?

Calvin pretty well sums up why we create, in four neat panels.  Maybe I should take a cue from him...why do we need to assess creativity?  Is it to assess man's quest to express himself, to assess how well he brings form to thought or how well he discover's meaning in experience?  Or is it because we need a grade for the grade book?  I'll stick with the former, and the reason, the only reason, would be to help student's become self-aware of the process, so that they may become more adept at that process.

My self-assessment for this post:

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