Do the PSSAs kill creativity?

Have a discussion with one or more of your students about the role of creativity in the classroom. What do they really value currently and/or what would they change about their learning environment when it comes to digital media and technology supporting creativity?

I think this may have been the wrong week to ask my children about creativity in the classroom. It is PSSA week for them in 4th and 5th grade. As I am not teaching this year, I chose to ask my own children their thoughts on this topic. Here is what they shared with me.

My daughter, Gabi, 5th Grade: This week is no fun at all. We have to take the PSSAs. We take tests all morning long and then we do more work. The only nice thing is that we don't have any homework this week. I do like that.

My teacher does fun things in science class. That is the only time we do anything creative. I like doing experiments with her and my friends. In language arts we do a lot of PSSA practice so that is not very creative. Sometimes we get to write a story. That is creative. I like that. We don't do anything creative in math class. In social studies we sometimes act out different events in history. I really like that.

Other than to type up some of our reports, we don't use a lot of technology in my classroom. We have 4 computer stations that we take turns on doing PSSA practice activities. Sometimes we play review games on Study Island.

On my own I created a power point about our trip to Jamestown for my social studies class. That was so much fun. I wish we could do more things like that. I didn't get any credit for doing it, but my teacher showed it to all of her social studies classes. Oh, I would really like a cellphone. My friends do a lot on Instagram. Can I have a cellphone now?

My son, Will, 4th Grade: I'm not really sure what creativity is. My teacher likes to do a lot of activities in my class. We read our stories out of a book but everything else she does she puts up on a screen from a projector for us all to see. We work a lot in groups. I like that. I really like when we worked together to create a poster for Red Ribbon Week. I like working with my friends.

My teacher talks a lot about Pinterest. I think she looks on their a lot to get some ideas for our classroom. I like the way she charts our behaviour in class. It is very creative.

We only really use the computer when we go to the computer lab. We play a lot of games to help us with our vocabulary words now.