The value of creativity in the era of "accountability"

In a recent issue of the College Composition and Communication journal (Vol. 62: 3, Feb. 2011), English professor Chris Gallagher (Northeastern University) writes about “how neoliberalism undermines faculty assessment expertise and underwrites testing industry expertise in the current assessment scene” (450). Wow, Amanda, what an incredibly dull and ivory-tower-intellectual concern, you may say, can’t you write about something more interesting and incendiary? 

Je proteste. And here’s why.

I read this article very differently because not only am I on my department’s assessment team this semester, charged with initiating and conducting the very first comprehensive assessment of our composition curriculum for Middle States accreditation requirements, but also because I am incredibly invested in the inherent value of creativity, a skill and concept that cannot be assessed with a standardized test that targets students and faculty, promotes mechanical skill over creative exploration, and instills fear and wrath instead of the joy and comfort that should accompany intellectual growth. And creativity is seemingly at odds with the neoliberal assessment agenda running rampant on college campuses today. 

In the most simplistic terms, creativity and assessment are on opposite ends of the value spectrum.

Creativity-----------------------------------Writing Assessment
(internal, implicit value;                                   (external, explicit
unassessable)                                                  value; assessable)

One key problem with this spectrum is that writing is not a scientific, quantifiable equation with a limited (and hence, assessable) number of “right” or “correct” approaches. Rather, writing for me (and anyone who has made a living as a writer) falls firmly on the left side of this spectrum into the realm of the creative and unassessable. When I wrote investigative reports for American Indian Report or feature spreads for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review or travel articles for Blue Mountain or web site content for Lifetime.com, I employed a wide range of different writing skills and strategies and styles to express the content. Was it consistently grammatically correct? Yes. Was the grammatical-correctness a legitimate assessment of the VALUE of the content and creatively expressive range of that content and my skill as a writer? Most assuredly, no. 

My own personal intellectual challenge, one that gives me fits and anxiety, is figuring out how we (as faculty and students) can extricate ourselves from this current assessment scene attitude of “accountability” by numbers and results-based outcomes (an outgrowth of the free market economic theory of Adam Smith and those who followed, hence the “neo” in the liberal economic policy now dominating our Republican overlords in public office), but still provide those all-important numbers valued by administrators and state government bean counters. 

That camp wants to see quantifiable results in the form of numbers and percentages; my camp wants to see students learn to express themselves in a wide variety of contexts with a wide variety of writing skills and strategies. Can these two sides ever agree? Is compromise even possible, given the diametrically opposed agendas?

If I wanted to be truly depressing, I would say no, we can never get along or compromise; therefore, all is lost. Either we diminish the creative impulse that is writing to a system of check marks where students write perfect, grammatically, and content-free sentences void of depth and thought (but that can easily be assessed by the numbers) or we fight for a new system that acknowledges the creative ebb and flow of students’ thoughts and professors’ unique pedagogical approaches.

Sigh. Just thinking about the enormity of this task makes me want to take a nap and wake up when someone else has figured it out. 

But I’m no quitter. I’ve never been one to stick my head in the sand and hope that the other chickens have solved the problem when I deign to once again raise my head. I hate it when people do that – look the other way and hope that someone else raises their hand. To me, that is the coward’s move. I see it happen in my classes every day – the go-getters consistently participate and don’t shy away from my questions, while the others look down, look out the window, and pretend not to hear me. But they are not necessarily cowards; rather, they are young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and therefore, unsure about what they think they know. Whereas I am older, experienced, more salty and fearless, and quite frankly, peeved at the hijacking of education by people who don’t consider creativity to have inherent value. 

Creativity (and hence, writing) should be left alone to incubate and grow over time like the fragile thing that it is. 

Gallagher refers to the Spellings Commission Report of 2006 on the Future of Higher Education, which could read like Governor Tom Corbett’s playbook for his current attack on education. While starting off with positive statements such as “higher education in the United States has become one of our greatest success stories,” the report fairly quickly devolves into a criticism of this “successful” system as an inefficient, inflexible system that churns out inferior “products,” that Gallagher calls “low-skilled graduates” (CCC 454). In fact, a close examination of the terminology in this Department of Education report (created by a commission loaded with corporate executives, interestingly enough – and creativity is essential to successful businesses) provides step by step instructions for any politician interested in dismantling public education and increasing the divide between the wealthy and the middle class and working poor.

To wit, the commission states in the preface, “We acknowledge that not everyone needs to go to college” (xii). One of the bullet points under this statement expands on this idea:

“Among high school graduates who do make it on to postsecondary education, a troubling number waste time—and taxpayer dollars—mastering English and math skills that they should have learned in high school. And some never complete their degrees at all, at least in part because most colleges and universities don’t accept responsibility for making sure that those they admit actually succeed”

A damning statement, if there ever was one. And it contains within it the foundation upon which Governors’ Corbett, Walker, Kasich and others are building a case against higher education by removing its funding, arguing that we aren’t doing our jobs and students don’t need to be there, anyway. Those who can afford college (now that public education will be priced out of reach for our middle class and working poor families), will achieve that success the Commission touted in their first paragraph by attending smaller, liberal arts, PRIVATE colleges capable of weeding out the undesirables who received inadequate attention and training in basic skills at the secondary level – these kids won’t even walk through a college’s door of future opportunity if Corbett, et al get their way. But those kids can just become auto mechanics, beauticians, and plumbers, after all.

A quick search of this 76-page report for the term “creativity” resulted in no matches. “Creative” appears just once in the following statement on page 21:

“For their part, state and federal policymakers have also failed to make supporting innovation a priority. Accreditation, along with federal and state regulation, can impede creative new approaches as well. We recommend that America’s colleges and universities embrace a culture of continuous innovation and quality improvement. We urge these institutions to develop new pedagogies, curricula and technologies to improve learning, particularly in the areas of science and mathematics. At the same time, we recommend the development of a national strategy for lifelong learning designed to keep our citizens and our nation at the forefront of the knowledge revolution.”

 On its face, this seems like a very positive and encouraging statement. Supporting innovation and encouraging the development of “new pedagogies” is terrific – but will truly innovative pedagogical approaches (such as ones that rely on creativity and unconventional problem-solving, an approach that I employ) be valued and considered legitimate by the numbers-happy assessment camp? I’m not so jaded yet as to assume that all is lost, as I said before. But I am skeptical.

My faith actually rests with my university and, more specifically, my department and its open-minded, intellectually-flexible faculty, who see and understand value in much more than numbers. We ARE English professors, after all. ;)  The problem remains, however, that when state accrediting bodies demand assessment, what they mean is numbers, while those of us who teach and write understand that the creative endeavor of writing anything (whether nonfiction or fiction, whether business proposal or opinion editorial) is ill-suited to the type of standardized test assessment that is regularly foisted upon us.

I wish I had the answer. Perhaps if I continue mulling it over and grappling with it and experimenting with approaches and ideas, I will strike upon something that will be worth trying on large-scale and may even have the potential to convince the unconvincible administrators and lawmakers who take great solace in numbers that creativity has inherent value and should be embraced, not tested out of existence. We, as faculty, administrators, and lawmakers need to stop running AWAY from creativity and creative approaches and start re-examining the inherent value and skills that open up in our students when we employ creative strategies and encourage creative thinking in the college classroom.

Until I puzzle out a tangible solution to this persistent assessment/creativity divide, I encourage you (if you teach), to resist the standardized approach valued by neoliberal thinkers and stay firmly on the creative side.

We need creative thinkers now more than ever to enhance, improve, and re-think old paradigms and failing systems.

If we truly believe what we say when we publicly state that our students come first, then our pedagogical approaches should value creativity in the classroom over and above “accountability” with numbers. Only then will our students have a necessary skill that will transcend the classroom and university and will serve them well as they seek and discover whatever career path they choose to traverse.