Joseph Pate is a doctoral student in the Department of Counseling and Human Development Services. Pate has instructed a range of courses and also co-facilitates a graduate course on Experimental Education. He believes dynamic things can happen, especially in the “pauses”. “As a recent graduate from the field of leisure studies, much of my inclination is that true innovation and creativity comes from moments of reprieve from the structures we find ourselves bound within. Of course in our work-centric culture, to choose time like this or find ourselves in times like this, we are met with cultural norms that tell us we are wasting time. However, it is within these pauses where, at least for me, things shift, happen, arise, and/or emerge that tend to be the seed or catalyst to some of my most creative or innovative thoughts.” Pate believes young folk today are as innovative as he and his classmates were. With one codicil. “…the simple answer is they are just as creative as me and others,” he argues. But he thinks the present-day pressures to perform on standardized tests are contrary to creativity. “Growing up, we had a few standardized tests we had to take at certain grade levels, but the current ‘teaching to the test’ and the constant and elevated focus on end of the year markers which schools now use to secure funding, resources, and personnel, have changed the landscape of traditional and dominant k-12 education. What I experience is many students are so use to being taught to achieve/perform on a test that they are not asked what they think. And asking what someone thinks is the foundation for creativity or innovation." Pate has mixed feelings about technologies. The people he regards as creative “spend exorbitant amounts of time thinking, writing, playing, working, musing, and tinkering
with ideas, thoughts, feelings, and emotions. They also seem to tend to pay attention to a lot, observe a lot, and notice a lot. And in doing so, they draw connections where others did not see connections. This is one of the greatest parts of innovative or creative thoughts - connections or bridges between things that in the past seemed divergent, distinct, separate, but that actually may fit together or help things make sense in cool and different ways. I just wonder if that is what technology is taking us away from.” Pate’s philosophy is more experiential. “I want the learning that occurs in my classroom to be situated within and from the learner as they engage with content, not predicated on what I think the learning should be. To be honest, this is some of the trouble I have with learning outcomes - I find it hard to know what learning will occur because every student and context is different.” So he would love to banish grades altogether. “The biggest challenge is gaining the trust of students that they can explore, fail, and still be successful. Failing is equated to failure, which in turn is equated to failing in some formalized and systematic sense with regard to grades, GPA and a perception that this will then detract from their ability to be successful." A dramatic scene in a film about an innovative educator captivated him. “I liken the whole thing to the scene in Dead Poet's Society where Keating is having the class walk and points out how naturally everyone begins walking in rhythm. He then inspires them to walk at their own pace with their own rhythm, and
"I want the learning that occurs in my classroom to be situated within and from the learner as they engage with content, not predicated on what I think the learning should be. To be honest, this is some of the trouble I have with learning outcomes - I find it hard to know what learning will occur because every student and context is different.” — J os e p h Pat e
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