What We Can Learn From Kanye West

Initially, the answer the would be nothing. I mean, I'm sure he's a great lyricist if you're only in to things you can buy with a parent's permission. I probably wouldn't be considered a huge hip hop fan, although I do what I have to do to "keep it real." I've got the T.I. tune "Dead and Gone" on my iPhone and I get it ... growing up in suburban Nashville, I completely get where T.I. and Justin Timberlake are coming from. But getting back to KWest. What in the world is there to learn from his provocative behavior and rude behavior (OK, there is nothing to learn from his rude behavior other than don't be rude!).

I think and really believe we, in education, could use more ideas that provoke new ways of thinking. We could use leaders who are willing to disrupt what is currently going on in the classroom and prepare for a new day. That's why I love the book, "Disrupting Class" from Clayton Christensen. For the innovative educator, this book is one you can camp out on for awhile. The thoughts are challenging for an educational system that isn't into being challenged. The issues raised are ones in which the system would prefer that someone just apologize — Kanye-West-style — and not bring up again.

Quotes like:

"Money is not the cause or cure."

"Students learn differently and students need customized pathways and paces to learn, [so] why do schools standardized the way they teach and the way they test?"

"The question now facing schools is this: Can the system of schooling designed to process groups of students in standardized ways in a monolithic instructional mode be adapted to handle differences in the way individual brains are wired for learning?"

"Today's system was designed at a time when standardization was seen as a virtue. It is an intricately interdependent system. Only an administrator suffering from virulent masochism would attempt to teach each student in the way his or her brain is wired with this monolithic batch system. Schools need a new system."

"Computers have made almost no dent in the most important challenge that they have the potential to crack: allowing students to learn in ways that correspond with how their brains are wired to learn, thereby migrating to a student-centric classroom."

"The shift might not be easy, but it will be rewarding. Instead of spending most of their time delivering one-size-fits-all lessons year after year, teachers can spend more of their time traveling from student to student helping individuals with individual problems."

Now we may not have an awards show at which we can stand up and say these things (and hopefully we wouldn't be rude to others in the process ... just a quick shout out to Taylor Swift), but I appreciate Christensen and his colleagues, and we need more of it. 

So just as a recap, rude and mean is bad. But provoking thoughts and ideas — very good.


*Photo from Giddy's Photostream / CC BY-NC 2.0