LESS SELF-ESTEEM - MORE CREATIVITY OR LESS OF IT?

Erica  brings out a new twist in the role of the teacher in the classroom with purposeful reasoning.

I agree with Erica's point of view  perhaps because I am a perfectionist who believes in children having to get in touch with the  realities of this world if they are to grow (physically, Emotionally, Spiritually, Psychologically) in it.

Erica states that:

• Learning should move from being learning in the  classroom to life long learning in the cafe where people gather around a table sharing coffee and not minding about the coffee spilling on the linen - Learners need to cooperate- work together as a group in this way they develop the skills of problem solving -building creativity. 
•  Learning in the classroom is individualistic, instant success, perfect and now, where the teacher plays the role of a therapist, patronising the children, shielding the children with praise thus protecting them from thinking and doing things in a new way,-creativity.
• Instead, the teacher needs to model being knowledgeable and usefully ignorant- to support and direct- to challenge learning and thinking, to design better questions by building open-ended questions that provoke/promote /give more challenge. 
• The teacher should direct the learner  to learn  practically and  pragmatically, and encourage the learners 'to stay in the grey-not yet'- this will force the learners to want to THINK DIVERGENTLY - to want o do more , to want to learn/ practice more- galvanising them to meet the challenges of the world.

Erica  mentions: a little less therapy , a little more challenge.- she does not entirely discourage building a learners' self esteem in totality, Instead, the she encourages the teacher to have a paradigm shift to giving  the learners more challenge and to develop  the learners' ability to  constant surmount one  challenge after another. This   (Creative Problem Solving skills) will in itself act as a self -built- self -esteem (Nellie's coinage )  that will make them able to meet the challenges of this world. - Promoting creativity.

My Take Home Lesson:

The teacher's capacity needs to shift from "Sage on the Stage" and "Guide on the Side" to "Meddler in the Middle"