Can creativity and rigor coexist in schools?

On Monday, Chalkbeat wrote about some initial success in an effort to revive Indianapolis Public Schools’ Key Learning Community. Key was internationally famous when it opened in 1987 as the first ever school modeled on Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences.

The central tension of Key’s story—how to balance academic rigor with creativity—is also present in the raging debate over Common Core. Those standards, adopted by Indiana and 45 other states, aim to incorporate creativity as part of more daily lessons, rather than separate from day-to-day classroom learning.

So far, reaction to Key’s early success as a creativity-driven school that has scaled back on some of its more free-wheeling instructional ways,has not waded into that sticky question.

On Twitter, there were three main reactions to the story: Enthusiasm about the school’s turnaround, questions about the role of Teach for America in training Key’s principal and curiosity about where IPS is headed under new Superintendent Lewis Ferebee. Take a look:

1. Enthusiasm from supporters of the school, kudos to IPS and credit to the principal training program Key Principal Shelia Seedhouse is participating in:

2. The education community at Butler University, where Seedhouse majored in biology rather than education before joining Teach for America, chimed in with both praise for her work and skepticism about TFA:

https://twitter.com/KatieMort81/status/420548555934142464

https://twitter.com/KatieMort81/status/420569928836460544

3. The conversation also touched on the future of IPS under new Superintendent Lewis Ferebee:

https://twitter.com/KatieMort81/status/420572245140848640

Interested in adding your thoughts on those issues or addressing the story’s central question of whether creativity and rigor can coexist in public school today? Leave a comment here or use the hashtag #CreativityVsRigor on Twitter.