Creativity in Education: Exploring the Imbalance (2013) - full transcript

- [JFK] We choose to go

to the moon in this decade

and do the other things,

not because they are easy,

but because they are hard.

Because that goal...

- [Man] Three, two, one, zero,

all engines running, lift off!

We have a lift off, 32

minutes past the hour,

lift off on Apollo 11.

- [Neil Armstrong] Okay, I'm

going to step off the LM now.

That's one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind.

(soft piano music)

- [John] The United

States is a leading nation

when it comes to innovation.

It is a country that took man to the moon,

and a nation that values

our greatest asset:

human creativity.

NASA and the space program

stand as an example

to America's ability to think creatively,

in order to solve problems

and achieve the impossible.

(soft piano music)

Human creativity has transformed man

from the primitive

species that we once were,

into the global phenomenon

that we see today.

As educators and parents,

we must take an interest in

what makes people creative,

and if it is something

that can be successfully

developed in school.

For nations that know how to cultivate

our most prized asset,

are more likely to thrive

in a future economy

built on ideas, and measured on a nations

ability to be inventive.

(soft piano music)

(bright piano music)

- [Susan] If we talk about

the people on the street

and what they believe about creativity,

you'll find that they

don't have to think about

what creativity is.

Or they believe that it is

in the realm of the arts,

or that creativity is something

that belongs to others

and they never really thought

about it for themselves.

- [Juliet] Every teacher

that I've ever spoken to

has a different definition of creativity,

that's one of the

interesting things about it,

it's not easy to define,

everyone has a take

it's so multi-faceted.

(bright piano music)

- [Cynthia] I work in a

creative studies department,

but when I tell people I teach creativity,

people automatically go to the arts.

I usually tell people I

teach creative thinking,

and people say, "Hm, tell me about that."

And then I tell them about

creative thinking skills,

and when I talk about

curiosity and openness,

and tolerance for ambiguity,

and solving problems,

then they start to understand

what I mean by creativity.

- [John] Creativity is not an

outcome limited to the arts,

but includes a way of

thinking that solves problems,

generates new knowledge,

and spearheads innovation.

In recent years, it has produced

a revolution in technology

where companies like Apple

and Google are quite literally

changing how we live,

learn, work, and play.

(bright piano music)

The conversation about creativity

expands beyond the outcome of a product.

In 1961, a creativity

scholar named Mel Rhodes

clarified the topic around four items

that included not only

products, but also the person,

the process, and environment, or press.

This was known as the Four

P's Model of Creativity.

- [Susan] We can talk about how creativity

has to do with personality,

and what kind of

characteristics are creative,

we can talk about

processes that people use

that lead to creative outcomes.

We can talk about environments,

particularly in education,

we talk about, and in the business world,

we talk about the conditions

that will allow for creativity.

(bright piano music)

- [John] The general

definition for creativity

is something new and useful.

While the word new can be

quickly defined as original,

the word useful requires

some more thought.

For exactly who must

find it useful in order

for it to be creative, is open for debate.

- [Susan] So if we say,

what is creativity?

Well, is it a product?

And if it is, how do

you define that product?

Is it new?

Well, if it's just new,

what if it's useless?

What if it's just nonsensical?

It doesn't mean anything to anyone.

Then we push back and say

well, that's not creative.

It has to have some value, it

has to have some usefulness.

- [John] As parents and teachers,

we often refer to the most

simple act as creative.

But how do we separate something

like a childhood painting,

produced in an elementary classroom,

to one by a professional

artist that's auctioned

for millions of dollars?

- [Sally] Creativity

consists of what I could call

personal creativity.

Some people would call this small C,

in the sense that all people

can live a more creative life.

They can take safe risks, they

can get out of their routine,

they can attempt to be more

creative in their work,

in their life, in their child raising,

in the things that they like to do.

And then, of course, there's

the other kind of creativity

which has been characterized

as big C creativity,

that makes a difference in your community,

your state, your region,

the country, the world.

(dramatic music)

- [John] While not every

person will have the talent

to paint like Picasso, or

play the piano like Mozart,

we all have the ability to be creative,

for we are born with

certain characteristics

that help us think creatively.

As children, we're naturally curious,

open minded, imaginative, and innocent

to the defined workings of the real world.

We can tolerate ambiguity, use fantasy,

visualize things from

different perspectives,

and quickly produce and

consider many ideas.

These characteristics have been identified

as a creativity skill

set, that can dwindle

unless consciously nurtured when young.

- [Juliet] It's definitely

part of the human condition,

I do believe that we are all

born as creative individuals,

but I do think that you

can unlearn creativity

as much as you can learn

to be more creative.

And I think that's something

that happens much more

in schools and institutions,

and with young people today,

probably more than learning to be creative

is that young people can

unlearn to be creative.

(soft piano music)

- [Joseph] I don't think

that the education system

does very well at teaching creativity.

About 99% of going to school

is finding the right answer.

I think that if you want to teach children

how to be creative,

you've got to give them

problems and opportunities

for which there is no single,

pre-determined correct answer.

- [John] Unfortunately, in our

current methods of schooling,

many of the problems and

activities that students encounter

are clearly defined with

right and wrong ways

to achieve a pre-determined outcome.

These circumstances do

not require students

to think creatively.

Instead, they condition them to behave

like a computer program,

designed to execute

a specific set of instructions,

in order to achieve the one

right answer on an exam.

- [Susan] Yeah, when you look at how well

the education system promotes creativity,

they probably get a D

(laughs)

at this point.

And it's starting to even decline more.

- [Cynthia] You know, what

our school system is missing

right now is this notion of teaching kids

how to think on their own,

to come up with their own

ideas, to ask questions,

and to ultimately become

life long learners.

- If I have pre-determined

what I want the outcome

to be, then the

opportunities for creativity

are not present.

- [John] If the students

ability to think creatively

is not adequately nurtured when young,

then the chances of them

growing into a person

who produces something new

and useful in a given field

is significantly reduced.

- [Juliet] If you go and

look at young children,

nursery aged children working,

you will see creativity really happening.

They're there collecting

the things they need,

moving from one place to another,

they may even be talking

it through for themselves.

"If I do this, then will this happen?

"What would happen if I did this?

"I know, I will go put this on that,

"and that will make something else."

And as children get older,

they start getting pushed into,

there's a right answer,

there's not a right answer,

there's only one answer,

you have to do it this way,

and so they can unlearn being creative

as much as they can learn it.

(children talking)

- [John] As children

progress through the grades,

the expectations of the

classroom change radically.

Children are no longer

given the same opportunities

to nurture the characteristics

we associate with creativity,

and as a person, they

become less creative.

Evidence shows that since the 1990s,

some of the most important

characteristics needed

for creativity have started to decline

as students progress through

the education system.

Dr. Kyung Hee Kim at the

college of William and Mary,

analyzed the results of

300,000 students and adults

who participated in a

series of creativity tests.

Her study showed that fluency,

the ability to produce

and consider many alternatives,

improves in young children

up until grade three,

where it then begins a journey of decline.

- [Joseph] So much of school

does follow a formula,

there's a right way to

solve a math problem

or come up with the right

answer in a history course

or a science course, and

so if we want them to think

divergently, looking in many,

many different directions

rather than convergently,

focusing on finding

a single pre-determined correct answer,

then we've gotta give them

experiences that not just

allow that, they value that,

because that's where

creativity comes from.

- [John] Another characteristic to suffer

as children progress through the grades,

is their ability to be original.

Similar to fluency, this

skill improves through

elementary school, but around fifth grade

it falls drastically, and

only begins to recover

after students leave high school.

- [Susan] What we do in

the education system,

is counter to promotion of creativity.

And I hear this from

teachers all the time,

if I have to spend my time,

and assessments are important,

and standards are good,

and being accountable is very important,

but what we say those things are,

are pretty much messed up at this point,

particularly accountability.

- [John] A federal system of rigid testing

and high stakes

accountability now dominate

the education system,

and threaten our nations

most prized asset, the

ability to think creatively.

What appears to be a

decline in creativity,

has been referred to

as a creativity crisis.

In order to better

understand this problem,

we must examine the federal governments

mission in education, and

better understand how certain

event have shaped education policy,

and what we've come to most

value in our nations classroom.

(dramatic music)

- [Announcer] Today a

new moon is in the sky,

a 23 inch metal sphere placed in orbit

by a Russian rocket...

- [John] When the Soviet Union launched

the first satellite into orbit,

it was perceived as a

threat to national security,

and more importantly, economic supremacy.

How was it that the world

super power had fallen

so far behind in the space race?

In its aftermath, the United

States quickly attributed

this failure to education and

a lack of creative thinking

on the part of engineers and scientists.

- [Joseph] I think a real turning point,

as far as our concern

for developing high level

talent in this country,

occurred at the time Sputnik,

all of the sudden we realized

that we were not the leading

nation in the world when it

came to the exploration of space

and all the technology

that goes with that.

And so the federal government immediately

jumped into the act,

and they passed a bill,

and the name of the bill

was very interesting,

because they called it

The National Defense

Education Act, NDEA.

- [John] Under the leadership

of President Eisenhower,

the National Defense

Education Act allocated

one billion dollars for education

over a period of four years.

Designed to spearhead

innovation by promoting

science, engineering, and mathematics,

this act would demonstrate success

for the federal government in education,

and spark the kind of

creativity that would eventually

put man on the moon.

- Half a century ago,

when the Soviets beat us

into space with the launch of

a satellite called Sputnik.

We had no idea how we would

beat them to the moon.

The science wasn't even

there yet, NASA didn't exist.

But after investing in better

research and education,

we didn't just surpass the Soviets,

we unleashed a wave of

innovation that created

new industries and millions of new jobs.

- [John] Though short

lived, the National Defense

Education Act became the first

intervention to establish

a justified mission for the

federal government in education,

to defend the economy

and provide a work force

that could compete against

foreign competition.

Almost a decade later,

the federal government

would begin its second

mission under the leadership

of President Lyndon Johnson,

and establish legislation

that would be forever

used to shape the system

of schooling in this country.

- [Daniel] President

Johnson decided he was gonna

make one serious stab

at combating poverty,

it was known as the War on Poverty,

and he believed that if

you could inject a large,

sums of federal monies

directly into school districts,

that you may have a chance of dealing

with the problem of poverty.

- [John] Johnson's war on

poverty led to one of the largest

education bills of all time.

Signed into law outside

a Texas high school,

the 1965 Elementary and

Secondary Education Act

has been re-authorized

under nearly every president

since its inception.

On each occasion, it has

been revised to reflect

the educational policies

of each administration,

and used to implement

the federal governments

mission in education, which in

1983, would shift drastically

under the leadership of President Reagan,

where the needs of the

economy would once again

be placed at the forefront

of education policy.

- [Daniel] Since the

publication in 1983 of a very

powerful report known as A Nation At Risk,

that the federal government

has begun to clarify its role

as one of supporting schools,

essentially as agents

of economic growth and development.

- [John] A Nation at

Risk expressed concern

that the US was losing

its competitive edge

in terms of business and industry.

"Our once challenged

preeminence in commerce,

"industry, science, and

technological innovation

"is being overtaken by

competitors throughout the world."

The report complained that

the gains made after Sputnik

had been squandered because

of a watered down curriculum,

that was described as, "A

cafeteria style curriculum,

"which the appetizers

and desserts can easily

"be mistaken for the main courses."

After A Nation At Risk, the

federal government increased

its funding and influence over schooling,

in an effort to better prepare students

to compete in the global economy.

This effort has slowly re-shaped the goal

of the Elementary and

Secondary Education Act,

which is now focused as much

toward combating poverty

as it is toward promoting

economic development.

- [Daniel] Many of the

efforts that have been made

since 1983 and during the

presidency of recent presidents,

is to somehow shape schooling,

in a way that it develops curricula,

forms of assessment, forms

of teacher appraisal,

which feed into their

goal of seeing schools

as an arm of economic

growth and development.

- [John] But efforts to improve schooling

have failed to close the achievement gap,

and student test scores

in the United States

continue to decline when

compared to other nations

around the world.

In response to the perceived failure,

the federal government enacted

a back to the basics movement,

centered on a rigid

system of accountability

that has now become the backbone

of our education system.

- First principle is accountability.

Every school has a job to

do, and that's to teach

the basics, and teach them well.

- [John] In 2002, President

George W. Bush passed into law

his administrations

re-authorization of the

Elementary and Secondary Education Act,

which received a new name,

and a significant makeover.

- It was right after 9/11,

and Congress wanted something

positive to happen, and my

sense is that they crafted it

without reading it.

They knew the title, No Child Left Behind,

and who could be opposed to that title?

But it had almost nothing

to do with the real mission

that was in the original Elementary

and Secondary Education

Act, which was for equality

of opportunity for all.

- [John] The No Child Left

Behind law placed greater

emphasis on annual tests.

Schools that made adequate

yearly progress would receive

an increase in funding,

but those that failed

would be punished, and this

was particularly challenging

when the benchmarks that it set

were considered unattainable.

- [Karen] In order to greet

adequately yearly process

they want every student in

the school to be achieving,

regardless of what sort

of special education needs

that the children have,

or what sort of backgrounds they have

Students for example, who speak English

as a second language.

They would be expected to

achieve at exactly the same level

as a student who'd been in

the school system for seven,

eight, nine years.

- [John] While assessment

is an important part

of our education system,

when too much emphasis

is placed on the outcome of a test,

the impact to the

curriculum can be severe.

As teachers begin to

devote much of their time

to teaching only the content

that will be measured on the test.

- [Elizabeth] When

teachers teach to the test,

what that means is that the

only thing teachers teach

is what they figure is probably

going to be on the test,

and they look at old tests,

and they see what it is,

and they teach the kinds of questions,

they teach the range of questions,

and they have the children

practice filling in forms,

and that's all the children are doing,

is getting ready for the test.

- [John] Like many of its predecessors,

the No Child Left Behind

law has done very little

to promote the natural characteristics

that make us creative.

Opportunities to nurture

curiosity, imagination,

and originality, have been

removed from many classrooms,

in order to prepare students

for high stakes examinations.

- I think the pendulum shifted

terribly in the opposite

direction during the Bush era,

with No Child Left Behind.

No Child Left Behind probably

was the biggest death knell

to creativity of anything that I've seen

in the 40 odd years that

I've been in education.

- [John] As students become

accustomed to being told

what they must do in order

to succeed on a test,

they become less likely

to think outside the box,

or produce work that

is considered original.

Instead, the develop comfort

in pre-determined outcomes,

that are clearly defined,

with specific information

that tells them exactly what they must do

and how they must do it.

- Watering it down to

things that are very basic,

we're not doing our job to

provide citizens that can think,

and provide a work force

with diverse skills

and the ability to tolerate

ambiguity, complexity,

think for themselves, and be original,

and produce in different ways.

- [John] While the importance

of learning content

is undisputed, the rigid

system used to evaluate

its progress has created

an unequal balance,

between nurturing creativity,

and teaching content

that can easily be measured on a test.

- There's this unequal balance,

when you think about content

versus creativity.

And for very simple reasons,

content knowledge is very

easy to measure.

Does it matter that we measure it?

Maybe, maybe not.

Creativity is much harder to measure.

- [John] As educators attempt

to satisfy government policy,

instructional practices have

moved away from activities

that challenge students

to think creatively,

and toward drill and

kill culture that focuses

almost entirely on memorizing the content

that will most likely appear on the test.

- So post Sputnik in

the United States, 1957,

post that period our

government started to value

scientific inquiry,

discovery, space travel,

it valued more challenging

content for students.

Now I think academically talented students

are being routinely held back

by test preparation policies

and I think there's very

little attention placed

on the highest level of talent, A,

or B, opportunities for high levels

of creativity in children.

- [John] The test prep

policies, which have emerged

in an era of accountability

and assessment,

fail to develop the

creative skills required

for our economy, and this is in conflict

with the governments main

mission in education.

(soft piano music)

- [Obama] None of us can

predict with certainty

what the next big industry will be,

or where the new jobs will come from.

30 years ago, we couldn't

know that something called

the internet would lead

to an economic revolution.

What we can do, what America

does better than anyone else,

is spark the creativity and

imagination of our people.

- [John] As our economy

becomes one centered

on information and technology,

the ability to think

creatively has become an

essential ingredient for success.

In an extensive IBM poll,

creativity was listed

as the most important

leadership skill by 1500 CEO's

from around the world.

Creativity is no longer a transient fad,

but something considered essential

to a nations economic growth.

- Creativity is so important in education.

Creativity is the

foundation for innovation,

and when you think about our society,

whether it be our national society,

or our global society, new

ideas are what are critical

to the success and growth

of the nation and the world.

- One single idea can

start an entire industry,

and we look at people like

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs,

for example, and think of the

millions of people employed

just because they came up

with certain kinds of ideas.

- You can name any career

field, and say why creativity's

important, but the problem

is, it's not being taught,

so people are going out

into the work force,

and I see this happen all

the time with our undergrads,

they go out into the work

force, and they don't know

how to be creative in their environment.

They don't know where to start,

they don't know how to

think for themselves,

and that's where the problem is.

- [John] Unfortunately, the

ambiguity that surrounds

creativity often leaves

most people to question

if it's something that

can be taught in school.

- [Cynthia] I have been

teaching creativity

for the last 12 years,

and I can absolutely,

100% tell you that

creativity can be taught,

and I've watched it with

people who have said,

"I'm not creative, I can't be creative",

to, "I really feel like

I'm a creative person

"and here's why: I'm a

better problem solver,

"I'm more curious, I'm more open minded,

"I can tolerate ambiguity."

- [John] Since the 1950s, a

tremendous amount of knowledge

has been generated about how

we can teach and cultivate

the characteristics we

associate with creativity.

A creativity scholar

named E. Paul Torrance,

is not only credited with identifying

many of our creative

characteristics, but also

instructional approaches

that have been used

to successfully teach creativity.

His most famous, the

Torrance Incubation Model of

Teaching and Learning,

is designed to teach

creativity while teaching the content.

- [Susan] One of the

breakthroughs in the field

of creativity, if you look at

the fact that you can teach

for creativity, while you

teach another content,

that took it to a different level...

What's unique about the

Torrance Incubation Model,

is the fact that teachers

are always saying,

"I don't have time" and they don't.

So how is it that we

could integrate creativity

into our daily practice and education,

to teach our content and

teach for creativity.

- [John] Called TIM for short,

this instructional approach

not only identifies

a content goal for a lesson,

but also a creativity goal

from the skill set than

Torrance identified.

This creativity goal is

then integrated into three

distinct components, that are

used to structure the lesson

and deliver its content.

- [Susan] It's one of the

few models that allows for

the integration of creativity

into whatever you're teaching,

so that you teach what you teach well,

and you teach it better because

you are teaching creativity.

- [John] While a variety

of instructional methods

designed to teach creativity

have been proven successful,

the most appealing in

recent years has been

within the movement toward

teaching 21st century skills,

which manifest as part of a project-based

learning environment.

- [Joseph] You can't

teach 21st century skills

out of a book, you've

gotta get kids involved

in a self-selected project

that they can become

motivated and enthusiastic about.

You've gotta give them the

kinds of tools that make them

investigative thinkers,

rather than just simply

accumulating and storing

knowledge so they can

spit it back on the test.

- [John] In a survey of film students

who participated in a

project-based learning environment,

to produce content for

a student film festival

in the state of Connecticut,

68% listed creativity or problem solving

as the number one skill developed

as part of this process.

While project-based learning

has many different variations,

which include problem based learning,

design based learning,

and more recently,

challenge based learning,

they all share the goal

of challenging students

to explore a real world problem,

as part of a student centered environment

that remains absent of any

pre-determined outcome.

- So generally, they

are real world problems,

you want to try to find

something that has applicability

in the world so it has

relevance to the student.

- [Student] Red, yellow, I mean, the white

is for explorer questions, the light blue

is for constellation questions.

- [John] One appeal to

project-based learning

is the need for students to problem solve

and think independently

in order to generate

their own ideas as part

of a meaningful process

of creative problem finding.

- [Frank] I'm often

baffled when I hear about

teachers that send their

students home at night and say,

"come up with five ideas

for your project tomorrow."

And what a disservice

we're doing to students

by not letting them

experience problem finding,

looking at resources, evaluating options,

thinking about the choices

that will make them successful.

- [John] When implemented correctly,

not only do students have

an opportunity to generate

and explore new ideas, but

during the implementation

process, they also can

self-select the areas that most

appeal to their own creative

skills and interests,

and this has a long lasting

impact on a students

creative path in life.

- [Sally] The longitudinal

studies that we've done

of kids over decades have shown,

when children get involved

in highly creative,

productive project-based learning work,

they're more likely to seek

out that work in the future,

they're more likely to

do projects at home,

to seek work that is more creative.

- [Girl] See how they have like,

pumpkins in the pumpkin,

you could do that,

what are you gonna do for the thing?

- [John] Another appeal

to project-based learning

is the existence of a

student centered environment,

where the teacher merely

acts as the facilitator

of the learning process,

a role very different

from the teacher centered

approach that has manifested

in a world of accountability

and assessment.

- You can't do good

project-based learning,

in a step by step method.

These are ill defined

problems, problems that,

hopefully the teacher has no

idea what the solution is,

and the direction that

the students take the work

is critical to that process.

So if you don't know the

recipe to solving a problem,

that's a great thing.

- [John] As educators and

parents, we must begin

to use our own creativity,

to identify opportunities

for students to generate

original ideas that have value

beyond the classroom,

and while achieving this

in an era of accountability and assessment

can be difficult, it is possible.

- I think it's a little bit of a cop out,

to say that because we live

in an age of accountability

that we can't teach creativity,

because they absolutely can work together.

- Senate Committee on

Health, Education, Labor,

and Pensions will please come to order.

I'd like to thank all of

you for being here today

as we continue to discuss reauthorization

of the Elementary and

Secondary Education Act.

- [John] In 2009, President Obama released

his administrations education

blueprint for reform,

a proposal for the latest

reauthorization of the

Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

While acknowledging some

of the perceived failures

of No Child Left Behind, the focus remains

toward economic development.

- Maintaining our leadership

in research and technology

is crucial to America's success.

But if we want to win the future,

if we want innovation to

produce jobs in America,

and not overseas, then we

also have to win the race

to educate our kids.

- [John] In exchange for federal funds,

some level of accountability

and assessment

must be expected, but

the federal government

must recognize that the greater emphasis

on examinations has not

improved test scores,

or closed the achievement gap.

What's required is an equal emphasis

in the development and

cultivation of the skills

associated with creativity,

so that a greater number

of students can join

what Richard Florida from the

Martin Prosperity Institute

has referred to as an

emerging creative class,

that is set to dominate

the future job market.

- Well I'll tell you an interesting story.

About six years ago, I

was teaching a course

here at Buffalo State,

and it was all freshman.

And I went in to teach an introduction

to creative studies course.

And when I was teaching this course,

they kept raising their

hand, and they kept saying,

"Okay, well what do we need to know,

"what do we need to know,

"what do we need to know?"

And I said, "What do you mean,

what do you need to know?"

"Well what's going to be on the test?"

What's going to be on the test?

There aren't any tests

in creative studies.

(soft piano music)

- [John] With the introduction

of the Common Core

standards in 2012, and

current advances in digital

technology, we now have a

real opportunity to explore

this content through original works of art

that can stimulate creative growth,

and engage a greater number of students

in our most important acronym,

but we must begin to equip

educators with the skills

required to cultivate creativity,

as they explore this content, otherwise

this opportunity will be lost.

- I think there will

always be some individuals

that are extremely creative,

that will buck the trend,

that will go against the grain.

They're not always easy

people to get on with,

they're not always

people that schools like,

they're not always people that get on well

with other people, because actually,

they're individualists, they

think their own thoughts,

they do their own things.

I think those people will always exist.

But, I think the huge majority of people

will not fulfill their own potential,

if they are pushed into

thinking only in a certain

way to pass a certain

test, if they're channeled

down routes that say

there's this right answer,

and that right answer,

and this wrong answer.

Then, we have got a problem.

- [John] While we may continue to progress

for some time on the backs

of a few individuals,

our eventual needs for

the many will become

too great, the cure for cancer,

the answer to our warming climate,

the solution to our growing population,

and the many wonders yet to

be discovered could be lost,

if the individuals with

the right combination

of knowledge and talent are

never given an opportunity

to fulfill their creative potential.

- [Joseph] We really need

to make sure that we provide

opportunities for creative

thinking on the parts

of larger numbers of kids,

we always revert to the same

two or three examples.

Imagine if we were able to talk

about a hundred Steve Jobs,

and a hundred Bill Gates, and

a hundred Steven Spielbergs,

and all of a sudden we realize

that there's so much more

that can be developed and

can be created and produced

by our society, by our culture.

- I think there's a

lot of dangerous things

happening in education, I

think that's a strong word

but I believe that

we're really undermining

our creative potential,

and it's critical as we look

at a more uncertain future,

that we are prepared for that.

I think more now than in any other decade,

if we are not willing to bring forward

the creative potential of our students,

knowledge alone is not

going to get us very far.

- [Obama] President

Eisenhower signed legislation

to create NASA and invest in

science and math education,

from grade school to graduate school.

- [Man] Space shuttle

now on internal power.

- [Obama] In the years that have followed,

the space race inspired a generation

of scientists and innovators.

- [Man] Liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen

fill and drain valves are closed.

- [Obama] For me, the space

program has always captured

an essential part of what

it means to be an American.

Reaching for new heights,

stretching beyond

what previously did not seem possible.

- [John] We are all born

with natural characteristics

that make us creative.

Combined with individual

talent and motivation,

our creative potential

is part of a freedom

we hold so dear.

Many scientists and

scholars lost their lives

to bring forth new perspectives

and new knowledge for our world.

- [Man] And the hand-off

to Atlantis' onboard...

- [John] The period of

enlightenment that began

in Western Europe brought

forth a new nation,

built on ideas and innovation.

We have come too far to turn back now.

President Obama stated,

"This is our generations

Sputnik moment."

so let's do what we do

best and get creative.

With just a few small

steps, we can once again

cultivate creativity in our schools,

and bring about the next

giant leap for mankind.

(upbeat music)

(guitar music)

♫ Drove through a storm

♫ Of yellow butterflies

♫ Splattered on the windshield

♫ As we sped out of town

♫ Strange things happen in the desert

♫ Optical illusions

float by like tumbleweed

♫ Time bends around itself here

♫ I drifted off to sleep

♫ You're in my dreams