The Power of Routine Creativity

So let's start with that first idea.

Creativity doesn't have to look flashy.

So picture this.

It's my third year of implementing PBL, project-based learning, and I'm on this quest to take it to the next level.

The word quest feels like hyperbole, I'm sure.

But I had this hyperbolic sense of mission in the moment.

After leading a grassroots PBL movement within my school and even teaching some project-based learning workshops in my district, I am feeling confused.

I feel like an imposter.

That beloved wizard asking everyone to see green while I pull the levers behind the scene and try to pretend to make it look cool.

Here is my chance to learn how to do real PBL, authentic PBL.

I'll take it to the next level where we actually transform the learning process for our students.

And so I'm there at this conference.

I watch a keynote speaker who highlights some of the most mind-blowing projects in K-12 education.

Kids designing their own custom shoes.

My kids don't do that.

High schoolers inventing new machines that they eventually patent.

My middle schoolers don't do that.

Documentaries that actually get screened at actual film festivals, unlike ours, which we screened in the cafeteria on those molded plastic seats.

So this is what real PBL looks like, I think to myself, followed by how am I ever going to pull off something that epic? I run into fellow educators who nerd out on project-based learning and share tips for improving collaboration and assessment.

I attend showcases.

At one point, I tour a PBL school with state-of-the-art tech and a physical environment that would rival the newly opened Googleplex.

I sketch out sprawling notes as I move from session to session, including one where the presenter lays out a clear process for PBL.

This is the gold standard approach, I'm told.

It's what every teacher should be doing.

And I'm thinking, I don't want to be bronze.