With lawmakers' attention focused on better test scores and year-end performance, educators who attended the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) annual conference in New Orleans March 20-22 were reminded that although the road to student achievement might end in assessment, it begins with creative minds at work in the classroom.

Many of the more than 12,000 educators and stakeholders who attended this year's meeting applauded educator and author Margaret Wheatley when she called the current education system too focused on speed and efficiency and pleaded with colleagues not to lose sight of more traditional values in the face of change.

"We are trying to create humans that operate at the speed of machines," Wheatley cautioned during a morning keynote address. "What we need to realize is that human beings operate at the speed of life, not the speed of light."

The hour-long presentation championed the values of communication and creativity in the classroom, while calling into question the competitive nature of the current federal law.

As school administrators fight to keep schools from being labeled in need of improvement, Wheatley--president of the Berkana Institute and author of Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future--questioned whether a national preoccupation with assessment and Adequate Yearly Progress will evolve into a monoculture of pedagogical approaches, one that discourages ingenuity for fear that new ideas will fall short of the federal standard.

Rather than reach for the first thing that works, Wheatley suggested, educators should brainstorm about ways to create change, use their creativity to foster new ideas, and listen to those around them for guidance, support, and vision.

"For us to do our work well," she said, "we must be in relationships with lots and lots of people. ...You can't just speed up life and expect good things to happen. [Right now,] the only place we're getting is sick and tired, and overwhelmed."

Getting personal

Though students might not process information at the speed of machines, educators who attended the many general sessions and roundtable discussions held throughout the weekend reaffirmed the belief that technology has its place in the classroom--if not to speed up the learning process, then to personalize it.

For instance, in an afternoon session entitled "Best Practices in Using Technology," a few California-based educators discussed very different ways that technology can be used to spur effective, hands-on learning in the classroom--and the kind of innovation that Wheatley encouraged.

One such methodology is Project EAST (Environmental and Spatial Technology Initiative), a service-based approach to education that provides students with intensive, high-level technology training and requires them to use their newly acquired expertise to head projects and experiments that make a difference within their communities.