Space for creativity A Cultural Citique on Conditions of Creativity within Vietnamese schools

Participants of The Creative Kid Project

In Partial fulfillment for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Development Studies

Brown University

April 15, 2013

by LINH DAO

 First Reader JENNIFER LINDSAY

Second Reader JENNIFER COSTANZA

Abstract Grappling with the problem of ineffective education, this study asks what "creativity" means and how it plays out in the context of Vietnamese schools. Given the cultural and institutional specificities of the Vietnamese education system, it also asks if a creativity-fostering education within this system is desirable and attainable. As creativity has traditionally been a focus of Western scholars, this study challenges the notion of the universalization of creativity and brings nuances to the relationship between students' expression of creativity and their learning environment, in the context of Vietnam. While the first stage of this study seeks to answer the question "Are Vietnamese students creative", the second stage seeks to answer the questions "what explains the differences in student creativity?" and specifically "under what conditions, or what kind of learning environments, does student creativity flourish?" Results from Vietnamese students of different educational backgrounds, especially of those from two middle schools with distinct educational models, provide interesting answers to these questions. Vietnamese students show potentials and traits of creativity; yet the reason for their creativity and the space where they express their creativity are different from what previous scholarship on creativity suggests.

Acknowledgement My fieldwork for this thesis would not have been possible without my team from the Creative Kid Project 2012, including Trang Nguyen, Suong Tran, Viet Vu, Ly Nguyen, and many more. Special thanks to Evan Schwartz for being the first person that helped me organize CKP. Thank you for having encouraged me in many ways to pursue this followup thesis. I am also deeply indebted to my thesis advisor, Jennifer Lindsay. Thank you for your patience, power in softness, and words of wisdom. Thank you for having agreed to go on this journey with me on top of your other commitments, and always reminding me to connect the dots and think about the bigger picture. Special thanks to Jennifer Costanza, who not only acted as my second advisor but who has been a mentor to me for the past year. Thank you for your sharp critiques and incredible insights. Thank you for always pushing me to make me realize that I could push even harder. Words cannot fully express my gratitude to Professor Jin Li, who is perhaps the most important indirect contributor to my thesis. The work that you have done has inspired a great part of this study. I am so lucky to have the opportunity to both learn from you and work with you. An integral part of this thesis is the community of teachers, students, and parents from Trung Vuong (Traditional) School and Thuc Nghiem (Experimental) School in Hanoi, Vietnam. Special thanks to Tram, Phuong, and My my incrediblely helpful sisters from Trung Vuong. I am also deeply honored by the support from Mrs. Quynh and all Thuc Nghiem staff. Thank you all for welcoming me into your classrooms and considering me part of your school days for the entire month of January 2013. I am also grateful for my roommate, Phan Ha, who has accompanied with me all the way during this process. Your willingness to listen and share, your encouragement at moments when I need it the most, and above all your passion for education and equality have inspired and given me the power to follow through. I cannot say thank enough to everyone who has helped me editing and proofreading this thesis, especially the fellows from Brown University Writing Center. More than just correcting my grammar and writing, you all have helped me sharpen and realize my own arguments during the several iterations of this thesis. Thanks also to my brother, Kien, who is now preparing for his most important exam thus far in his school years the exntrance exam to high school. From you, I am constantly reminded of why I started CKP and this thesis project in the first place. Finally, thank to my parents, bo Trung & me Hoa, for making me the person I am today. From my father, I learn the values of being spontaneous, passionate and whole-hearted. From my mother, I learn the importance of being thoughtful, down-to-earth and considerate. Your love and support have shown me firsthand why I am here and why my effort matters. I love you with all my heart.

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Tables, Charts and Pictures Table 2.1: Overall of Methods used Table 2.2: Breakdown of Classroom Observations Table 2.3: Breakdown of Students Surveys Table 2.4: Breakdown of Students Interviews Table 2.5: Breakdown of Teachers Interviews Table 3.1: Profile of CKP Candidates Table 3.2: School Profile of CKP Candidates Chart 3.1: School-based Breakdown of Passive & Balanced Learning Chart 3.2: Cross-school Comparison of Passive & Balanced Learning Table 3.3: Age Compositions of different Middle Schools Table 3.4: Age-based analysis of Passive & Balanced Learning 53 Chart 3.3: Age-based Comparison of Passive & Balanced Learning Table 3.5: Five components of Creativity among CKP candidates Table 3.6: Percentage of Students with Different Creativity Traits Table 3.7: Creativity Assessment of CKP Candidates Chart 3.4: Creativity Scores of CKP Candidates Table 3.8: School-based Assessment of Creativity for CKP Candidates Chart 3.5: Cross-school Comparison of Creativity Level Chart 3.6: School-based Assessment of Creativity Table 3.9: Inter-school Comparison of age-based Creativity Score Chart 4.1: Frequency of Performance-related concerns among Students and Teachers in each school Table 4.1: Level of Engagement in Classroom Activities as expressed by Students and Teachers in each school Chart 4.2: Frequency of Workload-management Concerns among Students in each school Table 4.2: Basic characteristics of Traditional School and Experimental School as of 2013 Picture 4.1: Experimental School Teacher attended to a student in class Picture 4.2: Traditional School Teacher lectured to a big classroom Table 4.3: Mapping School characteristics onto Urbans framework of openlearning environment and Cropeleys Blocks to Creativity Table 4.4: Five components of Creativity among students from both schools Table 4.5: Breakdown of Different Levels of Creativity expressed by students in both schools Chart 4.3: Breakdown of Different Levels of Creativity expressed by students in both Schools Table 4.4: Level of Creativity based on Class Type and Age Table 4.5: Comparable Interviews from the two schools Chart 5.1: Diagrams for Mind-Oriented Learning Processes in the West and Virtue-Oriented Learning Processes in the East Chart 5.2: Breakdown of Classroom Activities by students from both Schools Chart 5.3: Breakdown of Classroom Activities by students from each school

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Table of Content i. ii. 1 2 4 6 7 8 19 24 25 26 29 30 31 32 33 41 44 47 49 55 60 63 66 67 69 72 74 83 87 90 95 108 110 111 112 114 121 123 124 iv. xxii. Acknowledgements Graphs, Tables & Charts Chapter 1: Introduction Overview Why Vietnam? A note on Personal Motivations The Quest for Creativity (Literature Review) Creativity in Western Scholarship Culturally Relevant Framework for Creativity Theoretical Propositions Limitations Thesis Structure Chapter 2: Methodological Considerations Stage 1 The Immersion: Are Vietnamese students creative? Stage 2 The Investigation: How does learning environment influence creativity? Case study: Experimental School and Traditional School Triangulation of Methods A note on reflexivity Chapter 3: Exploring students voice through a student-centered initiative Tell me about your dream school! Passive Learning and Balanced Learning Assessing creativity Only an age difference? Chapter 4: Tales of the two schools Part 1: History Experimental School An ideal and its limits Traditional School the leading institution Part 2: Learning Environment The Performance-driven disease Core-Subjects and Periphery Subjects Big, diluted classrooms versus small, focused classrooms Focus on Excellence and Focus on Equality Part 3: Facets of Creativity Chapter 5: Conclusion The Stake The Expectation Reality Check Culturally Relevant Framework Revisited Implications of Findings Suggestions for Future Research Final Thoughts: Vietnamese Education and the Creative Kid Project Appendix Bibliography

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CHAPTER ONE: Introduction Starting to study abroad at the early age of 16 was hard for me I knew that I was going to miss my then 8-year-old brother Kien. So whenever I went back to Vietnam in the summer, I made a conscious effort to reconnect with Kien. It was a scorching summer day in 2011. Kien came home at around 8p.m, throwing his backpack on the couch where I was sitting. He seemed both aloof and exhausted. Whats up? I asked him. Just came back from Math class. He answered. Every Wednesday, Kien had to take extra tutoring in Math, like most of his peers. How was it? Boring, as usual. In a matter-of-fact voice, Kien responded while quickly turning to his iPhone. Our chat stopped there, for Kien was uninterested in elaborating on why. Kiens answer to me was a moment of dj vu, reminding me exactly of how I was, 8 years earlier, at his age! Back then, I also thought school was boring, but I could not care less. Just like Kien, I was disengaged and uninterested in doing anything about it. But the very fact that I was so concerned about Kiens response signaled that I had changed somehow along the way. During the years abroad, not only was I told that my opinion mattered, that being engaged in ones own education was important, but I also got to see how fun and relevant school could be, and how much I could do about it. I wish I could travel back in time to tell myself of 8 years earlier, just as much as I wanted to tell that to Kien. I quickly grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, and started writing down my initial reflections: Kids are creative by nature; but they need to be able to see that their opinion matters, in order for their creativity to flourish.1

This later serves as the Creative Kid Projects first mission statement.

Overview This study grapples with the problem of ineffective education. All around the world, an incredible amount of time, energy and potential are wasted in classrooms filled with bored students and frustrated teachers (Wagner, 2008). Beyond formal classes, for many students in some parts of the world, particularly in Asia, back-to-back formal classes followed by extraclasses, also known as shadow education, is the norm (Bray, 1999). 2 According to a recent publication of a decade-long study on extra tutoring phenomenon in Vietnam, Dang (2008) found that an increasing number of Vietnamese students spend up to 12 hours per day running a marathon from class to class: for these students, the average day starts at 6a.m and ends at 11p.m, leaving no breathing space for other activities. 3 Policy makers are increasingly aware of these problems. In Vietnam, for example, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) in their decadal report titled Education Development Strategic Plan for 2011-2020 identified low employability competences of students and graduates as the main weakness of the Vietnamese education system (Ministry of Education & Training, 2012). Three pressing questions were asked: 1.What is the role of vocational education versus traditional education? , 2. Should education be learner-centered or teacher-centered?; and 3. How to educate the young in a globalized world? Answering these big questions, the report concluded, would enable policy makers to solve the problem of Vietnamese education (, 2012).

Extra classes, or formally known as shadow education, refers to the privatized teaching of main subjects either by institutionalized businesses or individual teachers from or outside of students schools. In many developing and some developed countries ranging from Brazil, Egypt to Japan, Singapore, or Tanzania, shadow education has become one of the most pressing education concerns and in 1999 reached the UNICEFF reform agenda. 3 This is my attempt to translate the term chay sho, which means running show business in Vietnamese. This term refers to the mindless act of running from class to class that most Vietnamese students go through in their school life.

Predominantly, many Western researchers have suggested that the answer for these questions lies in focusing on creativity, for both normative as well as practical reasons. Creativity, defined as the application of knowledge and skills in new ways to achieve a valued goal empowers students, both as learners and future workers (Seltzer & Bentley, 1999, p. 10). Researchers and some educators argue that not only is creativity an effective goal for pedagogy but also a great economic imperative in the age of globalization. In fact, many authors even claim that there is a trend towards the universalization of creativity: across all countries, schools want more creative learners and employers want a more creative workforce (Kaufman & Sternberg, 2006; Craft, Jefferey, & Leibling, 2001). This current study, however, serves to challenge this argument: that is, it takes a look at creativity, as conceptualized in Western scholarship, and examines whether a focus on this kind of creativity could be an answer to the problem of ineffective education in Vietnam. Using frameworks that stem from Western tradition in the specific context of Vietnam, this study makes the case for why a more culturally relevant framework is necessary in researching creativity in education. I began by conducting exploratory research on participants of the Creative Kid Project (CKP), an educational program I founded that embraces creativity at its core. 4 By analyzing students perceptions and aspirations on schooling, I sought to answer the first question: Are Vietnamese students capable of being creative, and if yes, to what extent? The second part of my research grapples with the why questions: What explain the differences in Vietnamese student creativity? As CKP attracted students across different types of schools in Vietnam, it opened an opportunity for me to expand my investigation beyond participants of CKP to other Vietnamese students and their learning environments. As previous
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See CKPs mission statement in Appendix A. The opening vignette is the story of how CKP came about.

scholars have suggested, learning environment, particularly classroom environment, turns out to be an important determinant of student creativity, I further asked: Under what kind of learning environments does a student creativity flourish? What characteristics of a learning environment best explain differences in student creativity? My main findings suggest that although Vietnamese students can be very creative, the reason for their creativity and the channels through which some express creativity differ from what previous scholarship suggests, and in some case even contradict it. Particularly, a perceived more open learning environment that is creativity-fostering does not necessarily lead to more creativity in students. Cultural norms and values seem to play a large role in students learning environment, their learning beliefs, and in turn, their decision to express their own creativity.

Why Vietnam? This study assesses the value and expression of creativity in education in Vietnam, which no other research has dealt with to this date. As explained further, research on creativity has been heavily focusing on the West, particularly Great Britain and North America. Recently, in a volume titled Creativity: When East Meets West, the first work in a whole range of research on creativity that compiles non-Western studies on creativity, Lau et al. proposed that theorization of creativity in the East is too lopsidedly dependent on Western concepts and theories, hindering any breakthrough in theory building by scholars in the East (Lau, Hui, & Ng, 2004, p. 6). However, these authors reached their conclusion from studies done mostly in China and Chinese-speaking countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong. This current study, I propose, sits at the nexus between the East and the West, as the case of Vietnam neither fits perfectly the West or the East dichotomy.

On one hand, Vietnam can be seen as a typical Eastern country with a heavily examdriven, teacher-centered and virtue-oriented educational system (Altbach & Kelly, 1978). The 1000-year period of Chinese domination, followed by unstable political periods until doimoi, Vietnams major economic reform in 1986, left a legacy of a stagnant and change-averse education. For the past few decades since doimoi, Vietnam has made tremendous progress in some areas of education (such as primary education enrollment) yet dismal progress in others (such as exams, textbooks and overall heavy curriculum). Each decade witnesses a "Total and Fundamental Reform" (1982, 1991 and 2000 and 2011), yet many fundamental problems that have led to the need for reform in the first place, such as curriculum overload, have not been resolved (Le, 1991). As chapter 4 demonstrates, the exam-driven curriculum in many cases serves as the root causes for many of the challenges facing students, teachers and the schools as a whole in adopting more innovative pedagogy. But as Vietnam will pass another round of the aforementioned reform; the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training is determined in taking bold initiatives this time around to resolve the problem. This study looks at Vietnam at a very timely period (London, 2011). On the other hand, Vietnams education system is also complex and multifaceted in nature. Besides Confucian tradition, Vietnam's education system consists of many features that typify a "Western education" as a legacy of French colonialism and the Soviet sphere of influence (World Bank, 2004). For example, written Vietnamese language is one of the few Asian languages that use Latin script instead of Chinese characters or Sanskrit like most other Asian languages. Moreover, as discussed further in chapter 4, one of the two schools that form the focus of this study, Experimental School, was born out of a Western tradition of a childcentered education popular in Soviet Russia during the 1980s. Likewise, the other school,

Traditional School, was a project by French colonizers in the early 1930s as the first all-girls school in Southeast Asia. Thus, Western influence has also been a running theme in Vietnamese education. The case of Vietnam, thus, adds richness and nuances not only to the discussion on creativity in education but also to the role of culture in the practice of learning and teaching.

A note on personal motivations This study is important to me, personally, as someone who has studied for eleven years in the traditional public school system in Vietnam, two years in an English-speaking international high school in India, and four years in an American university with a Liberal Arts education. My exposure to different pedagogical systems with distinct styles yet many of the same problems, such as ineffective teaching or unengaged learning, has encouraged me to always question, compare and evaluate different educational models and approaches: What is in a good education? What is the purpose of learning? Why should students care? As such, this study is my attempt to search for a sense of motivation and interest in education that seem to have become lost in so many students, myself included, throughout our schooling. Furthermore, this study is also important to my own educational startup, the Creative Kid Project. After initial conception during the summer of 2011, Creative Kid Project was founded in the spring of 2012 (see opening vignette). With the mission to "inspire students to unleash their creativity and make an impact in their community", CKP 2012 brought together 28 students from various middle schools in Hanoi, Vietnam, to learn skills (such as critical thinking, problemsolving and presentation skills), work in teams and build a project to improve their own schools.5

See Appendix A, CKP Information Packet, for more information

At the end of CKP, six groups of students presented their proposals to parents, teachers and school headmasters to voice their concerns about the problems in their schools. In a way, this research would never have happened without CKP. Particularly, CKP provided me with an opportunity to acquire initial data and subjects for my research. Additionally, the two schools that I studied in chapter 4 are also the two with the largest number of applications to CKP.6 By the same token CKP also benefited from the results of this research because of its exclusive look at the problems of the Vietnamese education system, the main focus of our program. At the same time, it is important for me, both as a researcher as well as the founder of CKP to separate these two projects. While CKP is an experimental program with creativity at its core (that is, CKP by default adopts a pro-creativity framework), this research study is an academic investigation that is intended to study creativity and challenge conventional notions of what creativity entails. Ideally, regardless of my own personal belief on creativity, the CKP framework should not influence the framework used in this study. In the following section, the Quest for Creativity, I take the neutral stance of a researcher who wants to explore and learn more about existing scholarship, as opposed to that of the founder of the Creative Kid Project. In fact, the quest to dissect what creativity means and how it has been conceptualized as well as executed forms the crux of this study, as I shall explain in the rest of this study.

The Quest for Creativity The following section situates my thesis in the existing body of literature on creativity in education. In the first part, I seek to find answers for my research questions from previous

The two schools are Trung Vuong (Traditional) Middle School and Thuc Nghiem (Experimental) Middle School. For more information about these schools see chapter 4.

scholarship. While many researchers have delved into this topic, I shall show that most of them draw their main framing principles from Western philosophy of education, such as Deweys concept of child-centered education, and most of the conclusions and suggestions are more appropriate in a Western learning context. Nonetheless, existing theories are necessary for my own understanding and helpful for my research. From them, I extrapolate a framework of analysis to examine students expressions of creativity (Torrance), conditions for creativity (Cropeley) and the criteria of open-learning environment (Urban). Although most of these studies and frameworks do not answer my research questions regarding Vietnamese education, they provide me with general trends and predictions for creativity. In the second part, I give a more extensive overview of Eastern perspectives on education and specifically Jin Lis work, Cultural Foundations of Learning. I introduce the role of cultural relevance in research as advocated by socio-cultural theorists. In looking for answers for my research questions, I argue that most Eastern critique of studies on education in general and of studies on creativity in particular draw from a few limited Eastern countries, mainly China or Japan, which are not necessarily representative of the East. I conclude that my study will make best use of whats available in the literature but mostly rely on my own background and understanding of Vietnamese education as a cultural filter for my analysis.

Creativity in Western scholarship The Education Paradox The education paradox is a Western discourse on education that questions the purpose of education and the relationship between student and teacher. It dates back to the Classical era, when Plato, believing that children would never learn unless they wanted to learn, wrote:

Compulsory learning never sticks in the mind (Plato, The Republic, 7.536e). Various contemporary thinkers, including Socratic-Kantian theorists like Leonard Nelson (1956) cognitive scientists like Gilbert Ryle (1949), and social development scholars like David Hawkins (2011), have also describe the paradox of education. Sizer & Sizer gave perhaps the best statement of this paradox in the context of schooling: Schools exist for children, but children are often seen as the schools clients, as its powerless people. They are told that they are in school not because of what they know but because of what they dont know. All over the world, powerless people lose the instinct to help, because it is so often rebuffed in them (Sizer & Sizer, 1999). Sizer and Sizer clearly highlight the ever-pressing nature of this paradox in the modern days, ever since the introduction of mass schooling in the US. This central paradox of education poses an existential crisis for pedagogy: although the teacher wants to help his or her students learn, it is not until the student internalizes the knowledge and thus no longer needs the teacher that the teacher fulfills this mission (Fisher, 1993). The ultimate goal of education, namely students acquisition of knowledge, might conflict with the very means to get to that goal, namely the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student. The question is then, how can this education paradox be resolved, if it is resolvable in the first place? One possible answer to this question comes from John Dewey, the mastermind behind child-centered education and many other influential theories in education and social reform. Considered the Father of Progressive Education in the United States, Dewey had in spired a movement in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century that would make learning meaningful and pleasurable by focusing on the needs and interests of children (Zilversmit, 1993, p. 1). The publication of Deweys The School & Society in 1899 enunciated a comprehensive

account of his educational philosophy, a child-centered education that begins with the interests and capacities of the child, not with the formal curriculum (Zilversmit, 1993, p. 7). He believed that each child should be regarded as a distinct individual who comes to school with a number of important assets, such as an interest in communication, in finding out things, in making things, which the teacher should make use of (Dewey J. , 1900). He also believed that a gradual interest in the inquiry of abstract knowledge could come through time, paving way for an increasing capacity to see long-term goals (Zilversmit, 1993, p. 7). From this perspective, the paradox is addressed by a focus on the students: if the teacher starts from what the child is interested in and can do, he will be able to facilitate the childs process of internalizing the knowledge.

Creativity as the solution for the education paradox Advocates of child-centered education also propose that learning should be seen as a process of problem-solving rather than just knowledge-acquiring (Dewey, 1900; Entwistle, 1970). It is this particular characteristic of a child-centered education that leads to the argument for focusing creativity, defined as the application of knowledge and skills in new ways to achieve a valued goal (Seltzer & Bentley, 1999, p. 10). In fact, the first call for the teaching of creativity in education originated in England in the 1960s, where discussion on child-centered education loomed large (Craft, Jefferey, & Leibling 2001). The publication of the Plowden Report (1967) by the British Central Advisory Council for Education recognized creativity as a desirable aim for inclusion in the curriculum, particularly in primary education (Craft et al, 2001). The report, known for its praising of child-centered approaches and stressing that at the heart of the educational process lies the child, is the first official attempt to link creativity directly to a child-centered education.

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However, the pedagogic approach advocated by the Plowden Report came under attack by many critics who argued that children could not be expected to discover for themselves without significant knowledge input (Cox & Dyson, 1971). Craft (2001) also pointed out that it was this strong pushback on child-centered education that laid the way for the introduction of a subject-content-based national curriculum in Britain at the end of the 1980s. The renewed interest in creativity in education in Britain in the 1990s brought a new dimension to the established link between creativity and a child-centered education: economic imperative. Many scholars have argued that that the shift from a traditional economy (manufacturing, industry-based) to the the weightless economy (e-commerce, service-based,) required greater flexibility from the labor workforce (Seltzer & Bentley, 1999; Green & Little, 2007). Facing global competitiveness and pressure to lower wages, workers are encouraged to acquire skills that could apply to portfolio careers or many different jobs. As Seltzer and Bentley put it: To thrive in our economy defined by the innovative application of knowledge, we must be able to do more than absorb and feedback information. Learners and workers must draw on their entire spectrum of learning experiences and apply what they have learned in new and creative ways. A central challenge for the education system is therefore to find ways of embedding learning in a range of meaning for contexts, where students can use their knowledge and skills creatively to make an impact on the world around them. (Seltzer & Bentley, 1999, pp. 9-10) According to Seltzer and Bentley, a creative learner can also become a creative worker. In this new age, students are also regarded as potential workers who have to prove themselves to be globally competitive and flexible. This prioritization of agency in the face of rapid changes

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in the economy aligns perfectly with the objectives of educational reformists in the 1920s. Creativity once again regained attention from policy-makers and made its way to the reform agenda of the 1990s, especially in the Western world (Craft, Jefferey, & Leibling, 2001). It is important to note that this education-economics duo is still a highly contested idea and clearly has achieved no global consensus. For example, Kratke (2010) criticized this approach for its highly affirmative concept of education and the current mode of capitalism. Clearly, there has been no unanimous acceptance of this default capitalist mode of production in literature as well as in practice. But it is precisely this contested nature of the economicseducation duo that necessitates an examination on creativity: as this study attempts to demystify what it means to be creative, it also serves to verify the notion whether creativity is just an economic tool in this global era. The above section has explained why a focus on creativity could be a solution to the problem of ineffective education, as conceived by most scholars from the West. To cope with the education paradox, focus on the child and his or her creativity seems to be a great pedagogical goal. Furthermore, in a more globalized world, producing a more creative workforce promises a great economic tool. The next question is: if creativity is so important, how to incorporate it in education?

Creativity in Education The attempts incorporate creativity in education have led to the biggest debate among creativity scholars, namely proponents of high creativity versus poponents of little-c creativity (Craft, Jefferey, & Leibling, 2001). While the former argue that creativity represents exceptional human capacity (Ryhammar & Brolin, 1999, p. 261), the kinds of things that

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people do that change the world (Feldman et al, 1994) and that are accepted by experts as being of scientific, aesthetic, social, or technological value (Vernon, 1989, p. 94; Gardner, 2011); the latter emphasize on the notion of an everyday, ordinary and democratic creativity that all pupils can achieve (Craft, 2000). In his preface of the book Creativity in Education, Sir Ken Robinson, chairman of the British National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, confirmed that creativity could and should be taught in school, precisely because it is not confined to particular activities or people and flourishes under certain conditions (Craft, Jefferey, & Leibling, 2001; Robinson, 2011). Indeed, a review of creativity literature reveals that the shift from defining creativity as a trait of personality (nature) to imaginative capacity or possibility thinking (nurture) has confirmed that creativity can be taught. The current study, thus, will focus on little-c creativity, the concept of creativity as a potent force that all can benefit from. The discussion on creativity also brings the education paradox to the fore. That is, if creativity is defined as a persons capacity to produce new or original ideas (Vernon, 1989), the question remains whether this capacity could be taught and how it is taught most effectively. This question gives rise to yet another classic debate in education between John Dewey, who pioneered child-centered education and Lev Vygotsky, who pioneered the cultural-historical focus in education. While sharing similar ideas with Dewey concerning the importance of classroom activities that engage students, Vygotsky differs fundamentally from Dewey on why these activities are important (Glassman, 2001). Whereas Dewey, the father behind child-center education, sees the individual experience at the central of learning, Vygotsky believes that the individual is immersed and inseparable from his or her own culture. His concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) serves as part of his argument on the importance of the

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environment in general and of the teacher in particular. Zone of Proximal Development refers to the range of tasks that a child can complete, with the upper limit being the level of potential skill that the child is able to reach with the assistance of a more capable instructor (Kozulin, 1990). That is, ZDP is a learning edge with a cultural set of norms. Likewise, the Hungarian psychologist Csikszentmihalyi (1996), author of Flow and theory on Creativity also emphasizes the importance of external factors when it comes to evaluation of creativity. Taking off from Vygotskys conceptualization of socio-cultural influences, Csikszentmihalyi argues that while creativity originates in the minds, actions and interactions of individuals, it is fundamentally a socio-cultural concept. That is, a product must be communicated to other people and at least tolerated by them (socio-cultural validation) in order to be acclaimed as creative. Taking this view implies that my discussion and evaluation of creativity should take into consideration the role of external environment. In the next section, I will review several ways to assess creativity and the challenges regarding this practice, as most commonly found in Western literature.

Assessing creativity: teachers role and students voice Research on assessment of creativity has been underdeveloped at best, even within the Western world. As one of the few scholars that theorize a systematic way to assess creativity, Torrance (1965) describes four components by which individual creativity could be assessed: 1. Fluency the ability to produce a large number of ideas, 2.Flexibility the ability to produce a large variety of ideas, 3. Elaboration the ability to develop, embellish, or fill out an idea and 4. Originality the ability to produce ideas that are unusual, statistically infrequent, not banal or obvious. These components originated from Guildford (1967)s conceptualization of divergent

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thinking, defined as the ability to generate multiple solutions to a problem, as opposed to convergent thinking, which is characterized by the orientation towards deriving the single best answer/solution to a given question/problem (Cropley, 2001). Torrances criteria are subject to many criticisms from scholars, due to the inherent subjective nature of this process. Almost unanimously, theorists agree that teachers exude a bias against creativity, most clearly through their evaluation of students performances (Fryer, 1996; Torrance, 1965; Cropley, 2001; Craft, 2000). Many studies on teachers use of Torrrance tests have shown that teachers prefer skills that are easier to measure (such as memorization and accurate recall). They tend to struggle with evaluating skills such as critical thinking or independent decision making. Indeed, Cropley (2001) s summary of empirical findings over the last 30-40 years suggests different variations of the inverse relationship between creativity and harmonious teacher-student relationship. That is, teachers tend to place a low value on creativity traits as being useful in the school environment, and often find the most creative students most disruptive and troublesome of all. Additionally, Fryer (1996)s study of 1,000 American teachers found that many teachers preferred judging students work against each individuals past performance. If this is the case, a teachers assessment of students performance might not reflect their actual ability, but rather the teachers preconceived notion of their ability. Whats more, Fryer also criticized Torrances criteria to be too high in standards, potentially damaging students self-esteem. Thus, he recommended, self-assessment should be encouraged to foster a stronger sense of agency among students. A number of research studies have supported Fryers emphasis on students perceptions. These authors argue that as students approach to learning is a fucntion of their conceptions of

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learnings, the extent to which they perceive the environment as encouraging or inhibiting their creativity could influence their creative learning behavior (Saljo, 1979; Prosser, Trigwell, & Taylor, 1994; Ramsden, 2003). In the words of Reid and Petocz: The most sophisticated conceptions of learning, and the best approaches to learning, then, may enable students to demonstrate creativity through their learning outcomes. The reverse could also be true: students with limiting conceptions and approaches may not be able to be creative or demonstrate creativity within a specific learning domain. (Reid & Petocz, 2004, p. 48) Thus, both Torrances framework and critiques from his opponents are very important to my research: while the former provides a benchmark to evaluate student creativity, the latter calls for a more balanced reflection of student creativity. Therefore, my study should focus on students perceptions of education as a proxy for creativity. In assessing creativity, I will add an extra criteria besides fluency, originality, flexibility and elaboration, namely agency. As defined by Fryer, agency represents students active involvement and engagement with their education.

Fostering creativity Thus far, this literature review has alluded to the fact that the environment and the teacher are very important determinants in student creativity. To understand this relationship even further, I look at the question in what way? That is, I will examine how exactly the teachers and the environment influence student creativity. With regards to the role of the teacher, researchers suggest that teachers can resolve their bias against creativity by balancing between fostering creativity and maintaining other traditional

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virtues of learning such as good memory, obedience, accuracy, or discipline. Here are some of the characteristics of a creativity-fostering teacher, as suggested by the literature: Has a co-operative, socially integrative style of teaching; Encourages students to learn independently; Does not neglect mastery of factual knowledge; Tolerates sensible or bold errors; Promotes self-evaluation; Takes questions seriously; Offers opportunities to work with varied materials under different conditions; Helps students learn to cope with frustration and failure; Rewards courage as much as being right. (Cropley, 2001, p. 138) Besides the teacher, researchers also highlights the the role of learning environment in fostering student creativity: many argue that a more open learning environment, particularly that within the classroom itself, better fosters creativity among students. Urban (1991) defines this environment as one that is tolerant towards differences and encourages idea-generation and risktaking. It is also one that shifts the focus away from the teacher, whose role should be more like that of a facilitator than an instructor (Cropley, 2001). Many studies have associated this kind of environment with a high level of creativity. For example, Goyals 1973 study on the varying degrees of openness of school environments on students from two different middle-schools indicated that the expression of creative potentialities is encouraged by a flexible and stimulating school environment and discouraged by a rigid and traditional school environment.

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According to Urbans framework of analysis, characteristics of an open learning environment can be categorized into six different components of creativity, all together forms a Componential Model of Creativity.7 The Six components are: 1. Divergent thinking & doing; 2. General knowledge and thinking base; 3. Specific knowledge base and specific skills; 4. Focusing & task commitment; 5. Motives and Motivation; and 6. Openness and tolerance of ambiguity. For each of these conditions, Urban offers many concrete and behaviors or patterns of behaviors that are observable and/or identifiable in a class setting (See Appendix B.2 & B.3 for more details) In addition to Urbans framework, Croppley also suggests potential blocks to creativity within a classroom setting. While most of these characteristics are encompassed in Urbans framework, it is important to highlight some of the most important ones. Some features of an anti-creativity learning environment are: emphasis on being right, external evaluation, teachers impatience with time wasting, conformity pressures, and sharp distinction between work and play. The emphasis on being right, for example, blocks creativity through the way it distorts students motivation for learning (pleasing the teacher) and perception of purpose of education (getting good grades). In a classroom where teacher focuses on getting the right answer, questions are posed as a discovered problem rather than just a presented problem (Croppley, 1967, p.89).

See Appendix B.1,2 and 3 for a detailed description and graphic presentation of this model

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An important asterisk to add to this discussion on fostering creativity in education is the implication of the space for creativity. Both Cropeley and Urban seem to point toward an open learning environment that happens within a classroom setting and could be mediated by an open teacher. This suggests one important spatial component of creativity: all these researchers suggest that creativity could and should happen within a more open-learning environment.

Culturally relevant framework for creativity Although the existing body of literature on creativity highlights many important themes and debates on creativity in Western education, it does not give adequate attention to the role of culture in shaping students' expression of creativity. In the next section, I present basic arguments made by socio-cultural theorists for more culturally relevant theories and frameworks in research, followed by Jin Li (2012)'s discussion on the fundamental differences between Eastern and Western concepts, processes and outcomes of learning. Together, they serve as critiques of existing literature on creativity, which has placed negligible weight at best on culture. At the crux of socio-cultural theory is the idea that learning, like any other human processes, is constantly shaped by "system of powers" within a cultural context. In the words of Cynthia Lewis and Elizabeth Moje: "Learning is always situated in participation within discourse communities [that] produce and struggle over cultural tools, resources, and identities. [It] follows that learning is shaped by power relations, even-or especially-those relations that are not obvious acts of power" (Lewis & Moje, 2003, p. 1992).

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In their research on Latino Youth in Detroit, Lewis and Moje argue that precisely because this system of powers is oftentimes not "obvious", individuals are deeply entrenched in it while also able to make use of different aspects of it in different spaces and times. Once an individual perceive the cultural legitimacy in his or her act, what follows is a reinforcement of this system and its legitimacy even further. The implicit yet powerful role of culture and system of powers at large was strongly promoted by some of the most influential thinkers in the 20th century, including Foucault (1977), author of Discipline & Punish: the Birth of the Prison and Bordieu (1984), author of Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Heavily influenced by the work of these thinkers, Lewis and Moje argue that it is impossible to separate an individual and his or her act from the discourse on identity, agency, power and of course, culture. Yet, my review of creativity research reveals that this important characteristic of learning, that is learning deeply situated in culture, is not given due respect by those that study creativity in education. Despite acknowledging the role of socio-cultural factors in the evaluation of creativity (see above section on Csizzentmihalyi), existing theories tend to overlook the role of power, simplify cultural differences, and argue for a "universalization of creativity" (Kaufman & Sternberg, 2006; Craft, Jefferey, & Leibling, 2001). In his final concluding chapter of the International Handbook of Creativity, a collection of scholarly articles on creativity in a wide variety of countries, Simonton (2006) argues that despite many cultural differences, research on creativity across countries has converged in many fundamental ways and creativity is, after all, a universal phenomenon (Simonton, 2006, p. 495). Particularly, he claims that most nations research is heavily dependent on that of the US, the pioneer of this investigation on creativity. Similarly, emerging Eastern studies on creativity also express a concern that there has been no

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major breakthrough in the non-Western world when it comes to creativity research, because this area of research has been dependent on Western concept for a long time (Lau, Hui & Ng, 2004). This lopsided dependency on Western research is problematic because, as advocates of socio-cultural theorists might say, it suggests a kind of power relation at the macro level, namely the superiority of Western over Eastern model, as well as a kind of power legitimated not by individual actors but by the general discourse (Rogoff, 2003; Purcell-Gates, 2002; Spring, 2010). My task in this study, thus, is to problematize this taken for granted discourse and to identify actual cultural storylines that frame the expressions of creativity by individual actors, particular Vietnamese students. Along the same line, Jin Li (2012) and her work on the differences between Eastern and Western concepts of learning complicate the universalization of creativity in existing research. Her book Cultural Foundations of Learnings hightlights three fundamental contradictions between Western learning and Chinese learning, which she argues can be extended to Eastern learning as many Eastern countries share with China Confucian traditions. First, the paradox of education, as captured in Platos quote compulsory learning never sticks to the mind, does not seem to be a paradox within the Eastern tradition. In her book, Li clearly explains this stark contrast by comparing Western learning tradition, as explained by Plato and ancient Western philosophers, and Chinese learning tradition, as expressed in Confuciuss thinking. Learning, according to Confucius, is a process of perfecting virtues and enduring hardship rather than a process of mastering the universe and cultivating the mind (Li, 2012, p.37). He also thinks that learning is not a choice it is a gift. An ideal Chinese learner, just like Confucius who had his heart and mind set upon learning from the age of 15, should make a life-long commitment for learning and embrace learning no matter what. Thus, the idea

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of compulsory learning being a problem as posed by Western scholars does not resonate well with Eastern tradition, or at least Chinese tradition. Second, Deweys concept of a child-centered education seems to contradict another fundamental value placed in the Chinese learning process: respect for teachers. In Lis words: As a learner, particularly a beginner, one has much to learn. Respect for the teacher makes the learner receptive to the teachers guidance. One needs to put ones ego asid e in order to make a sincere commitment to learning. The pupil is not an equal peer to the teacher (Li, 2012, p.51) Lis quote highlights letting go of ones ego and respecting the teacher, which seem to go against the idea of a child-centered education: in the Confucian tradition, at the center of education stands the teacher who is supposed to know better, not the child who is just a beginner. Li argues that while a Western learner might view this as sign of obedience, docility, or lack of critical thinking, a Chinese learner views it as a virtuous characteristic in line with his or her morale (p.51). And third, Lis book poses a very interesting phenomenon, which she calls the paradoxical Chinese learner (Li, 2012, p.72). That is, despite man y criticisms on the current Chinese pedgagogy that is old-fashioned, teacher-centered, authoritarian, with a centralized curriculum implying inflexibility and lack of attention to individual childrens learning needs, Chinese learners and Asian learners, including Asian imigrants in developed countries, continue to achieve well in comparision to their Western peers in the same countries! To Li, the Asian achievement and performance have a lot to do with their learning beliefs under the influence of the Confucian learning tradition (p.82).

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The compromise: toward a more culturally relevant framework within the Vietnamese context While compelling, Lis critiques are inadequate in and of themselves: first, there seems to be a heavy emphasis on Chinese tradition, as Confucius himself is after all a Chinese philosopher. In the context of other Eastern countries, such as Vietnam, the extent to which Confucian thinking makes an impact on students learning beliefs and learning process is less clear. Similarly, many emerging research on creativity in Eastern countries, such as Lui, Hau and Ng studies in 2004, are conducted in a few Chinese-speaking countries, such as China, Hong Kong or Singapore, which cannot represent Eastern countries as a whole. Second, Lis arguments do not seem to directly address the role of creativity within an Eastern context. As explained earlier, the focus on creativity is justified on two grounds, namely pedagogical reason and economic reason. Especially with regard to the argument that a creative workforce might be what a more globalized world needs, there has to be more research that focuses on this aspect of creativity. Presumably, the arguments about the universalization of creativity made by those aformentioned researchers stems from many compelling convergence theories, such as Meyers (1979) concept of the universalization of education. Meyer claims that there is a tendency for all national educational systems in the world to converge toward a common structure and set of practice (Ginsburg, 2012). Similarly, other authors mention how less developed industrialized nations face greater global pressure toward convergence, which results in their borrowing of structures and practices from the more developed nations (Inkeles and Sirowy, 1984). Thus, this back and forth debate on universalization of creativity adds nuances to my exploration of Vietnamese student creativity. The case of Vietnam will serve to confirm, negate or at least complicate this generally accepted claim on the universalization of creativity by looking specifically at whether and how Vietnamese students express it. Additionally, my solid

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background on Vietnamese culture serves as a cultural filter for my assessment. That is, my personal judgment of what creativity entails plays an important role in this evaluation.

Theoretical Propositions In summary, the above literature review has situated my study within the existing scholarship on creativity and education. From it, I was able to extrapolate predictions for my three research questions: 1. Are Vietnamese students creative, and to what extent?; 2. What explains the differences in student creativity? And 3. Under what conditions, or what kind of learning environments, does student creativity flourish? As derived from literature review, my three main theoretical propositions are: 1. Vietnamese students are capable of being creative; 2. Learning environments, especially the role of the teachers, explain the differences in student creativity and 3. Under a more open learning environment , students tend to show more traits of creativity. As mentioned in the second part of literature review, these are propositions drawn from Western tradition of research, thus I will keep in mind any cultural nuances in my actual assessment of each construct. To assess student creativity, I use a modified framework from Torrances fourcomponent criteria, with an added element of agency. Students perception is the basis of my assessment, as literature has shown that the biggest flaw in research on assessing creativity to be the lack of focus on students voice. My judgment of how open the learning utilizes Urbans criteria with some modification and simplification.8 Particularly, I make an effort to adjust the framework according to culturally appropriate norms and according to my interpretation of students own perspectives.

For a more detailed description of the modified version of Urbans framework, see appendix E

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Limitations9 This thesis faces several limitations. First, although the results of this study could be generalized to existing theories on creativity in education, they cant be generalized to larger population. Due to the nature of a case study, there might be a reason to suspect that our research selectively attracts a very particular group of students. Similarly, the two schools that I chose to conduct research (see chapter 4) are not necessarily representative of all schools in Vietnamese educational system. However, as explained in my method chapter, I attempt to mitigate this limitation by adopting a wide variety of methods (including interviews, surveys and classroom observations) and triangulation of data. At best, the biggest contribution of my study lies in its questioning of current understanding on creativity in education and how further study might want to proceed. And second, as pointed out in the literature, assessing creativity is extremely challenging and even when it is possible, it could not be standardized (Craft, Jefferey, & Leibling, 2001). This happens because unlike intelligence, creativity could only be relatively measured through subjective measures (as opposed to test scores). Furthermore, as explained in the section on culture, creativity as a culturally sensitive topic necessitates a culturally appropriate assessment. However, to date, most evaluations of creativity have heavily depended on that of the West, and even the studies with an Eastern focus only make modifications and adjustments instead of radically different measures. Although I attempt to vary these measures base on my personal understanding of the Vietnamese culture as well as its educational system, the accuracy and representativeness of my analysis depends heavily on my subjectivity. I explain in more extensively length on the limitation of a researchers reflexivity in chapter 2.

See chapter 2 for more

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Thesis Structure This first chapter, Introduction, poses the crux of this study: an investigation into the problem of ineffective education and a look at creativity as the potential solution for this problem. The literature review situates the study in existing research on creativity in education and provides a general framework of analysis as used in previous studies. This chapter also provides readers with the 3 main research questions together with the theoretical propositions for each question based on literature review. Providing the readers with a brief overview of the Vietnamese education system, this study fills in the gap of existing body of literature with regards to its lack of focus on students' voice and inadequate attention to cultural variations. The second chapter, a note on Method, justifies the use of different methods and clarifies the procedures used to attain results in chapter 3 and 4. Using students' applications for the Creative Kid Project as a starting point, this chapter delves into the systematic procedure used to study middle-school students from two of CKP's partner schools in Vietnam and the resulting comparative case study of these two schools. One important part of this section is the piece on reflexivity, with reference to my own educational background and the potential effects that might have on my motivation for this study and my interpretation of the results. The third chapter presents the Creative Kid Project as a case study for an education initiative with exclusive focus on creativity. I used students' applications (in the form of survey responses) to analyze their creativity and answer the first research question: Are Vietnamese students capable of being creative? I used students' articulation of ideas as a proxy for their creativity, as the Torrance's framework for assessing creativity has a lot to do with idea creation. To refine my analysis, I divided students based on ages and school types (explained more in the chapter). The results show differences in student creativity, particularly between students of two

26

specific schools with very different educational models and between students of different age (particularly younger middle-schoolers and older middle schoolers). Contrary to my theoretical propositions (described in chapter 1) students from a perceived open learning environment seem to show fewer trait of creativity. The fourth chapter serves as my main analytical chapter where the crux of my argument lies: This chapter seeks to answer 2 research questions, namely, "what explains the differences in student creativity?" and "under what conditions/ kinds of learning environment does student creativity flourish?" in the second stage of the research. As the results from chapter 3 show differences in creativity traits from students of two distinct middle-schools, this part of the research takes a closer look at these two schools to explore a potential relationship between students' learning environment and their expression of creativity. Results from this chapter challenge the link between open learning environment and high creativity, as described in the second proposition. Similar to results shown in Chapter 3, students from the experimental model, or the school that has a more open learning environment according to Urban's framework, tend to show fewer traits of creativity, paradoxically. One important piece of this chapter is the section I call "Facets of Creativity". In this section, some of the most interesting tales of creativity emerge, in rather different and unanticipated forms. I call this form of creativity informal creativity, which will be discussed further in chapter 5. The fifth, and last, chapter summarizes the results from both stages of my research and confirms a paradox: in contrary to the theoretical propositions derived from literature review, a more open learning environment does not seem to lead to more creativity, as expressed among middle school students in Vietnam. In this chapter, I bring back the importance of cultural relevance in analysis as discussed in Chapter 1. Both socio-cultural theorists and Jin Lis

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arguments make a necessary contribution to my argument: although creativity still finds ways to express itself, the space, venue and channel through which Vietnamese students express it are different from what literature suggests, presumably because of a cultural impediment. This chapter concludes the thesis with suggestions for further study and a reflection on the development of the Creative Kid Project

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CHAPTER TWO: Methodological Considerations I stopped the recording. Thinh quickly glanced at my recorder, pretending that he didn't just notice that. For the past twenty minutes, he had been rather nervous about the recorder, frequently glancing at it every two or three minutes. But the past twenty minutes had been rather disappointing. Thinh didn't say anything much, and when he did, I could clearly sense how cautious he was in choosing words. He also seemed agreeable on most of the things I said. "What do you think about the teacher just now?" "I really liked her!" "Is there anything you want to change about the lesson?" "No?" "Is there any teacher that you don't like too much?" "Not really He was clearly uncomfortable. Was that the recorder? Was I intimidating to him? He had been informed that I was just researcher wanting to learn more about his experience in school. Would he be more open to me if I had not told him that? Or was he just generally shy to people? Did it have anything to do with the fact that he studied in a non-specialized classroom? I kept listening to his sporadic responses. But in my mind, those questions kept bothering me. Finally, I stopped the recorder, making it as clear as possible to him that what he said might no longer be used. And to my utter surprise, our real conversation started then. I just wish I had the recording of it.

This chapter gives readers an extensive overview of the procedure I used to carry out this research, including two stages: the immersion/exploratory stage and the investigation/fieldwork stage. This chapter also describes the intricacies and difficulties of carrying out research, with regard to my own background and identity as a Vietnamese student and a researcher.

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My study includes two stages: the first one is the immersion stage, in which I explored different topics in creativity and education by studying the perspectives of participants in the Creative Kid Project, CKP (see more detail below). This first stage answers my first research question: Are Vietnamese students creative? It also suggests a possible answer to the second research question "what explains student creativity" to be "school learning environments". The second stage further examines the role of school learning environments on student creativity, by comparing students from two middle schools in Vietnam. I chose these two schools because of the different levels of creativity expressed by their students. This stage directly addresses the question "What explains student creativity" and "under what conditions does student creativity flourish?"

Stage 1 - The Immersion: Are Vietnamese students creative? Throughout the preparation and organization of CKP in summer 2012, not only did I have the chance to engage in direct interaction with the participants of my research but also to take a first look at the general problems as well as opportunities facing Vietnamese education, as demonstrated or implied by these students. The middle school students who participated in the six-day long program went through an online application process and two interviews: the 28 finalists were chosen from a total of seventy-six candidates from 10 different schools. The readily available data I have are from the detailed applications (in survey form) of a total of 76 participants from the first-round application (See Appendix C for application questions). In this exploratory stage, I analyzed application responses from middle-school candidates to test the first theoretical proposition, namely Vietnamese students are capable of being creative. Although I did not collect their responses scientifically (rather, the responses were

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used to select participants for CKP program), the richness of their responses allowed me to explore their creativity through the way they express their ideas as well as the relationship, if any, between the type of school they go to and their expression of creativity. I analyzed their perceptions of schooling as well as assessed their creativity as shown in the questions that asked them to come up with ideas, based my modification of Torrances (1976) framework (see Chapter 1). The format for these applications is in Appendix C. From the findings of these initial analyses, I then distinguished two schools where students exude the greatest differences in their expression of creativity. This led me to explore the second proposition that differences in creativity could be explained by differences in learning environment, particular the type of schools that students go to. The natural next step was to study the two schools and understand the learning environment in these two schools.

Stage 2 - The Investigation: how does learning environment influence student creativity? The role of Case study In this stage, I conducted a comparative case study of two middle schools (explained later) to examine my second and third theoretical propositions, namely: 1. Learning environment correlates with student creativity and 2. More open learning environment and/or more open teachers correlate to greater creativity. I chose to conduct two parallel case studies because of the nature of my research questions as well as the unique position of my study within existing scholarship on creativity in education. First, in analyzing learning environment as one possible construct of my analysis on creativity, I need an analytical tool to cover contextual conditions (the learning context) as well as the phenomenon itself (the learning process). As such, case study serves as the best strategy

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for me to investigate a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident (Yin, 1994). Second, this method helps me mitigate the weaknesses of the frameworks drawn from literature. As described in chapter 1, most of the research on creativity has utilized Western frameworks that are more appropriate in Western context. Thus, the use of case study is even more pivotal in my own study of Vietnamese students: as I choose student creativity and learning environment as the two main constructs of my study, this method allows me to take into account many of the social, historical and cultural boundaries that make up the context of these two constructs.

Experimental School and Traditional School The two schools that I choose to study and discuss in chapter 4 are the focal point of my study. I choose these two schools for a variety of reasons, which I will discuss in great length in Chapter 4 under the History and Culture Section. First, these are the two schools with the largest number of applications for the Creative Kid Project (see chapter 3). Thuc Nghiem Middle School (Experimental School from this point) is in fact the host school that provided venue and facility for our 6-day long program. My familiarity with the school granted me easy access to the school administrators and teachers as well as an initial understanding of the general culture and environment of the school. Likewise, Trung Vuong Middle School (Traditional School from this point) is the school with the second largest number of participants. Many of Traditional Schools teachers and students have helped me in the process of organizing CKP as well as sustaining students projects after the program was over.

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Second, both Experimental and Traditional School are prestigious middle schools in Vietnam that are perfect for my quest to find a solution for ineffective education in Vietnam. Located within 15 minutes from each other in the central of Hanoi, both schools are very well known among Vietnamese parents and their models are constantly compared against each other in newspaper and popular discourse. While these two schools will not tell me stories of Vietnamese education as a whole, they serve as some of the best cases to study in the context of a reforming educational landscape in the country. That is, these will be the schools with the most favorable conditions to adopt new educational strategies and initiatives. In the case of Experimental School, this is the one school with a distinct model from the rest of the public school system in Vietnam. In the case of Traditional School, it has always been the first school to adopt any new policy from the Ministry of Education and Training (see chapter 4). While sharing many comparable features, these schools possess strikingly different characteristics with regard to philosophy of education, pedagogical focus and student body. As I will explain in the discussion on school history, culture and overall environment, Traditional and Experimental School offer me with ample opportunity to present a detailed analysis on the effectiveness of each model on students and student creativity, if any.

Triangulation of method To reach a comprehensive understanding of the "learning environment" in the two schools, I relied on three methods, namely classroom observation, interviews and surveys (method triangulation) and three kinds of study subjects, specifically administrators, students and teachers (subject triangulation) as part of my comparative case study (See table 2.1). While each

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method has its own strengths and limitations, they supplement each other and together help me gain a more holistic understanding of each school's learning environment. Table 2.1: Overall of Methods used Classroom Observations Student Surveys Students Interviews (groups/ individuals) 32 (24 8) 24(11 13) Teachers Interviews Administrator Interviews

Traditional School Experimental School

Nine 50minute classes Eight 45minute classes

63 50

5 5

1 1

Administrator Interviews10 Administrator interviews are extremely helpful in providing me with the historical background and general features that make up their unique school culture. In my one-hour-long interview with the vice headmaster in each school, I asked them to explain their philosophy of education, the uniqueness of their schools, their perceptions and evaluations of the teachers and students, their aspirations for the development of the schools, and their personal story as the administrator of each school. My questions in effect asked them to give a "SWOT" analysis of their schools, including Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.11 In both cases, their responses were rich and nuanced because they had been teachers before becoming administrators. One limitation is that these administrators speak on behalf of their own schools and generally have an incentive to provide me with details in favor of their own organizations. Thus, I also verified their words by asking students and teacher for their opinions on some of the general remarks and comments made by these administrators.

10 11

See Appendix D1 & D2 SWOT analysis is used frequently in organizational studies to evaluate an organization/institution effectively.

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Classroom Observations & Students' surveys12 Classroom observations and students' surveys present me with classroom activities, teaching and learning styles, and students' perceptions their classrooms learning environment. As "learning environment" is a complex and multifaceted construct, I adhered as closely as possible to Urban's framework of open learning environment in constructing the observation log and survey questionnaires (see Appendix E&F). This framework defines an "open learning environment" as one that promotes six different areas (divergent thinking, general knowledge, specific knowledge, focus and commitment, sense of goal and direction, and fun and tolerant environment) and provides me with concrete, observable classroom behaviors to demonstrate these characteristics. For a full description of these observable criteria, see Appendix C. In each school, I conducted 8-9 different classroom observations that varied in subjects taught, teachers, grade levels and classroom type (see table 2.2). My key contact in each school provided me with a weekly schedule of every class in the schools, allowing me to strategically vary my observation subjects. Table 2.2: Breakdown of classroom observations (based on class type, grades and subjects) Specialized Traditional School (9 observations in total) Experimental School (8 observations in total)
12

NonSpecialized 1

6th & 7th 8th & 9th Subjects taught grade grade 4 5 Music, Agricultural Technology, Physics, Civic Education, English, Vietnamese, Math, and History (8 in total) Music, Geography, Art, Civic Education, Chemistry, Vietnamese, Math, and Biology (8 in total)

N/A

N/A

See Appendix F1& 2

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In each classroom observation, I used the Urban-criteria for an "open learning environment" (see appendix for observation log) as a common measure. I paid close attention to student-teacher interaction, the extent of student's participation, teaching style, classroom dynamic, and key activities. Thanks to the intensive and interactive nature of the 45-50 minute lectures, I was able to take notes of events that happened in real time and contextualize what students, teachers and administrators talked about during their interviews. At the same time, this method is also limited in several ways: I was unable interpret every detail in a single classroom observation. Classroom interactions, as it turns out, often center around the teacher, thus potentially preventing me from understanding what students think, feel and actually do. For some classes, the teachers and students were actually notified beforehand of my observation, and, as a result, might have changed their behaviors accordingly. I mitigated these problems by being as unobtrusive as possible in the classroom. Typically, I would sit at the back and only introduced myself if notified by the teachers. After each observation, I distributed about 5-10 surveys to random students or in some cases, their teachers. I explained the purpose of the surveys and asked them to return the surveys to me, my contact or their teachers when they finished. I also distributed these surveys even in classes I did not observe. To further increase the number of responses, I also posted the link online for students who wished to fill in the online form (See Appendix F1&F2 for Survey Questions). At the end, I obtained 63 and 50 surveys respectively from Traditional and Experimental School. Thanks to my strategic outreach method, these surveys varied by CKP status (whether or not they participated in CKP), grade levels, and type of class, as demonstrated in the following table.

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Table 2.3: Breakdown of students surveys (based on class type, age and CKP status) Specialized NonSpecialized 20 N/A Younger (6&7 grades) 31 27 Older (8&9 grades) 32 23 Non- CKP CKP 53 44 10 6 Total

Traditional School Experimental School

43 N/A

63 50

The survey asked students to answer the questions I used in my classroom observation (see Appendix E) to describe and evaluate classroom experience and teachers. I then supplemented these survey answers with my observation records to compare and synthesize my interpretation of classroom environment and students perceptions of it. As these surveys are very short and anonymous, they provide me with quantifiable and comparable trends and patterns between these two schools. Of course, surveys cannot provide me with in-depth answers or stories, I then turn into my next method, interviews, to complete what surveys cannot do.

Student Interviews I obtained these interviews through various methods. First, in my visits to each classroom to distribute surveys, I asked students who were interested to sign up for follow-up interviews and obtained most interview subjects this way. Second, through snowballing method, I asked these interview subjects and CKP students to refer me their friends. And lastly, a number of students also signed up for interviews online, after having filled in the online surveys. At the end, I conducted 32 and 24 interviews respectively in Traditional and Experimental School. I again tried to strategically interview students from different classes, grade levels and class type (see table 2.4)

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Table 2.4: Breakdown of students interviews (based on class type, age and CKP status) Specialized NonSpecialized 9 N/A Younger (6&7th graders) 14 12 Older (8&9th graders) 18 12 Non- CKP CKP 22 21 10 3 Total

Traditional School Experimental School

23 N/A

32 24

In these interviews, I asked students to elaborate on their survey responses and tell me about their experience in schools. As these interviews were meant to capture students' perceptions of their learning environment as well as to later serve as a measure for their creativity, I asked them many questions outside of the Interview Question Plan (See Appendix F), depending on the circumstances. In fact, even the Interview Question plan itself went through two or three iterations. This iterative process allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of students' experience. For example, if I saw that one detail kept coming up time and again in different interviews, I would include that into the next interview. Depending on time constraints and students' availability, I conducted group interviews in some cases and individual interviews in others. Interestingly, students seemed more comfortable talking in groups rather than privately to me. Thus, whenever possible, I encouraged groups of students to interview rather than asking individual participant who might be intimidated by my presence.

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Teachers' interviews13 I interviewed five teachers from each school, four of whom were those whose classes I observed. I selectively asked a few teachers (with various teaching styles) to interview with me so that I could gain a better understanding of various teachers' perceptions. As for the fifth teacher, I asked for recommendation from these teachers or sought a random one on my own. Table 2.5: Breakdown of teachers interviews based on teaching styles and subjects taught Style 1: Interactive Traditional School Experimental School 2 3 Style 2: neither 1 0 Style 3: Noninteractive 1 1 Classroom not observed 1 1

In these interviews, I asked teachers to explain and elaborate on what they did in the classroom, their general teaching style, their perceptions of the school and their own students, as well as their aspirations and concerns about teaching. Similar with the student interviews, I also varied interview questions depending on the teachers. Many of the conversations with the teachers offered me great insight not only into the internal working of the schools but also the general problems facing Vietnamese education. However, one limitation of these teachers' interviews is that these teachers are by nature self-selected. Being as busy as they are, those who agreed to interview with me clearly demonstrated openness and willingness to talk. In fact, in the case of one of the two schools, I was not welcomed by all teachers and some even deliberately refused to let me observe their class in the first place. I compensated for this by approaching students whose teachers I did not interview or whose class I did not observe for interviews.

13

See Appendix G1 & G2

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In sum, my triangulation of method allows me to understand "learning environments" from different perspectives while my selective outreach strategy ensures that no single group or individual is more dominantly represented in my study than others.

Note on the differentiated procedure in the 2 schools Due to unavoidable differences in school schedules and responsiveness of my subjects, I had to go through slightly different procedures in each school. For Experimental School, my procedure was fixed and organized: all teachers whose classes I would observe were notified beforehand, and some of them I was able to interview right after class. I was able to go to most classes to distribute surveys, and interview an equal number of students from each class. The administrator was also very willing to schedule me an hour-long interview with her on a fixed date. This happened because Experimental School is a very small school, which allowed me to have easier access to most of the subjects. After a few days, I was confident that I got to know the school very well. For Traditional School, my procedure was more dependent on external conditions. Together with a few key contacts I had from CKP, I paid visits to different classes to distribute the surveys as well as give out the link for the online surveys. To counterbalance the inherent selectiveness of the CKP group, we deliberately went to both specialized and non-specialized classes (most CKP students study in the former type). However, it was more challenging for us to reach out to non-specialized kids, which I will explain in my analysis in chapter 4. In some classes, teachers deliberately refused to let me in, while in others, teachers warmly welcomed my presence and even asked me to return. The administrator in this school was also much more reluctant to give me half-an hour interview due to her busy schedule. This happened because

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Traditional School is a much bigger school and there are four times more students, teachers and classrooms compared to Experimental School. As a result, I am slightly less confident about the representativeness of my interview subjects in Traditional School, as well as the generalizability of their responses. Traditional School, by nature of its characteristics, is much more diverse, and divided. However, the differentiated nature of my procedure in these two schools as well as the different level of difficulty while researching in each school provide me with valuable insight for my analysis, as I will describe in great length in chapter 4. I will argue that this is very telling of the schools general level of openness and transparency of each model.

A note on Reflexivity As researchers, it is important for us to always keep in mind the context, meaning and background to all what we study. In this section, I want to be as reflexive and critical as possible about my approach to this research and the way I interpret the results. First, with the regards to my use of the survey data from applicants of the Creative Kid Project, I have to be mindful that these applications are by no means "generic", generalizable, or even necessarily honest. The reason is that these applications serve a very specific purpose: applicants are applying to join CKP - a project with creativity at its core. Thus, my understanding of what creativity means and how to judge creativity, from the perspective of the organizer of this very project, might have a large influence in the way participants decide to answer the question. To ensure their chance of getting in, participants might tweak and morph their responses according to what they thought would present them as the best fit for our program. Thus, as a researcher, it is absolutely essential for me to read "in between lines" of what they wrote to search for meanings.

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Second, with regards to my interviews and classroom observations in the two schools, I have to be careful of the way I presented myself and the way subjects made sense of my presence in their schools. To gain access and permission to these observations and interviews, I needed some degree of legitimacy. In some cases, this legitimacy came from the key contacts, who introduced me to the classrooms, teachers or students. In others, it came from the way I introduced myself as "a researcher from a university in the US who is interested in learning more about your school."14 Thus, in both cases, how subjects interpreted these forms of legitimacy had a large influence in the way they shaped their answers, either consciously or unconsciously. Among many ways truth could disappear in these interpretations, were: 1. Administrators and teachers might think that because I study in the US, I might expect their model of education to be as close as possible to their perception of US model, and shaped their answers accordingly. 2. Students whose teacher handed them my surveys or asked them to interview with me might feel hesitant to say bad things about the teachers for fearing that the teacher might find out. 3. Some interviews took place right within the school, in a room to which teachers, students and many people have easy access. This setting might further prevent students from telling me what they truly think for fearing that others might hear it. 4. The presence of the recording I used to capture what students say completely might intimidate some students. 5. Classes where teachers and students were hyper-conscious about my presence in the room might not represent a normal class: teachers might make an effort to appear a certain way; students might be distracted. In fact, some teachers told me that they were very aware that I was there. One teacher said: "It's like you have a guest in your house. You wouldn't necessarily walk
14

See interview protocol for direct quote

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around in your pajama doing dishes, even though it might be what you normally do in the absence of the guest anyway." To counteract all these possibilities, including those I have not thought of, I always tried my best to separate my in-the-field researcher eye, and my other researcher eye. The second eye was there to watch out for incomplete stories, ambiguous expressions, awkward silences, and unfit details. My field notes, thus, were always full of two parallel narratives, which sometimes conflicted, but in many ways, supplemented each other. And lastly, I have to watch out for my own personal background and its impact on my observation and interpretation of events. As I mentioned in chapter 1, my educational background motivated me to do this research in the first place. Having studied now for seven years abroad (two years in an international high-school called the United World College, and four years at Brown University), I am from a more privileged educational background that most subjects I interviewed. Despite having been through Vietnamese schooling system and speaking Vietnamese fluently as it is my mother tongue, I cannot guarantee to share the same vernacular with the participants. What to me seemed utterly interesting or peculiar might just be "common sense" to them, and vice versa. As a result, truths might slip away in the presence of assumptions and misunderstanding. To me, the task to consider my own background, beliefs and assumptions in my analysis is one of the hardest but most important tasks I have to do as a researcher. I hope that my attempt to be aware and reflexive of this is the first step to reaching the true answer to what I'm looking for.

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CHAPTER THREE: Exploring students voice through a student-centered initiative It was the first day of the Creative Kid Project (CKP). I was about to make the opening remarks after the mixers. Standing nervously in front of twenty-eight eager-eyed students, I reminded myself that the attention was not on me, and should not be on me anyway. Hi kids! Welcome to the Creative Kid Project. First, please take a look around the room. As you can see, this is not your typical classroom: there are no chairs, no tables. Just the day before you all arrived in this room, we organizers spent the entire day revamping this classroom. You can see posters and quotes hanging on the wall all around, and we encourage you to add more to our decorations during the course of the project. Please keep in mind that Im not your teacher -- Im here to make sure the program runs smoothly. Each of you will be in a group with a facilitator. The facilitators are there to help you brainstorm and work in team, but they are not your teachers either. Please do keep in mind, that this IS your platform, your program, over which you have total control. We welcome any contribution. A round of applause followed my nervous opening statement. And it was at that very moment, when I looked into the eyes and faces of young, eager and full-of-energy students, I realized that the speech, no matter how it went, didnt matter. The sheer fact that that moment marked the beginning of CKP, however, did. From then on, CKP truly started. It was going be the first educational initiative of its kind to bring students from various middle schools in Vietnam together, whose objective was to help them build proposals to improve their own school. By the nature of its existence, CKP is student-centered and student-empowering. I was ready, my co-organizers were ready, and the kids were ready. All that was left for me to do was to make sure the kids from then on are the ones doing most of the work.

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This chapter seeks to answer my first research question: "Are Vietnamese students creative, and to what extent?" Specifically, it explores the perceptions, visions and aspirations of an ideal education expressed by Vietnamese students of different types of schools as a way to assess their creativity. Each emerging theme is followed by school-based and age-based analysis because the participants come from different schools and have very different age range. As explained in Chapter 2, the research in this chapter only serves as the first stage in my two-stage research and helps me explore the topics, identify the problems and iterate my focus. My main research questions about conditions of creativity and the relationship between learning environment and creativity in fact emerge out of results from this chapter. The participants in this research are middle-school students who applied to the Creative Kid Project (CKP), an educational initiative I created in Hanoi, Vietnam to help students realize their own creativity in the process of building a project to improve their own school. CKP provides me with the opportunity to not only interact with students from various educational backgrounds but also gain a first-hand understanding of the problems in the Vietnamese education system as mentioned or implied by the students. The readily available data I have are from the detailed application responses from a total of 76 participants from the first-round application of CKP. The analysis of this data is primarily for exploratory purposes, as the data are not intended for scientific purposes at the time they were conducted. My main theoretical proposition, directly derived from literature review, is as follows: Students are capable of being creative, but those who are exposed to a more open and flexible learning environment will tend to be more creative than those who are exposed to less open and flexible learning environment. I define an open and flexible learning environment as one that

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promotes students active engagement, expression, critical thinking and communication (see Chapter 1). I also use students' perception of education as an indication of their creativity. The findings from this chapter contradict predictions from the literature review: while students across different types of schools are all capable of being creative, there is no simple relationship between student creativity and their learning environments, which is potentially complicated by their age and other factors unaccounted for in our preposition. The unexpected findings show that: There are two extreme ideals expressed by students: some students idealize an education that is student-centered, interactive, and balanced between classes and extracurricular activities; while others perceive an ideal education to be teacher-centered, disciplined, and solely focused on passive learning. The former ideal is expressed mostly among students of public schools (those which I expect to be less flexible) while the latter is dominantly expressed among students of private schools (those that I expect to be more flexible). With regards to assessment of creativity, students from Traditional School and other public schools tend to be more creative than those from Experimental School. This unexpected finding, then, pushed me to further examine other factors unaccounted for in my theoretical preposition. Consequently, I found that most students applying from traditional public schools tended to be older (8th or 9th graders) than students applying from the Experimental school (6th or 7th graders). If age is in fact an important factor, the difference in students perception might in fact be attributed to different stages in developmental process rather than the difference in learning environments. Or perhaps, it is a combination of both factors. As there is no way to separate the two factors, I conclude that students perceptions and creativity should be analyzed as a complex web of interrelated factors rather than using a

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parsimonious and linear explanation. In the next chapter, I further explore the impact that learning environment/school type has on creativity.

Tell me about your dream school! This section specifically examines the responses of middle-school students who applied to participate in CKPs 6-day long program. My analysis focuses on their responses to two questions about school (How do you define a school and List 3 things you would like to change about your school). There was also a creative portion of the application, in which they were asked to imagine what achievement they would be honored for in 20 years. My analysis is twofold: first, I describe different characteristics of an ideal school as expressed by these students. Second, I assess the extent of their creativity or creative thinking based on a simple creativity assessment rubric described later in the chapter. The application to the Creative Kid Project for students aged 13-15 from all was accessible online during June 2012 and July 2012 through various websites and through CKPs posters and banners all around Hanoi. 15 Since these students are unlikely frequent Internet users, we directly partnered with two schools (that are listed in our official website as official partner schools) and asked them to send the links to their students through a mass-texting system.16 By the end, we were able to attract 76 respondents from 11 different schools all over Hanoi and a few from other cities. Below is the demographic breakdown of CKP camper candidates: Table 3.1: Profile of CKP Candidates Age Rising Sophomores (aged 12): 31 Gender Male: 45 Location Hanoi: 74
15 16

Rising Juniors (aged 13): 24 Female: 31 Other cities: 2

Rising Seniors (aged 14) : 21

Click here to go to the survey This system is already used by school administrators to send announcements, reminders (for homework, exams, etc..), and grade reports, among other things.

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I divided the type of schools that these middle-schoolers go to into three groups: private school (all from our host school Thuc Nghiem), top public school (mostly from our other partner school Trung Vuong) and other public schools. Table 3.2 School Profile of CKP candidates Type of Examples Characteristics of school Schools Special Thuc Nghiem Experimental Model17 School (Experimental School) Higher fees than most schools 27 Students study a different curriculum than most other schools Smaller class size Students eat lunch at school Trung Vuong: Considered one of the top public middle-schools Top Public (Traditional School) in Hanoi Schools 24 Known for an active student body 46 Provides many platforms for students activities (proms, clubs, etc..) Giang Vo: 10 Also considered one of the top public middleschools in Hanoi Offers specializing classes in many subjects Rigorous, grade-oriented curriculum Offers fewer opportunities for student activities than Trung Vuong Others: 12 Same as Giang Vo18 in many aspects, but some might provide more platforms for students activities, some might be less academically rigorous All public schools Other Public Rigorous, grade-oriented curriculum Schools Provide very few platforms for students activities 5 Students are not as highly accomplished as those from top public schools As shown in table 4.5, most applicants come from the two official partner schools for CKP, with 34% from Thuc Nghiem, from now Experimental School and 30% from Trung Vuong, from now Traditional School. Thus, our school-based analysis will focus mostly on the differences found in these two schools.
17 18

More information about this in chapter 4 These are the schools that share similar characteristics to Giang Vo, but the number of students who apply are not enough for me to create different categories for each of these schools.

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Passive Learning and Balanced Learning The first important finding that emerged from the students responses is the stark differences between the ways students defined an ideal school. Here are some of the most extreme examples: Example 1: - School is a place where the MOET (Ministry of Education and Training) practices their education ideology on a school level - A great school needs to be equipped with disciplined officers, teachers from different departments, great staff, and great facilities Example 2 To me, a school is where you could be taken care of thoroughly by your teachers. It is where even if you make mistake, teachers will not make you feel bad about yourself because they will guide you and tell you what to do. It is also where you can learn that you are not that useless. And maybe you can grow up to be doctors, engineers, etcetera (if you listen to the teacher) I will call this first strand of responses the passive learning view: students emphasize an ideal school as an institution rather than a place to grow, where teaching and learning should be teacher-centered and where the best way to achieve it is to absolutely follow the rules. Most students who fall under this category also find no desire to change their school. Twenty five students (34%) express this passive idea about school. At the other end of the extreme are students who hold a more balanced learning view. Here are some examples:

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A good school is not just a place where you come to acquire knowledge but also where you learn life skills, socialize and grow fully as a person. A school is like a second home, where your friends, your teachers and even staff members treat you as family members. A good school needs teachers who are equipped not necessarily with lots of knowledge, but rather passion for teaching and caring for the students. They will be able to facilitate students growth process. A good school is also where students can help each other and learn from each other (not just through teachers). It provides a safe place for students to raise their opinions without fearing that someone will correct them. Finally, a good school has to have good facility so that it gives student the best opportunity to develop as a full person (physically, mentally and intellectually). Clearly, this second kind of responses appears to be much more holistic, elaborated and flexible than the first kind. The quality of these responses shows that these students probably put more effort into critically thinking about the questions to come up with a full answer. Their idea about school also extends beyond the Ministry or the conventional idea about school propagandized to students, demonstrating original concepts that required more individual reflection than external support. (This was sometimes the problem with definitions in the passive learning category: the responses sometimes sound like they are written for the students by an adult.) For instance, in the response above, the student mentions the ability of students to raise their opinions without fearing that someone will correct them as one of the qualities of an ideal school. This goes in stark contrast with the ideal school as described by students with a passing learning view that are characterized by students obedience to teachers guidance. Finally, the idea of education for these balanced learning students is very student-centered

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which goes along the same vein with our ideas to empower students and help them take ownership of their own education. Nineteen students (25%) hold this balanced learning view. Let us proceed to our school-based analysis Chart 3.1: School-based Breakdown of Passive & Balanced Learning

According to Chart 3.1, the majority of passive-learning view holders came from Experimental School, with as high as 76% of the total 25 students expressing passive learning views. By the same token the majority of balanced-learning view holders either come from Traditional School (47%) or other top public schools (26%). Chart 3.2: Cross-school Comparison of Passive & Balanced Learning

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Chart 3.2 presents the same information at a different angle: 73% of total students from Experimental School hold a passive learning view, while only 7% had an active learning view. In contrast, the majority of students in Traditional School hold a balanced or at least a neutral view about school -- neither too passive nor too novel (39% and 56% respectively). The same goes for students in other top public schools, with the number being 30% and 60% respectively. The findings from these two charts are rather puzzling. The students who tended to have the most passive view of learning were actually those from Experimental School our host school, a school that supposedly provides students with more flexibility due to their progressive experimental model.19 In drafting the content of CKP, we actually did not think about partnering with this kind of schools at first because we thought that their students already enjoyed a much more flexible model of learning, one that is closer to CKP spirit. We wanted to give traditional public school students more chance to benefit from this creative education initiative. However, as it turns out from these findings, the ones who could benefit much more from a creativityinspiring initiative are actually those from this very progressive school! The puzzle from this first finding leads me to take a closer examination at the nature of students who apply from these two different kinds of schools, namely their age group. Table 3.3: Age compositions of different Hanoi schools Rising Rising 20 sophomores : 31 junior21: 26 Experimental School: 27 19 8 Traditional School: 22 8 9 Top Public Schools: 22 3 9 Other Public Schools: 5 1 0

Rising seniors22: 19 0 5 10 4

19 20

More information about this model in Chapter 4 Rising sophomores = 6th to 7th graders 21 Rising junior = 7th to 8th graders 22 Rising seniors = 8th to 9th graders

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Table 3.3 suggests that a majority (70%) of Experimental School students is in the youngest age group (rising sophomores, or 6th graders, aged 12) and that there was no rising seniors applying from here. In contrast, most of the rising seniors came from top public schools and Traditional School. This provides a very interesting opportunity for me to examine whether it is the school or age that plays a role in determining students perception of an ideal education. In the next analysis, I will focus the most on students from Traditional School, especially the seniors and students from Experimental School, especially the sophomores, for these two groups comprise the largest number of students and also the most interesting contrast. Table 3.4: Age-based analysis of passive versus balanced learning Passive Learning (25/76) Balanced Learning (22/76) Rising Sophomores: 31 4/24 18/25 Rising Juniors: 26 Rising Seniors: 19 6/25 1/25 5/24 13/24

Chart 3.3:Age-based Comparison of Passive Learning versus Balanced Learning

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Rising sophomores Rising Juniors Rising Seniors Neutral Balanced learning Passive Learning

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As suggested from table 3.4 and Chart 3.3, age plays a major role in determining a students perceptions of schooling and education: the younger the students, the more likely they were to hold a more passive learning view. In fact, more than 50% of rising sophomores held this view in comparison to less than 10% of rising seniors. On the contrary, rising seniors formed the group that is most likely to hold a very balanced learning view, comprising the largest share of seniors. This finding brings another factor into the intricacy of the problem: while it is true that most students who hold a less flexible learning view are from Experimental School (as established in the previous section), it is also true that these students tend to be younger. The question is, which is really the determinant, and is there any other factor that has not yet been considered? One possible explanation for the importance of age is what development psychologists refer to as the middle-school development leap (Lightfoot & Cole, 2009). In the middle school years, pre-pubescent and post-pubescent children display distinct differences in their mental, psychological and intellectual development. Specifically, those who are still on the brink of puberty remain stuck in what psychologists call a semi-operational period during which their mental representation and cognition are not as fully developed as those of adults. On the contrary, those who go through puberty exude a much more prominent adult-like mindset. This might be one explanation as to why the rising seniors seemed to be much more mature and open-minded than the rising sophomores. In the next section, I will analyze student creativity traits based on five criteria mentioned earlier in this chapter. The school-based and age-based analyses of creativity that follow will in turn help me understand yet another dimension of students differences more.

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Assessing creativity In this section, I asses student creativity based on their overall application, particularly the creative question (Tell us about your achievement in 20 years) and the two questions about school (How do you define an ideal school? and What are three thing you would like to change about your school?). Table 3.5 describes what to look for in each of these components of creativity, and the examples from middle-schoolers responses.

Table 3.5: Five components of Creativity among CKP candidates Components Coding Examples from Middle-schoolers Response Method Fluency: The Number of A good school is where we gain knowledge, learn skills, ability to ideas > 5 refine our personalities, and expand our relationships. A produce a large good school has to be safe, full of passionate teachers, wellnumber of ideas equipped with facility, and provides students with fun and interesting extracurricular Flexibility: The Number of I want to change the education landscape in Vietnam in the ability to different ideas future. Here is my proposal produce a large > 5 I. Students need to take ownership of their own study variety of ideas _ Students are encouraged to be independent and initiativetaking _ Of course, for smaller students (pre-schoolers, for example) they need a bit of guidance, but they could just learn from friends and not just teachers. _ For older students, the focus should be on group discussion and reflection. Teachers should encourage students to take advantage of a discussion-based learning. _ Self-reflection and self-criticism need to be more aggressively practiced etc Elaboration: The ability to develop embellish, or fill out an idea Include Last but not least, I want to change and challenge the explanation, traditional notion of teaching and learning: where students examples, listen, teachers talk. In order for students to understand the elaborations of materials more deeply, there need to be more flexible an idea teaching methods (such as those that utilize sensorial aids, or differentiated methods). To best accommodate students interest, teachers need to understand better what it is that students need, and vice versa. In class, teachers could encourage their students to discuss more and practice through presentations (instead of the brutal memorization

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test). That way, students and teachers could learn more about each other and could more effectively help each other. I think this kind of change has to come not only from the top (the Ministry or the school administrators) but also from the bottom (we students ourselves). Friends, lets start to make our education better! Originality: The Ideas that are I have a small proposal: instead of complaining about ability to rare to find in school and having no platform to address it, how about we produce ideas other students set a complaint box in our school? Students and teachers that are unusual, responses alike could both utilize it, anonymously. That is a step closer statistically to democratizing our schools. As students, it is both our right infrequent, not and responsibility to care about our school, and express it. banal or obvious Agency: The Ideas that are A school is supposed to be this place where they educate ability to take action-oriented you and make you a better person, but a lot of schools initiatives, and/or nowadays have fallen short of that expectation. And the challenge authorityproblem? Well, its pedagogy, and the way teachers are seen authority or challenging as this big authority figure that you can never challenge taken-forgranted conventions

My analysis results as below Table 3.6: Percentage of students with different creativity traits Creativity Traits Percentage of responses with these traits Fluency 59% Flexibility 38% Elaboration 60% Originality 52% Agency 30% With regards to creative thinking, middle-school students seem to be best at elaborating on an idea that they already have (60% with elaboration), followed very closely by the ability to generate a large quantity of ideas. (59% with fluency) Students are much weaker when it comes to generating a lot of qualitatively different ideas as well as adopting critical thinking (38% with flexibility and 30% with agency respectively). Students are also doing pretty well with regards to coming up with novel, unconventional ideas.

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For comparison purpose, I also coded these five creativity traits into a five-point creativity score rubric. As there is no clear evidence in the literature that any one component of creativity is more important than the other, I assign a value of 1 for each component. For example, if a student produces a large number of ideas but not a large variety of ideas, elaborates on her response but does not show something original, and does not exude agency, she will have a score of 2 for fluency and elaboration. The maximum score is 5, and the minimum is 0. Below is the assessment of creativity breaking down to five levels according to creativity score range. Table 3.7: Creativity Assessment of CKP candidates Score Range Description Percentage 0-1 Not very creative 32.46% 1.1-2 Moderately creative 13.47% 2.1-3 Creative 15.78% 3.1-4 Very Creative 11.84% 4.1- 5 Extremely Creative 23.67%

Chart 3.4: Creativity Scores of CKP Candidates

Not very creative Moderately creative Creative Very Creative Extremely Creative

Over all, the average creativity score for these 76 students are 2.56 out of 5, marking average creativity. 33% of students were not very creative, followed by 25% who were

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extremely creative, 15% who were creative and 14% that are moderately creative and 12% who were very creative. Let me now turn to the school-based analysis of creativity Table 3.8: School-based Assessment of Creativity for CKP Candidates Not very Moderately Average Very Experimental 17 3 3 2 School: 27 Traditional 3 4 4 3 School: 22 Top public 3 2 5 4 schools: 22 Other public 2 2 0 0 schools: 5 Total : 76 25 11 12 9

Extremely 2 8 8 1 19

Chart 3.5: Cross-school comparison of creativity level

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Chart 3.6: School-based Assessment of Creativity

Both charts 3.5, 3.6 and table 3.8 tell the same story: Across the board, the private school Experimental School has biggest share (68%) of not very creative students, and it is also the school with the highest percentage of students who are not very creative (62%). On the contrary, Traditional School and other top public schools have the biggest share of students who are super creative (42% each). Within their own schools, Traditional School has a slightly higher percentage of students with lower level of creativity compared to other top public schools (31% to 27%), but this is offset by the fact that Traditional School has the highest number of highestscoring students compared to any other school (3 Traditional School students score 5 out of 5, while the next runner up is Nguyen Truong To, a public school with 2 students score 5 out of 5). What does this suggest? Again, it confirms the finding in the previous section and thus disproves the second part of my theoretical propositions: students from public schools clearly show much higher and more apparent traits of creativity compared to those from private school, despite a seemingly more flexible and (one would expect) more creativity-learning system.

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Only an age difference? In this last analysis, I will examine whether age is also a factor that attributes to the differences among students of different schools with regards to creativity traits. I did a simple calculation of average scores of each age group, followed by an average score of each schoolbased age group. The results are summarized in the following table: Table 3.9: Inter-school comparison of age-based Creativity Scores Rising Sophomores: 2.11 Rising Juniors: 2.38 Experimental 1.76 1.43 School: 27 Traditional School: 2.62 2.77 22 Top Public Schools: 3.00 2.83 22 Other Public 2.00 N/A Schools: 5

Rising Seniors: 3.68 N/A 3.4 4.05 1.875

As Table 3.9 suggests, over all, students from higher age group show higher creativity scores. However, this has been contributed not through an across-the-broad trend in every single school, but rather from some really high-scoring groups in a few particular schools. For example, within Experimental School and top public schools, rising juniors actually score lower than rising sophomore. However, rising seniors at all schools scored the best of them all. Additionally, it is probably the Traditional School seniors (the highest scoring group) and the seniors from top public schools (the second highest scoring group) that contribute to these schools very impressive expression of creativity. This analysis makes it less clear whether or not age matters that much. On one hand, the section on the dichotomy between passive and balanced learning view shows that older students tend to have more flexible and fluid conception of schooling and education. On the other hand,

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this section has suggested that the increasing trend with age is not that clear: creativity traits, for example, cannot be explained fully by age differences. There are also other several possible explanations for this (which I will go in more detail in the next chapter), namely: o The school learning environment: as I will study the learning environments in Traditional School and Experimental School more extensively in the next chapter, I will be able to identify the different characteristics and possible explanations for the differences among students in these two schools. o Some random selective process: there might be a reason why CKP attracts two very particular group of students who are not necessarily representative of the student body in their schools. For example as Experimental School is our host, there is a chance that the students might have put less effort in the application because they thought that they would get preferential treatment by CKP committee. In fact, a list of special students was given to us as we signed the contract with Experimental School on the first day. Without explicitly asking, the school administrators did expect us to take care of these students Whatever the reasons might be, this puzzle deserves an entire next chapter (or two) of analysis.

What does it mean? In this chapter, I have studied the voices and perceptions of education as expressed among students of different education levels in Hanoi, Vietnam, to evaluate student creativity, using survey responses of participants from The Creative Kid Project. I have also compared students of different school types with regards to critical thinking and creativity traits to identify

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any existing relationship between learning environment and creativity. The findings of this chapter contradicts my initial theoretical propositions regarding student creativity: students who held more limited, narrow-minded views of education and students who showed the lowest level of creativity are, in fact, from what the presumably more flexible learning environment exemplified by Experimental School School. On the contrary, students who held a more balanced and flexible view of learning and education as well as those who showed the highest level of creativity, often came from public schools, most notably Traditional School. I also found that age might play a very important factor in this picture. As it turns out, most students who hold balanced view of education also tend to come from older age group, namely rising seniors. Yet, it is not very clear whether or not age plays a major factor in creativity trait because age does seem to make a difference in some analysis but not in others. One apparent finding, however, has to be that be it age or school, there clearly is a significant difference in terms of perception of education and degree of flexibility and credibility, most notably between the youngest students of Experimental School and the oldest ones from Traditional School. The most important argument that emerged from the findings of this chapter is: although I have found the answer to our first research question are Vietnamese students capable of being creative; there is no neat and parsimonious answer to our second research questions what factors best explain the difference in creativity? As demonstrated in the chapter, students perceptions of education and creativity have to be analyzed as part of a complex web of interrelated factors and the link between open learning environment and higher creativity is not that straightforward. Next chapter will look to answer this exact question.

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CHAPTER FOUR: Tales of the two schools This chapter verifies and expands upon the findings of the exploratory research in chapter 3, which show that students level of creativity does not necessarily correspond with a perceived more open learning environment: students from Traditional School tend to show more traits of creativity while students from Experimental School tend to show fewer traits of creativity (as defined in chapter 1) However, I do find that age plays a major role in this picture: older students (grade 8th and 9th) tend to be more creative than younger students (grade 6th and 7th). As the initial results show a stark difference in creativity level between these two particular schools one top public school and one alternative school I decided to go to Hanoi, Vietnam in the winter of 2013 to conduct research on both schools. The purpose of this research is to take a look at the relationship between the type of school students go to and their expression of creativity. This also serves to answer my main research questions: What explains the differences in student creativity? Is there a correlation between learning environment and student creativity, and to what extent? If there is, under what kind of learning environments does a student creativity flourish? What characteristics of a learning environment best explain differences in student creativity? The literature review in chapter 1 suggests that the learning environment in school has an impact in student creativity. Therefore, I expected that under a more open learning environment, especially one that fosters divergent thinking, focus and commitment, motivations and drive for learning, students will show more traits of creativity. On the other hand, there are also certain conditions in the classroom that block creativity, such as emphasis on being right, external evaluation, sanctions against questioning, and conformity pressure (Urban, Cropeley, Torrance).

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In this chapter, my analysis of learning environment in both schools led me to construct two distinct educational models: while Traditional School adopts a competition-driven model that focuses on top students and major subjects, Experimental School adopts an equality-driven model that focuses on all students and all subjects evenly. 23 Mapping the characteristics of each model onto Urbans framework of open learning environment and Cropeleys blocks to creativity, I conclude that Experimental School model is more creativity-prone than the Traditional School model. That is, given its characteristics, Experimental School should have more creative students. However, my analysis of student creativity yeilds similar results to chapter 3, with some nuances: overall, students from Traditional Model show higher traits of creativity, while students from Experimental Model show lower traits of creativity. In contrary to results from chapter 3, age does not seem to play an important factor, especially not within the Traditional School. One very interesting finding is the venues through which students express their creativity: within Traditional School, students find very creative ways to cope with the school system that is usually outside of the classroom. Meanwhile within Experimental School, students tend to be satisfied with what the system provides them and find no need to express their creativity elsewhere. This chapter is divided into three parts: History, Learning Environment, and Facets of Creativity. All together, these three sections tell different parallel stories about the two schools, from the perspectives of administrators, students and teachers in each school. The stories, descriptions and analyses in each section all derive from the interviews, surveys or observations I conducted in the second stage of my research.

23

Major subjects include Math, English, Vietnamese Literature, with Physics and Chemistry to some extent. These are subjects that are most likely to appear in students entrance exam into high school.

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In the history section, I explain the origin of the two schools with regard to the development of the Vietnamese educational system. I also provide important background information about the two schools, including their philosophy of education, pedagogical focus, and organizational structure. Then, in the section on Learning Environment, I describe the different features of each of the two educational models, compare them against features provided by literature, and explain why the Traditional Model is more creativity-blocking while the Experimental Model is more likely creativity-fostering. Then lastly, in the third section, Facets of Creativity, I analyze students' expression of creativity (similar to the analysis in Chapter 3) based on my interviews with them. This section asks: How do students' interview responses represent their own creativity and what it means to be creative? How do their responses demonstrate high creativity or lack thereof? Specifically, what ways are their responses shaped/located by the cultural storylines that frame them? At the end of this section, I describe the channels through which Traditional School students express their creativity and make the case for why that is lacking among Experimental School students.

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Part I: History Mrs Huong quickly checked her schedule for her busy day. Just over a week ago, Experimental School, where she has served as vice-headmaster for the past five years, made the headline in all major newspapers with the title Experimental School Primary school parents brought down schools gate on the first application round. As one of the first eyewitnesses of that scene, she could clearly recall seeing the blue rustic school gate collapse against the influx of impatient parents. These parents, totaled around 300-500, had waited the whole night for the gate to open at exactly 8a.m, with their first-grade application packets for their 6-year-olds ready in hand. This has never happened before in Experimental Schools history, ever since it was founded in 1978. As she was waiting for the next press interview, Mrs. Huong read through the myriad heated debates on the Experimental School model. She couldnt help but wondering what makes parents renew their interest in Experimental School all over again? Meanwhile, in another vice-headmaster office, Mrs. Ha of Traditional School was busy preparing for the schools upcoming 95th anniversary. Having to manage one of most prestigious middle schools in the country, the new administrator only started to feel the immense pressure placed on her shoulder after yesterday inter-school meetings. Is that true, Mrs. Ha, rumor has it that Traditional School is going downhill? one colleague asked Mrs. Ha, referring to the fact that the recent percentage of excellent scholars24, one of Traditional Schools proudest traditions, has noticeably declined. She dreaded that more questions like that surely would come, as Traditional School would stay in the spotlight for a while in this important birth-year.

24

As will explain later in this chapter, excellent scholars are those whose average GPA are above 8.0, on a scale of 10.

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The two protagonists in the opening vignette are facing very different concerns and challenges in their administrative positions. As their schools vice-headmistresses, the decisions they make not only represent their individual beliefs and aspirations but furthermore and above all, the identity of their school and the values by which each school claims to abide. It is clear from the stories that both administrators were looking back at the history of their school to decide what steps to do next. History is important, because it can serve as a guiding principal and prediction for present actions. In the case of both schools, the history of each school forms one of the most important pieces in the schools identity and what makes each of the schools unique. Thus, in this section, I will give two brief overviews of the history of both Experiment School and Traditional School. The purpose of this overview is twofold: first, to familiarize the audience with the two schools and the idea behind their philosophy and second, to set up the stage for my analysis of the learning environment and the students from each school in next section.

Experimental School: an ideal and its limits Experimental School was established in 1978 under the leadership of Ho Ngoc Dai, one of Vietnam's most renowned and controversial scholars, due to his constant critique of the Vietnamese Education system. Calling himself a "trouble-stirrer", Ho Ngoc Dai submitted his bold research, titled "Education Science and Technology" to the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) with the hope that this model was going to fundamentally change how education works in Vietnam. Ho Ngoc Dai, then 42 years old, had been one of Vietnam's Soviet-educated scholars during the heights of the Soviet sphere of influence in Vietnam. But unlike his peers, Ho's

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thinking was largely influenced by progressive Western thinkers such as Piaget, Vygotskya and above all, his advisor and mentor Dandaduv of University 94 in Russia. At the time, Dandaduv was one of the most radical opponents of the Soviet model of education. This is also the model that Vietnam, under the patronage of Soviet Russia, wholeheartedly embraced, with the aspiration for "industrialization and modernization" promised by this model. But Ho Ngoc Dai's advisor, Dandaduv, never agreed with this model. He proposed an alternative path to education, one that focuses more on true learning and less on knowledge and skill provision.25 Coming back to Vietnam, Ho Ngoc Dai was aspired to create an entirely new education model in replacement of the "backward, curriculum-heavy and teacher-centered" education model that Vietnam mirrored from the Soviets. He knew that the time was ripe because even the MOET was going through a change of heart in terms of its educational policies: it started to address the admitted failure of the Soviet system. Two years after passing Ho Ngoc Dai's 1978 proposal, MOET itself also started to implement its own version of the reform, that lasted for the next two decades until the early 2000s. It was in this context that Experimental School was born. 26 In 1978, the MOET agreed to let Ho Ngoc Dai "test" his model in both the primary and secondary levels in a school that would be named Thuc Nghiem, or Experimental School. From then on, the Experimental School model enjoyed a good two decades of experimenting and expanding. In 1985, Ho Ngoc Dai was given permission to test out his model in other schools beyond Experimental School. In 1990, a research institute called IES (Institute of Educational Research) was established as the main legal entity that grants permission for schools that sign on to this model. Up to 2000, there were 43 schools all over the country that had tried out this model.

25 26

The discussion on true learning will come later under the section on performance-driven disease The Vietnamese name is Thuc Nghiem, which literally translates to Experiment

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But then in early 2000, the MOET went through another change of heart. This time around, the fundamental reform was going to implement the "concentric circle" system where students from all parts of the country would study and only study one system, one national textbook. The first batch of students under this radical reform was those born in 1991 and attending school in the early 2000s. 27 As a result, Ho Ngoc Dai's proposed model was forced to retreat. Today, Experimental School primary school is the only school in the nation that still follows his model. "Why was Ho Ngoc Dais model stopped all of a sudden?" - I asked Mrs. Huong in our interview. To which, she gave a nowhere-near-satisfying answer. She referred to the failure of the implementation model at the secondary level, especially for students graduating from Experimental Middle-school who have to take the graduation exams to enter high school. Experimental School Model nowadays, she told me, only resembles the idea of its founding father to a very small extent. But these continuities (though small) precisely are the focus of my study. Despite its retreat from its radical origin, for the most part, the legacy of Dr. Ho's philosophy still serves as a major part of Experimental School philosophy, which I will analyze in the next section.

Traditional School - the leading institution Ask any Traditional School student to describe the uniqueness of her school system, she would certainly say: "My school has a long history and a proud tradition". 28 Located in the middle of Hoan Kiem district, the capital's oldest district (called the Old Quarter), Traditional

27

Being born in the 1990, I was in the last batch of students studying the now "old" curriculum that was born out of the MOET's reform in 1980. 28 The Vietnamese name is Trung Vuong, which is the female hero explained later.

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School is the 2nd oldest middle school in Hanoi and one of the oldest in Vietnam. It has constantly been among the best-performing schools in the region. Traditional School was a 1917 French project in then colonial Vietnam, under the name Annam All Girls School. Back then, most local people referred to the school as Dong Khanh29 rather than Annam, indicating an anti-colonial attitude, for Annam was how the French referred to Vietnam. As soon as Vietnam gained independence from France in 1945, Dong Khanh All Girls school became Trung Vuong, or what I will call Traditional School. Named after one of the most famous heroines in Vietnam's Military History, Traditional School has always been an exemplary institution in a post-colonial, patriotic and socialist-aspiring Vietnam. From then on, Traditional School was to become one of the leading institutions of the MOET, and to a larger extent, the Party. In its 95-year-history, Traditional School has welcomed visits from top government officials, MOET, and members of the Party. A commonly cited fact that every single Traditional School student knows (even to this day) is that Ho Chi Minh paid visit to Traditional School 5 times in his political years. For its special place in history, Traditional School has always been among the first beneficiaries and implementers of any MOET-mandated policy. Many of Traditional School educators had helped MOET officers in the construct of the two aforementioned reforms in1980 and 2000. Traditional School prides itself on its highly achieved students who constantly win many regional, national and international contests as well as graduating with top scores compared to other schools. Furthermore, Traditional School also has a long-standing tradition of

29

Dong Khanh was the name of the street where Trung Vuong was located

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educating geniuses" for Vietnam. Many top government officials, award-winners 30 and important intellectuals of Vietnam have been Traditional School graduates. A very important point to mention here is the role of the Youth Union in Traditional School. During post-war Vietnam, Traditional School, like many other public schools, Experimental School included, was fully incorporated into the nation's political system, through a school-level Party organization called Youth Union. These Unions serve as "the right hand of the Party" by holding patriotic ceremonies, distributing propagandas or organizing historical contests. As I will explain in Section 3 later in this chapter, this Youth Union has a very interesting role in my analysis on creativity.

From history to present time So where do these two stories lead us? On the one hand, there is Experimental School, a radical institution that attempted to model an alternative philosophy of education outside of the traditional Vietnamese Education. On the other hand, there is Traditional School, the leading institution that embodies the values and philosophies of the MOET, the main powerhouse of Vietnamese Education. Traditional Schools prestige and Experimental Schools status all come from their respective unique histories. Will history affect present learning environment too? As I have contextualized and situated the two schools in history, in the next section, I will go at length into what each schools educational model exactly entails, and to what extent their distinctive features fit in our framework of an open-learning environment.

30

The most well-known award winner is Ngo Bao Chau, professor at UChicago, the first Vietnamese ever to win the Fields Award Medal for his mathematical breakthrough

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Part 2: Learning Environment Story 1: An autistic students reflection on being in Experimental School In primary school, everyone called Hai "a walking calendar", referring to his high IQ. If you told him any random date from today back to the first day B.C, he could tell you exactly what day of the week it was. Yet, Hai was also a little autistic, and eccentric. He had had a hard time getting along with his peers in primary school. "Experimental School's gonna be different though, son!" - his mother consoled him. "I've researched their model. You would feel great, son!" Hai took his mothers words with a grain of salt, for he has always been a loner and never has hoped that to change. After the first semester in Experimental School, Hai completely changed his attitude about schooling. He had friends now, and they even seemed to like him! One time, he was sick and took a day off. The next day, his teacher told him that his peers asked about him and even wanted the teacher to call his mom to let him go to school! Studying at Experimental School was also more relaxing. People did not seem to care all that much about grades or those next texts like his peers back in his primary school. Experimental School students seemed to just really have good time learning. Hai now knows where he belongs.

Story 2: A driven students reflection on being in Traditional School. Khue has always been a driven student, ever since she entered middle school. In 6th grade, Khue studied at a normal, average school in her own district. Khue hated it, because she could not stand her peers, who were unable to take their studies seriously.

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So after 6th grade, she asked her parents to let her change school, to Traditional School, the most prestigious middle-school in town, in a different district. Difficult though it was, the parents eventually got her into Traditional School, but only a non-specialized class. Khue was slightly disappointed. Part of the reason why she wanted to move to Traditional School was its prestige for active, competitive student body. But she did not feel that way at all about her classmates. So, after 7th grade, she took a replacement exam to switch class.31 Her English score was highest, and by 8th grade, she moved to 8K, a specialized-English class. Soon after, she realized the real difference between being in non-specialized class and being in a a specialized class. Even though the classes were still not as challenging as she wanted it to be, the students made all the difference. They seemed to always find time to do something else. Just like her, they all thought that the material was so easy, so they saved their own energy on the more difficult stuff. And, most importantly Opportunities dont come find non-specialized students, and non-specialized students dont come find opportunities. She feels great in this environment, and cannot wait to spend the next 2 years with her similarly driven and proactive peers in this specialized class. The two protagonists in our opening vignettes entered their respective schools with different motivations and expectations. While Hai, the bright autistic student, was looking for a learning environment that was friendly, open, and welcoming; Khue, the driven and competitive student, was looking for one that was active and challenging. Both were happy at the end: Hai with Experimental School, Khue with Traditional School. These stories not only tell us about the kind of students the two schools tend to attract, but above all, the culture and vibe of the
31

This will be explained later in this chapter: basically, Traditional School students are divided between Specialized and Non-specialized classes. To enter specialized classes, students have to take exams in 3 subjects: Vietnamese Literature, Math and English. Only those that score highest on the exams can enter Specialized classes.

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schools themselves. In fact, school culture and philosophy shape the way the schools present themselves and execute their pedagogy, as socio-cultural theorists and advocates of case-study method might argue. In this part, through the stories of the two students in the opening vignettes, we will step inside those school gates to take a look at what actually happens in these schools. What does it mean for Experimental School to embrace the experimental model? What does it mean for Traditional School to be the leading educational institution in the region? After that, I will map these features onto the creativity framework derived from literature to determine the extent to which each model fits in or contradicts my construct of a creativity-fostering environment.

The performance-driven disease "Excessive emphasis on success sets up a major block to creative thinking in schoolchildren. It may lead to overemphasis on acquisition of all the facts, on detailed prior planning, on avoidance of unexpected difficulties or problems, and on one-sided insistence on correctness" (Cropley, 2001). One of the most prominent themes that emerge from my interview data is the discussion about success, or performance in school. In this section, I describe the Vietnamese phenomenon called "the performance-driven disease" in the context of the culture of both Traditional School and Experimental School. In a nutshell, Experimental School stands relatively outside of this performance-driven culture that looms large in the Vietnamese educational system. 32 Meanwhile, Traditional School fully embraces this system, and in fact represents a model that fully internalizes this system. I argue that it is this first feature that distinguishes the learning environment in Experimental School to be more creativity-fostering than that in Traditional
32

The actual Vietnamese term for this translates to "performance-driven disease"

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School, as a focus on performance affects students motivation for learning and the general level of openness and tolerance within the schools. The performance-driven disease, according to Mrs. Huong, vice headmistress of Experimental School, is a heavy focus on high performance at the expense of students learning. To her, this disease affects all stakeholders of education, including students, teachers, parents, and administrators alike, through the way it distorts the real purpose of education and provides no space for true learning (Interview January 11, 2013). Presumably, the root cause for this performance-driven disease, one Chemistry teacher explains to me, is the failure of the reform enacted by the MOET, which leads to a huge disparity between the textbook and the examinations. Although the Ministry in recent years has made certain efforts to reduce the theoretical portion of the textbook and adding more interactive, experimental activities; the exams still by and large heavily focus on quantitative skills and high-level puzzles. Most teachers agree that this exam-oriented material does anything but interest the students. The question is: where does each school stand in this supposedly overarching performance-driven system?

Traditional School: In the loop Traditional School seems to best fully embrace this performance-driven system. As a school known for decades for its high-achieving student body, students' performance stays at the core of Traditional School's identity. Up until recently, Traditional School students have always

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outperformed their peers from other schools in regional and national contests, as well as in the number of excellent graduates that got into prestigious high schools.33 The reputation as a top-achieving school puts a lot of pressure on Mrs. Ha and other administrators of Traditional School to not only maintain its perfect track record but also to compete with other public schools. She explained this pressure to me in an interview: Every semester, on the main bulletin board in Educational Office, there will be reports of students performance from each and every school in each district. This way, each school could compare its percentage of distinguished, good and average students against that of other schools, and against its own track record from previous years.34 Moreover, these reports are also used later on by the MOET to determine the title of the schools, among "distinguished school", "good school", or "average school". One thing leads to another, this has a huge impact on teaching and learning, distorting the original purpose. This is what we call "performance-driven disease." According to Mrs. Ha, Traditional School students generally, though not always, perform well. However, due to the shadow of the past, Traditional School always has to keep up with its track record and avoid deviating from it as much as possible. She told me about the pressure from other colleagues at Traditional Schools recent performance (see vignette in History section). As a result of the schools recent efforts to focus less on performance and more on other positive aspects of the schoo, such as strong students activities, its academic ranking plummeted from number 1 to number 3 (Interview, Jan 16, 2013). As Mrs. Ha put it:Many people thought
33

Vietnamese middle-school graduates have to take a common exam that determines which high school they will be admitted in, depending on their scores. Traditional School students have always been among those that score the highest in this test. 34 These are titles given to students at the end of each semester based on their grade reports. These titles are the most important evaluations for students in Vietnamese system, indicating how well they study. Students with an average of 8.0/10 and above are titled "distinguished scholars", from 6.5 to 8.0 "good scholars" while lower than 6.5 "average scholars

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that our school must have been going down. They dont get it that even until last year; the number of our excellent scholars alone exceeded that of any other schools.
35

We have

contributed more to district performance than any other schools! Clearly, Traditional Schools effort to appear less performance-driven fell through in her comment, Mrs. Ha still used performance in her defense of the new initiative. Along the same lines, my interviews also revealed that for Traditional School teachers, parents expectations directly influence the way the teachers teach as well as evaluate their own students. As one teacher put it: No matter how interesting your lesson is, if the students cannot pass the test, the parents will not be happy. In fact, at the end of each semester, the percentage of distinguished or good scholars is used to hold the teachers accountable for their teaching and the goals they set up for their own students in the beginning of each semester. If their performance is not up to their goal, that will poorly reflect on teachers proficiency and teaching abilities. As a result, teachers and students alike respond to this pressure by adopting a teaching-tothe-test and learning-to-the-test mentality: For example, in a class, there's this student with a very mediocre performance, definitely not enough to be lifted up to the "good scholar" title. But then, due to his parents' expectations, and sometimes teachers' expectation too, the adults will find one way or another to inflate his grades. This of course does not reflect his real ability and exudes very detrimental effects for the student himself. Overtime, the student will live in an illusion that he's better than he actually is. (Vietnamese Literature Teacher, Traditional School)

35

She was referring to the number, not the percentage. Percentage-wise, Traditional School has dropped ranking. However, number-wise, it is still the number 1 school for its large student body.

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What does this mean for my analysis? According to Urbans framework, two of the six components of a creativity-fostering environment are motivation for learning and open environment, which place great emphasis on students self-interest in learning and freedom from achievement pressure (Cropeley, 2001). The reason is that emphasis on being right and being the best is the exact enemy to being creative: it takes away merits from open thinking and encourages close-mindedness. As one student puts it: I dont really like my Math teacher. This one time, she gave us a very difficult Math problem. She told us that whoever comes up with the quickest answer would gain a 10. I was so excited to be the first one. But then she looked at her teachers book and realized that my way is about 3 steps short of the way presented by the book and thus dismissed my way. From then on, I made sure to look at the answer book before presenting my own solution to the teacher. The answer book that this student mentions to me represents the epitomy of noncreativity. Basically, in the answer book, students are given step-by-step solutions to any question. When asked, most students reported using the answer book for difficult subjects, such as Vietnamese Literature. In response to this, a group of students complain: I think the homework is such a useless activity. Everyone knows that most answers are copycat answers from the answer book anyway. One time, this friend of mine was preparing homework using that book. Then he came across this strange name, and thought to himself: hmn who in the world is this person? It turns out , it's the author's name! The author of the very literary piece he was analyzing! (Interview Jan 11, 2013.) In effect, this group of students was indeed referring to what Cropeley called creativity withdrawal phenomenon. That is, when discouraged by teachers, or insufficiently stimulated by

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the environment, students are more likely to retreat from being creative to being uncreative, because this response is safer and more appropriate to the kind of learning that they are immersed in. It is clear that the environment in this case has a direct effect on students likelihood of being creative.

Experimental School: Out of the loop Unlike Traditional School or most other public schools, Experimental School adopts a very different philosophy using the very advantage of an experimental model. Pressure towards good performance is not prominent in Experimental School, certainly much less than that in other public schools.

The chart above shows how frequently students and teachers in each school voice any performance-related concerns regarding grades, achievement or examinations. Among all teachers and students I interview (38 in Traditional School, 30 in Experimental School), 84.2% of subjects from Traditional School mentioned at least one of those concerns, while only 33.3% of subjects from Experimental school did. As one teacher put it:

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"Experimental School teachers are not evaluated based on the performance of their students. If we see many students with falling test-scores in any single class, we will only try to approach the teacher, asking her if she's being too harsh with the students. But really, the idea is that students in our school are not afraid of bad grades, or even "zero grades"; and teachers don't face pressure to inflate their grades like those from other schools." What seems to happen here is that for Experimental School, its experimental status seems to serve as a protection layer for students and teachers alike, relieving them from the pressures, comparisons and even criticisms often faced by those in other schools: "Most of teachers' evaluation in Experimental School is done internally, rather than in relation with other schools. Occasionally, we would try to invite researchers from the Institute to evaluate our teachers. But most of the time, we evaluate our teachers based on a rigorous scoring process that is approved by the Ministry, within our own school. " Furthermore, Mrs. Huong continued to inform me, all teachers in Experimental School are paid much better than those from any other public schools. This has always been a convention since the founding day of experimental school: teachers salary is drawn from a special fund under the Institute of Educational research. Thus, they enjoy a much higher compensation for their job. This is important to my discussion, because presumably, teachers in Experimental School have no incentive to focus on performance at all costs. The low pressure facing Experimental School probably explains the generally high level of engagement in classroom activities in Experimental School than in Traditional School, as indicated by my classroom observations in both schools. In table 4.1 below, I coded engagement levels based on my observation and interpretation of teacher-student interactions,

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the amount of noise generated by classroom activities, number of times students raise their hands, and other interactive elements which emerged in the classroom Table 4.1: Level of engagement in classroom activities as expressed by students and teachers of both schools Schools Number of Classroom Atmosphere classrooms High Average Low observed engagement engagement engagement Experimental 8 4 4 0 Traditional 9 2 3 4

As shown above, while no teacher whose class I observed in Experimental School was unprepared or unable to engage students, four out of the nine teachers I observed in Traditional School were. There were also more classrooms with a high level of engagement in Experimental School compared to Traditional School. At this point, it is helpful to bring up the story from the very beginning of this chapter: the story about parents literally pushing down Experimental school gate to submit applications for their children. The puzzling issue was: what is it about the Experimental model that attracts such a large number of parents? Shouldn't these parents be worried about their kid's performance too? How do Experimental School students deal with national exams and national standards? As mentioned in the History Section, since 2002, Experimental School was mandated by the Ministry to follow the same curriculum as any other school, and their students as a result also have to take the same standardized test to graduate. Explaining this, the responses from Experimental School students and teachers' interview seem to point toward a generally "friendly, welcoming and nurturing" atmosphere that is healthy for the development of students. Even though students might not perform the best compared to students from other schools, they seem to feel happy with their learning environment. One student said:

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"I'm happy to be in this school, because the workload is pretty manageable and my teachers generally don't force me to study more than I can. I have friends from other schools -they said that teachers usually force them to go to their tutoring class even after school. If they don't go, teachers will revenge by giving them bad grades, (My Duyen, 8th grader.) Another student said: "I think the real uniqueness of our school is that the curriculum is more spread-out. We have less time per each class, but more classes over all. Although we study the same thing as students from other schools, we have more time to do so" (Duc Duong, 9th grader.) What these above students mentioned is in fact one of the key differences between Experimental School and Traditional School: the schedule. While students from Experimental School study from 7.30 to 4.30 in school (4 classes in the morning and 3 classes in the afternoon, 40-45 minutes each) for 5 days of the week, students from Traditional School only study for half a day at school (5 classes total, 50 minutes each) for 6 days of the week. "[Experimental School] students usually have at least one class each week called "self-study" class. Teachers use this time to either cover the material they haven't yet covered in the assigned time for that lecture, or let students review and do homework" - Mrs Loan, teacher of Civic Education, remarked. Presumably, the more evenly distributed schedule allows students in Experimental School to absorb material more slowly but also more steadily. Generally, Experimental School students report no trouble managing the assigned homework and can take time understanding the materials. Meanwhile, Traditional School students very often complain about the humongous amount of work. This is related to the frequency of performance-related concerns as described earlier: as students from Traditional School are more concerned about performance, they are also

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more concerned about not having enough time to perform well. The chart below reflects this sentiment express by students whom I interviewed. While 92% of Traditional School students are concerned about workload management, only half of Experimental School students exude the same concern.

What does this mean for my analysis? Again, the low-pressure nature of Experimental environment means that students learn in a more relaxing environment that does not put students achievement or success to the fore. Moreover, their motivation for learning is not distorted by the pressure to perform well on exams. Both of these characteristics point to the two components in Urbans framework of creativity-fostering environment, namely motivation and motives for learning. Core subjects versus Periphery subjects Besides workload, the distribution of core and periphery subjects provides another lens to evaluate whether a school is performance-driven. The major difference between these two types

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is their usefulness in exams and thus to a schools track record. Students don't have to take exams in periphery subjects to get into "good" high schools. Students performance in core subjects, rather than in periphery subjects, influence a schools percentage of distinguished scholars and high-scoring graduates. Students also need to focus only on core subjects to compete in regional and national examinations, gaining award and recognition for the schools. All in all, this is the essence of what a "performance-driven" system means. My data shows distinct patterns of distribution of subjects between two schools: while the experimental model allows students to enjoy a very balanced schedule, equally distributed between subjects like Math, English, Vietnamese literature (the core) and subjects like Music, Art, or Civic Education (the periphery). In fact, in my subject-based comparison of classroom environment in both schools, I found that while main subject classes in both schools were comparable, the greatest difference happened in periphery classes. The most interactive class I observed in Traditional School was a Physics class, one of the core subjects; while the best classes I observed in Experimental School were a Civic Education class and a Music class, two of the most unimportant subjects. Below is the excerpt from my classroom observation field note on two Music classes, one from each school. The teachers were teaching exactly the same material. Observation January 08, 2013, Traditional School: Mrs. Thaos Music classroom was diluted and out of control, partly because it was a big class with 60 students. The teacher constantly asked students to quiet down and told them that she would mark down their next exam if they continued to be noisy. She began her lecture by reading information provided by the textbook. She then asked students to repeat and gave the only one student who raised her hand a 10. Even though she had a keyboard to demonstrate the piece

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of music she taught that day, she spent most of the time discipline the students and complained that they were not responsive enough. Most students were not paying attention, especially those sitting in further rows away from the teachers. Some listened to their iPod, some did homework for other class, some chatted with their friends. At one point, the teacher got so frustrated with the class that she called on one student and shamed him for being inattentive. She then ended the lecture without finishing the material for that day. She also made a point before leaving that she would give a notice to students main teachers about the classs lack of discipline.

Observation January 16, 2013, Experimental School: Mr Ans Music Class was very fun and interactive. His keyboard and his extremely deep and warm voice reached the entire classroom and drew the students in the material. There were 24 students in the class, and the classroom was also located in a special music room equipped with a special sound system. Mr. An started by reviewing material from previous class. Then, before lecturing the new material, he divided the class into two groups (left and right) to play a word-choice game. The purpose of the game was for them to learn how melody and lyrics connect, with regards to the tonality of Vietnamese language. Starting slowly at first, the game heated up as more students raised their hand and came up with new words for the same melody. The kids enjoyed the game so much that Mr. An had to put them back on track by introducing the new material. At one point, a group of students became overly excited. Mr. An gently asked one of the students to stand up and asked him what the matter was. Then, he asked the noisy student to keep standing up to watch for other noisy students until another student was called on. The class quickly quieted down.

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From the two examples above, we could see a distinct difference between the two teachers in their ability to engage students and manage the classroom. While Mrs. Thao struggled with disciplining the classroom, Mr. An effectively let the students discipline themselves by asking them to watch other students. Although both of them had a keyboard, Mr. An used it as a tool to engage students, while Mrs. Thao could not. Mrs Thao also encouraged only an outcomeoriented style of learning (based on external rewards- grades) while Mr. An was able to spark interest among students through a group exercise. Over all, the quality of Mr. Ans Music classroom from Experimental School was significantly different. Presumably, the reason for this is that Experimental School is not part of the traditional system. It does not have to compete with other schools on things like test-scores or percentage of "distinguished students". Thus, it can afford to pay attention to even periphery subjects. Alluding to this, Mrs. Loan, Civic-Education teacher of Experimental School, remarks: I teach Civic Education, a subject deemed unimportant by most other schools. [Outside of Experimental School], this subject is considered a chance for the classs main teacher to discipline their students. In my class, I get to tell stories and make the students excited about the stories that I tell. I feel important and significant in the school This is absolutely the opposite case in Traditional School. Due to their large student body but relatively small staff, many teachers who teach main subjects have to double up as teachers of "periphery subjects". For example, the Civic Education class that I went to in Traditional School was taught by Mrs. Giang, a geography teacher. "It is like forcing right-handed people to use our left hand!!" Mrs. Giang commented.

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Similar to my analysis earlier, the balance between core and periphery subjects could affect students motivations for learning. Students in Experimental School could enjoy the unimportant subjects, while most students in Traditional School did not care about these. So in sum, the discussion around the performance-driven disease painted two concrete distinctive cultures in Experimental School and Traditional School: while students from Traditional School tend to study to the test (or for the grades), focus on only a few main subjects, and cope with performance pressure, students from Experimental School dont face performance pressure and enjoy a more balanced learning environment. All of these characteristics, as shown in my analysis, point to a more creativity-prone environment in Experimental School and more creativity-blocking environment in Traditional School.

Big, diluted classrooms and small, focused classrooms The second difference between the two schools is related to basic demographic features (see table 4.2.) I argue that this has an impact on teaching style and students focus and commitment in learning. Table 4.2: Basic characteristics of Traditional School and Experimental School as of 2013 Traditional School School day Student division Half day, 6 days/ week Experimental School Full day, 5 days/week

Specialized/ Non-Specialized Tracking System in 3 main System. subjects 1: 33 566 31 16

Teacher/Student Ratio 1: 55 in a typical classroom Number of students Number of teachers & staff Number of classes 2248 121 44

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In size, Traditional School is much bigger than Experimental School: there are four times as many students in Traditional School as in Experimental School and four times as many teachers. Average class sizes also differ tremendously: In a typical classroom at Traditional School, a teacher would have to manage a class of 50 to 60 students for 50 minutes, whereas a Experimental School teacher would manage a class of 32-38 students for 45 minutes. Naturally, the class size allows teaching and learning to be more student-centered in Experimental School while more teacher-centered in Traditional School. In Experimental School, students could sit comfortably in their own individual seats, with a large drawer and comfortable room for stretching their legs. Classrooms are usually as big as those in Traditional School, but much less crowded. As a result of the smaller class-size, most teachers in Experimental School can attend to individual students needs by going down to their desk and help them with specific problem. In all of my observations here, every single teacher was able to step away from their podium to go down to check on individual students progress

Picture 1: Experimental School Teacher attended to a student in class

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Meanwhile, in Traditional School, due to the larger class size and the longer class time, teachers spend most of their time standing next to the board lecturing.

Picture 2: Traditional School teacher lectured to a big classroom There are two implications of these basic demographic distinctions: first, classrooms in Experimental School allow for a more individual-oriented and centralized style of teaching, while classrooms in Traditional School does not allow teachers to allow for this teaching style as much. Second, students from Experimental School are more likely attentive and focused during lectures, because they face fewer distractions and have no difficulty listening to their teachers, while students from Traditional School sometimes get distracted because of the big class size and sometimes noise from other classrooms. In fact, Mrs. Ha of Traditional School told me: One of the biggest challenges teachers [from Traditional School] had to face is classroom management. In order to conduct effective group activities, we need much better facility and perhaps bigger space between classrooms. Whenever students get into group activities in my class, the class got so noisy that students from other classes cannot study. Group work in our school is limited that way

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My observations also confirmed what Mrs. Ha said: generally, regardless of teachers ability to engage the students in their lectures, students in Experimental School seemed to be easier to manage. Even when the material did not seem very interesting to them, they could still be focused and patient. There was also more group work among the classes that I observed in Experimental School compared to those in Traditional School. As Urban has pointed out, focus and commitment in studying, represented through extensive projects and group work, is one of the major components of his creativity-conducive framework. This is because focus and commitment allows for in-depth understanding, exploration and thus creation; while the lack of it results in lack of substantive content. Thus, this points out another feature that sets apart the two schools: the lack of conditions for focus and commitment makes the Traditional School model less creativity-conducive than the Experimental School.

Focus on excellence versus focus on equality My descriptions thus far have only touched on the differences between the two schools in a very general sense, as though there is one kind of student, one kind of teaching style, one kind of problem in each school. It goes without saying that the differences between them are much more nuanced than that. Within each school, students are divided in very different ways. Not only does that division reflect the philosophy of education of each school, it also plays a pivotal role in student creativity that I will analyze in Part 3. In a nutshell, Traditional School prioritizes excellence focus more on its top performing students through the specialized/non-specialized system; while Experimental School focuses on equality ensuring that all students achieve a desired level through a tracking system in only three main subjects. When mapped on to

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creativity framework, this distinction also affects the degree of openness and tolerance in each school, one of the six criteria emphasized by Urban. At first glance, these two systems appear remarkably similar. In both cases, students have to take a periodical exam that will determine their level in 3 subjects (English, Math and Vietnamese Literature). However, with the tracking system in Experimental School, students are placed according to their appropriate levels in each of the 3 subjects while under the Specialized/non-specialized system in Traditional School, students are placed in either specialized (read: good) classes or non-specialized (read: average) classes. For Experimental School students, their normal class is typically a mix of students at various levels in various subjects, while their tracking classes in the 3 aforementioned subjects is a mix of peers from different classes. On the contrary, in the specialized/non-specialized systems of Traditional School, students are placed into one type of class based on their ability. There are 5 specialized classes (Math 1 and 2, English 1 and 2, and Vietnamese) reserved for only the students who score best in each of these 3 subjects. The remaining "non-specialized" classes are for those students who don't score well enough to get into these classes. What is the implication of these systems? While it's still up for debate whether dividing students using only test scores (from one single exam) is a good method in the first place, I argue that Experimental Schools tracking system is more sensitive towards students' differentiated learning abilities, while Traditional Schools specialized/non-specialized system is a fixed statement on students' ability. These systems send out two different messages to students: the tracking system says "You might be better than him in Math but you are not as good as him in English" while the non-specialized/specialized system says, "You are either gifted, or you are not". In fact, a closer look at the kind of specialized classes in Traditional School even deepens

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this distinction: it turns out, the Math 1 and English 1 students are considered "the stars", while the Vietnamese Literature students are considered "the underdog among the stars". What about the non-specialized students? "Well, they are... good at sports!" - one English teacher from Traditional School remarked. Commenting on this, Mrs Huong, vice-headmistress of Experimental School, noted: "Our students' performance is very different from that of typical public schools. If you look at test scores in national examination or regional contests, you would find a paradox: most other schools, there would emerge a group of students with exceptionally high scores. But the number of students who are left behind still exists. But we don't do that in Experimental School. Looking at Experimental School students' performance, you would see not many highest scores, but most students perform at approximately same level. This is the crux of our educational philosophy. We care about bringing all students to the same level, not just a particular group of students. This idea that every student can achieve resembles a concept mentioned earlier in chapter 1 - "little-c" creativity - the kind of creativity not only reserved for an "elite" group of people but rather for everyone. In fact, Mrs. Huong said: "We are proud to welcome students of all levels, especially whom are a little bit eccentric and not otherwise be welcomed in the first place elsewhere!" Teachers of Traditional School, however, seemed to take a different stance with regards to the specialized/non-specialized system: Well, they are very different, you know! The non-specialized students are often those who would get into Traditional School anyway while the specialized students have to fight for it"36

36

She is referring to the district-school system, that is, unless otherwise arranged, students graduated from primary school will be automatically placed into a middle school in their own district.

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In this comment, the teacher was referring to the fact that most specialized students have to earn their tickets to Traditional School through an entrance exam, while most of non specialized students are those that live in the district who automatically got into the school. Underneath her comment is a preconception of a certain kind of students who got placed into specialized classes: more driven, more motivated, and thus more able. My interviews with most students and teachers from Traditional School revealed that generally, everyone agreed that the specialized/non-specialized system is necessary and appropriate, because it groups students of the same level and interest into the class where they belong. However, my interactions with nonspecialized students (or lack thereof) reveals that these students could have benefited much more from studying in a more driven environment, as indicated later in the chapter. What does it mean to my analysis on creativity? According to Urbans framework, a more open and tolerant learning environment includes general acceptance of all levels of learning and the notion that the classroom is a safe place for all students. Thus, according to this criteria, Experimental School seems to be more accepting and tolerant towards students with differentiated learning style, while Traditional School seems to only favor students with highest level of learning abilities. In sum, this part has analyzed some of the most basic distinctions between Experimental School and Traditional School. I learned that while the experimental model is less performancedriven, more balanced and more equal, the Traditional School model is exam-oriented, skewed in favor of "core subjects" and more divided. I have also discussed the interplay different stakeholders (students, parents, teachers) and the role of expectation, and how that affects teaching and learning. I also mapped these distinctive features onto Urbans and Cropeleys

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frameworks and concluded that the Experimental Model is more creativity-fostering while the Traditional Model is more creativity-blocking. Table 4.3 summarizes the two models:

Table 4.3: Mapping school characteristics onto Urbans framework of open -learning environment and Cropeleys standards of Blocks to Creativity Traditional School Performancerelated Skewed focus on core subjects Limited, competitiondriven Lower due to large size and high teacher: student ratio Yes Yes Yes, from MOET, other schools, parents Experimental School Interest-based, balanced Balance between core & periphery subjects Generally friendly, open Higher due to small size and low teacher: student ratio Mixed No

Characteristics (from literature) Motivation for learning

General/specific knowledge

Openness and Tolerance Urbans criteria for Openlearning environment

Focus & Commitment Success orientation Focus on external evaluation

Cropeleys Blocks to creativity

External Pressure

No, due to Experimental Status

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Part 3: Facets of Creativity My discussion thus far has portrayed two very different models in the two schools with regards to conditions that are fostering or blocking creativity. But the question still remains: does a more creativity-fostering environment lead to more creativity? In other words, does a more open learning environment like that of Experimental School make its students more creative? If my theoretical proposition is right, we should be able to find more creativity traits among Experimental School students than among Traditional School students. However, similar to results in chapter 3, my analysis reveals an opposite scenario: Traditional School students continue to show more traits of creativity. The table below shows my assessment of student creativity according to Torrances four-componential framework with an added component of agency. I used this framework again because it helps me assess student creativity through the way they articulate their ideas in their interview responses. Table 4.4 provides coding examples from my analysis: Table 4.4: Five components of Creativity among students from both schools Components Coding Examples from Student Interviews Method Fluency: The Number of I like teachers who are attentive, but not too dominant; ability to ideas > 5 knowledgeable but not know-it-all, especially personable produce a large and relatable. Among all of the teachers in our school, I number of ideas think there is only one teacher who is able to achieve this. That is Mr. Loan who teaches Civic Education 9th-grader, Experimental School. Flexibility: The Number of If I were to be school-headmaster for one day, I would first ability to different ideas conduct a school-wide survey on students general feeling produce a large > 5 towards learning and teaching. Based on this survey, I variety of ideas would then conduct my policies accordingly. I would also allow students fund to expand and provide studentsinitiatives with more financial support. Third, I would try to implement a more effective teachers evaluation system. For example, every semester, we could hold a contest among different teachers, and allow students to vote on whose classes they like the best. . 9th-grader, Traditional School

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I simply love drawing. Whenever I draw, it feels like my soul can get lost in the pictures. I found myself at ease and at peace. Pictures can speak a thousand ideas. Even though my Art Teacher is not the best, I find it great enough that we have Art lessons so that I could draw 6th-grader, Traditional School Originality: The Ideas that are I think there should be a policy for unengaged students! ability to rare to find in Right now, all those students who dont say a thing in class produce ideas other students can get away with it. Actually, teachers even praise them for that are unusual, responses being attentive. And we, students who talk are punished statistically for being noisy. Why is that so? There should be a reverse infrequent, not policy that discourages this kind of passive learning! It is banal or obvious not fair for those of us who actually contribute to the class! 7th-grader, Traditional School Agency: The Ideas that are I dont understand why parents and teachers have so much ability to take action-oriented say in our schedule. Isnt it enough for us to study ALL day initiatives, and/or in school? Why do we have to go to extra classes after extra challenge authorityclasses in addition to school day? I just wish that my authority or challenging parents, should they ever get to hear this, would rethink taken-fortheir decision to put us in those hell-like extra classes. I need granted more time to play! conventions 6th-grader, Traditional School Elaboration: The ability to develop embellish, or fill out an idea Include explanation, examples, elaborations of an idea

Similar to what I did in chapter 3, I analyzed each of the 32 interviews with Traditional School students and 24 interviews with Experimental School students and assigned creativity score for each of them, based on a simple 5-point rubric based on the modified-Torrance framework. I then divided the students into 5 categories of creativity depending on their scores. Below is the table and chart that show the breakdown of different levels of creativity as expressed by students interviewed from both schools. Table 4.5: Breakdown of different levels of creativity expressed by students Not very Moderately Average Very Extremely Experimental 7 10 3 1 3 School (32) Traditional 2 3 5 15 7 School (24)

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Both table 4.5 and chart 4.3 tell the same story: while most students from Experimental School (41%) fall into the category of being moderately creative, the majority of Traditiona l School students (46%) are very creative. Moreover, Experimental School also has a very large share of students who are not very creative (29%), while Traditional School has a very large share of students who are extremely creative (21%). These findings again confirm what I found in chapter 3: that is, interestingly, students from Traditional School, the school that possess conditions that are more likely creativityblocking, still show more traits of creativity compared to students from Experimental School, the school that possess conditions that are more likely creativity-fostering. This time, as my analysis is done on a larger sample beyond students who participated in the Creative Kid Project as well as those of very diverse age range and class type, I have more reasons to believe that this result is a closer representation of what I might find in the entire student population in each of these two schools.

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As with chapter 3, I also turned my analysis of student creativity to possible factors that could affect students level of creativity, namely their age and their class type. The table below presents a breakdown of the average creativity score of students from each category, namely younger students (6th and 7th graders) in each school, older students (8th and 9th graders) in each school; and specialized and non-specialized students in the case of Traditional School. Table 4.4: Levels of creativity based on class type and age Specialized Traditional School Experimental School 4.53 (Extremely creative) N/A NonSpecialized 3.05 (Average) N/A 6th & 7th grade 8th & 9th grade All students 4.01 (Very creative) 2.46 (Average) 3.90 (Very creative) 3.53 (Very creative) 3.95 (Very creative) 2.98 (Average)

Table 4.3 shows that over all, Traditional School students score higher than Experimental School students in creativity score. Unlike results in chapter 3, age doesnt seem to be an important factor that significantly distinguishes student creativity. Within Traditional School, younger students score slightly higher than older students (in contrary to our findings in chapter 3). Within Experimental School, its the opposite case: older students score higher than younger students. The greatest difference in levels of creativity was actually found between students from specialized classes versus those from non-specialized classes within Traditional School. However, even those from non-specialized classes in Traditional Schools still have a higher creativity score than the level indicated by all students from Experimental School. Consistent to the finding from chapter 3, the group that exudes the lowest level of creativity among all students was the group of younger students from Experimental School.

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My interviews with these students also led me to believe these numbers. To demonstrate this point, I chose a few parallel interviews from each of the two schools to compare. I constructed each pair (one from Traditional School, one from Experimental School) based on certain similarities with regards to grade level, gender of participants, method of interview (individual versus group) and other similarities if applicable. The table below summarizes the interviews that I chose to compare Table 4.5: Comparable Interviews from the two schools Interviews for comparison Similar characteristics Both 6th graders and male Individual interviews Interview 01 from Experimental and 13 from Traditional School Both were assigned to me by their teachers 7th graders, all female Group interview with 2 people Interview 14 from Experimental and 23 from Traditional School Pair of Best friends Both 8th graders and female Individual interview Interview 02 from Experimental and 39 from Traditional School Highest creativity score compared to their peers 9th graders Group interview with more than 4 students Interview 40 from Experimental and 31 from Traditional School All volunteered to interview

In my analysis, every pair that I compare demonstrates a higher level of creativity expressed by students from Traditional School. 37 For the most part, these students tend to be more articulate and better at communicating their ideas. Compared to students from Experimental School, these students are more outspoken and critical, especially about things that they dont like about their teacher and their class, as well as things that could be done to improve their school experience. In my analysis, they score very high on fluency (number of ideas), elaboration (provide examples, expand on ideas) and agency (ideas that challenge authority.) They are also more likely to initiate the conversation as opposed to waiting for me to prompt them with questions. Overall, in all

37

See appendix H for the full analysis.

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measures of creativity framework by Torrance, they express more traits of creativity. Notably, it was among the younger students that the difference was greatest: that is, younger students from Traditional School tended to be much more creative than those of the same age from Experimental School. This is interesting because most young students from Experimental School graduated straight out of the elementary level of Experimental School, while some of the older students from Experimental School transferred to this school from other schools. Thus, it seems like as opposed to increasing creativity, the Experimental Model actually seems to discourage creativity! That is, the more students are immersed into the model, the less likely that they will be more creative! At this point, it is important to recap what exactly my definition of creativity was, in order to attain the most accurate judgment possible from the data. The analysis above has basically treated creativity as the ability to construct, articulate and express ideas. However, according to other sources, particularly Vernon in 1989, creativity is more broadly defined as the application of knowledge and skills in new ways to achieve a valued goal (Vernon, 1989). In this vein, creativity is more a process rather than just a trait, and thus should be evaluated within a more expanded scheme of time as opposed to being analyzed within a snapshot in time. Given the conditions and constraints of my own methods, I decided that in order to fully capture this sense of creativity, I have to go beyond my analysis of students expressions into what they actually do at school and how those conducts reflect the extent of their creativity. Thus, in the last section, I provide several vignettes of what I call facets of creativity or different stories where I found the emergence of what Vernon describes as a process to achieve a valued goal. I constructed these stories based on interviews with students and teachers as well as my observations and interpretations of what happened at school. I argue that creativity is found in

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the most unexpected venues, regardless of students own circumstances or given learning environment. Story 1: Doing Math Homework in a boring English class It was just another English class in 9H1, the specialized Math class in Traditional School. Having asked students to prepare the material at home, Mrs. Hien essentially had nothing to do except for listening to students presentations. She called each group to present for exactly 10 minutes. After they finished, she gave them some feedback. But there was no interaction between the presenters and the audience. Occasionally, Mrs. Hien would ask them questions to let them know that she was still listening (rather than playing Candycrush on her iPad). But for the most parts, groups of students presented to themselves while no one, even the teacher, really cared. Meanwhile, in a table far away from Mrs. Hiens desk, some students started collaborating with each other on math homework. Right after finishing their presentation, they opened the list of puzzles assigned to them the day before, and started brainstorming on the easiest problems. After about 1 minute, they discussed, trying not to make it too obvious to the teacher that they were not at all engaged in the lecture. At some point, they came up with slightly different results. They then figured out which one was the actual right answer through trial and error. If you walked in their desk at this point, you would think that this must have been a very interesting Math group-work class rather than English presentation class! This is the kind of stories that you might encounter by observing just about any class in Traditional School. As explained in my analysis of learning environment, Traditional School is a very big school and teachers do not usually attain to individuals need. During actual class time, the teacher was for the most part unable to engage the students, while the students did not really care. However, contrary to my expectation that this kind of condition would block creativity, it

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actually did not.

Students in this story, in effect, coped with a non-effective learning

environment by finding a better way of using what otherwise would be waste of time, at the same time developing teamwork and problem-solving skill. If I map this on to Vernons definition of creativity, the students here were being very effective in applying the skills and knowledge they have (from Math class) to achieve a valued goal (completing Math homework, avoiding waste of time in a boring English class). Ironically and interestingly, what unfolds here is creativity as a result of non-effective rather than effective teaching.

Story 2: Going against the tide When Phuong entered 8th grade in Traditional School, she immediately realized that her Vietnamese Literature teacher, Mrs. Binh, did not like her very much. Ironically, she was among one of the best students in Mrs. Binhs class and has won 4 regional competitions in Literature. Phuong knew exactly why. In her class of 50 students, there were only 3 that did not go to Mrs. Binhs optional tutoring session38. Phuong was one of them. One time, Mrs. Binh asked Phuong to come to her office to discuss concerns about your choice of vocational courses Mrs. Binh said. Mrs. Binh explained that among all students in the class, Phuong was the only one that chose to study electricity as her vocational course, as opposed to IT like everyone else. 39 Phuong understood that it was Mrss Binhs way of implying that Phuong was a little rebellious.

38

See chapter 1 for more detail. But basically, extra tutoring are those classes organized by individual teachers (for a fee) to help students learn, revise and advance what they are supposed to learn in school. For some teachers, teaching extra tutoring provide them with much more financial support than teaching regular classes at school. 39 Besides regular classes at school, Vietnamese middle-school students also have to take vocational training courses. In theory, these are the classes that would provide students who choose not to go into academia with necessary skills to start a career. In practice, these courses are used as a bonus point in student end-of-graduation exam, increasing their chance of entering a good high school.

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It was not about the electricity course, it was really about me not going to her extra tutoring class. And she was clearly not happy. Phuong told me in my interview with her. What would she do? I asked I dont know Probably lower my grades, because I dont solve it the way she does? Nonetheless, Phuong chose to continue studying electricity over IT, and not planning to go to Mrs. Binhs class. Its a fact that we have to accept in Vietnam, sis, Phuong said, The learning environment is just super conservative that way. I dont blame Mrs. Binh, actually. She is just part of that conservative system. Before I got chance to clarify my doubts, she added: but I can choose not to be a part of it The story above provides another facet of creativity. Although my analysis did not mention this aspect, extra tutoring is generally a big problem in the Vietnamese education system. In a school that focuses on performance and achievement like Traditional School, most students go to extra classes to maximize their performance in school. Teachers also benefit from this practice, because for a lot of them, this provides extra financial income that they would not otherwise gain from teaching regular classes. The story above, however, is about challenging authority in a very subtle but at the same time rebellious way. By not going to Mrs. Binhs extra tutoring class, Phuong was making a statement to the teacher that she does not worry about her performance at school. As mentioned earlier in the discussion about the performance-driven disease, teachers face much pressure from above and from parents, and sometimes have an incentive to inflate students grade. What that section did not mention is the other side of the coin: just as they have the power to inflate student grades, they also have the power to deflate their grades. Although it was not clear from the story above whether or not Mrs. Binh would choose to manipulate Phuongs grades/performance as a

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result of Phuongs decision not to go to her extra tutoring session, the possibility was still there a possibility that even Phuong herself could see. Phuongs conscious decision to go against the system represents yet another coping mechanism Traditional School students adopt in the face of a restrictive learning environment: despite an unclear consequence, this action, I argue, is the essence of agency, one of the five important elements of creativity (Torrance). It also represents a clear process to achieve a valued goal that Vernon talks about. Phuong, thus, was being very creative even though her environment effectively expects her to do the opposite. Creativity, against, emerges under very unexpected circumstances.

Story 3: Student Union as a hub for student activities Although Traditional School has been known for decades to have a very excellent Youth Union, My and Huyen were slightly disappointed when they first entered the Youth Union in 6th grade. Back then; Traditional School Youth Union did not host nearly as many interesting activities as it does now. There were many activities that are supposedly student-run in theory (such as the Students talent show), but in practice, they were organized by adults and often very poorly. Thus, as they entered 7th grade, My and Huyen came up with a proposal to revamp the traditional Talent Show that has been held for decades. The new proposal asked not only for more funding but also to a major name change from Trung Vuong40 Annual Talent Show to Trung Vuongs got talent. A catchy name is really important, you know. My explained to me when I asked her why they proposed that name change. It is the deciding factor if you want to draw students in any activities! The reason why Traditional School students had showed minimum interest in the
40

Vietnamese name of Traditional School

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Annual Talent Show for the longest time was not in the organization, but in PR. Our proposal 2 years ago essentially made it more interesting to the students. You know, like a parody of Americas got talent or Vietnams got talent They were very lucky with their proposal because at the time, the school just replaced the old General Teacher41, Mrs Uyen with Mr. Linh, a much younger teacher. Instead of focusing on strengthening Party propaganda and disciplining the student population, Mr. Linh welcomed ideas from students. Just in time, the proposal was passed. Now, 3 years after, not only did the Youth Union successfully host school-wide initiatives like Trung Vuongs got Talent Show, it also provided the platform for a number of other various activities, such as the Heart-to-Heart talk, a series of student debate clubs; or the ValenTet42, a prom promoting Traditional Vietnamese cuisine and culture in incorporation with Valentine Day, or Trung Vuongs Anti-Flood, a student fund that helps regions in the Northern part of Vietnam with financial support after natural disorder. Although each and every of these initiatives had predecessors in the past, not until recently did they become truly studentcentered and student-run (with the help of Mr Linh.) And My and Huyen were very proud to be part of it This story looks at creativity through yet another unexpected venue: the Youth Union. As explained in the History Section, Traditional School has traditionally been the right hand of the Party, for its strong Youth Union, which essentially serves as a political branch of the Party at the school level. However, what we see in this story is the way the Youth Union actually, in effect, serves as a platform for creative students like Huyen and My to mobilize other students and engage them in student-run initiatives. The key actor to the story seemed to be Mr. Linh, the
41 42

A general teacher is some adult who helps students direct Youth Union Activitites. Tet is the traditional Vietnamese Lunar New Year that happens around January/February depending on the Lunar Calendar. The idea for Valen-Tet stems from the fact that Tet happens around Valentine time.

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General Teacher who was open-minded enough to let students rather than Party propaganda run the different initiatives, hence the switch from traditional Party Organization to essentially youth organization. In fact, a look closer at most student-run activities in Traditional School reveals that for the most part, it has been supported financially and legally by this Youth Union. On the other hand, if we look at the Youth Union in Experimental School, a very different picture seems to unfold: as a school that is out of the loop of the mainstream education system (see section 2), Experimental School lacks a strong Youth Union. Like Traditional School, the Youth Union here also has a very open-minded General Teacher (Mrs. Loan, the Civic Education teacher mentioned in Part 2). However, Mrs. Loan admitted that students in Experimental School are so used to have their activities organized by or taken care of by the teachers. They never demanded one for one themselves (Interview Jan 18). In fact, she shared with me her difficulties in organizing a flash-mob club for students. As part of the Youth Union activity, this year, Mrs. Loan tried to encourage students to create their own flash mob pieces. She even hired a professional dancer to train the students. But her efforts fell through students loved learning the flash mob dance. But they have no desire to organize anything themselves. In fact, in my interviews that asked Experimental School students to describe a student-run initiative, the best answer they came up with was the flash-mob initiative. It seemed that there hasnt been any activity initiated by students. Thus, what we see in this story stands at the crux of the difference between Traditional School and Experimental School: that is, although the learning environment in Traditional School is rather restrictive to student creativity, students seem to be fully aware of that and make conscious efforts to express their creativity through other venues. On the contrary, although the learning environment in Experimental School is extremely open to student creativity, providing

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them with many different opportunities to express their creative potentials, Experimental School students nevertheless dont generally express it.

What does this all mean? In this chapter, I have attempted to answer the main research questions through data from two middle-schools in Vietnam: What explains the differences in student creativity and Under what conditions does a student creativity flourish? Analysis from this chapter seems to contradict my theoretical proposition that a more creativity-fostering environment leads to more creativity in students. Clearly, the environment in Experimental School seems to be much more creativity fostering, while that in Traditional School seems to be much more creativity-blocking. Nevertheless, analysis of student creativity confirms results from chapter 3 that students from Traditional School tend to show more traits of creativity. However, the channels through which they express their creativity seemed to be all outside of the traditional learning environment (i.e., within a classroom). It seems that the more restrictive environment has allowed creativity to flourish in very unexpected ways. In the case of Experimental School, although the formal learning environment seems very creativity fostering, students dont show much creativity regardless. The relationship between a very open learning environment and student creativity is neither proved nor disproved in this case, as I have not yet discussed other possible factors. In the next chapter, my concluding chapter, I will re-evaluate my argument in conjunction with the literature, and situate the findings from this study within the bigger discussion around creativity in education. I also provide alternative explanation for the findings emerged from my study, and suggestion for further research and exploration of the topic.

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CHAPTER FIVE: Conclusion Completely baffled those were the only two words that could describe my feelings upon finishing the last interview in Vietnam. I went through the stack of earlier field notes, hoping to find the observation log that I was looking for. And there it was. I read it aloud. Observation January 08, 2013, Traditional School Mrs Diep, 6th grade, Physics Class: Miss Dip is an exemplary teacher that is perhaps desirable for any single Vietnamese School. Her lesson was exciting, stimulating and filled with positive energy. Students were genuinely interested in her subject and intrigued by the way she posed questions. The field note went on to describe how interesting the class was: there were a lot of why questions, students engaged in group-work and interactive activities. Miss Diep was very funny and relatable. Even I was drawn into the material she presented. Yet, now as I have reread the field note, I became all the more puzzled with what really was going on. The interview that I just finished was with two of the students from Miss Dieps class that day. Contrary to what I noted, they did not seem at all impressed with Miss Dieps engaging and interactive style of teaching. They mentioned Miss Dieps Physics class as one of the least favorite! Well. Shes funny and fun and all, but shes a bit young. I feel like she doesnt really know us that much, you know. Unlike Mr Binh, our main teacher, shes like a mother to us! Miss Diep is unmarried, and feels a lot like a sister. Plus, Miss Diep gives out a lot of bad grades to us. But I thought her lecture was very interesting day, no? I asked Yes But I dont know. Id rather have someone like Mr Binh.. With that puzzle in mind, I quickly turned to the interview script I made during the interview and analyzed creativity score for the two students: Just as I expected, they scored among the highest in those students that I interviewed!

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The opening vignette presents the greatest puzzle of my research, one that captures a disconnect between theory and practice, between expectation and observation, and between perception and reality. The story clearly demonstrates a gap between my understanding and evaluation of Miss Dieps lecture and that of the two middle school students who were the direct participants in her class. In a way, this story also represents a running puzzle that I have been yet to solve up to this point. On one hand, there is the theory, the expectation, and my perception of what happens: the theory tells me all the necessary conditions for creativity, my expectation leads me to compare and contrast the students learning environments with regard to those conditions, and my perception and subsequent analysis tell me that the learning environment in one school, Experimental School, is more creativity-prone than the other. Of course, there are exceptions in each school, such as Miss Dieps class in Traditional School from our opening vignette. However, generally speaking, the competition and skewed focus in the Traditional School model is much more restrictive to creativity, according to my analysis. Yet, on the other hand, the reality of it all seems to contradict everything: for one thing, Traditional School students consistently show higher level of creativity than Experimental School students. Moreover, students in both schools dont seem to respond directly to a supposedly more open learning environment, a perceived creativity-prone condition. This shows through Experimental School students, who are not very creative despite enjoying a very open learning environment. It also shows through Traditional School students, like those in the opening vignette, who dont seem to appreciate an open-learning environment as much, yet prove to be very creative in my analysis. Whats more, this paradox is consistently confirmed through both stages of my research: at the immersion stage, through data from a particular group of students that participated in the Creative Kid Project, and at the exploratory stage, through

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data from students, parents and teachers from both Traditional and Experimental School. It seems that regardless of what should happen as a result of a more (or less) creativity-prone environment, student creativity still flourishes in very unexpected ways. In this concluding chapter, I first recap everything that I have learned thus far in this study, including the stake of this study, the expectation of what happens, and what really happened. Then I provide alternative explanations for this unexpected outcome, drawing mainly from Jin Lis cultural argument. In this alternative explanation, I also introduce a new concept that emerges from my data, namely informal creativity what I define as creativity outside of the formal setting, or formal learning environment. And lastly, I discuss the implication of this study for future research and scholarship on creativity as well as for my own educational initiative that has accompanied this study since the beginning, the Creative Kid Project.

The stake Creativity, as shown by this study in relation to existing scholarship, proves to be a complex, multifaceted topic. Most research on creativity has made the case for it being a positive and desirable focus of education, for various reasons. Pedagogically, it proves to be a tool for teachers to better engage students in learning. Practically, it proves to be necessary in this flexible, fast-changing, globalized world. However, discussion on creativity in education is divided on multiple levels: on the forms of creativity, between little-c creativity (creativity for everyone) and capital-c Creativity (creativity reserved for a small group of people); on the focus of creativity, between the child (Dewey) or the environment surrounded the child (Vygotsky); and on cultural grounds, between Eastern concept and Western concept of creativity. As explained in the literature review, most research on creativity has been done in the Western

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world the few non-Western research has confirmed rather than fundamentally challenged the Western concept of creativity in education (See Chapter 1). However, at stake, my study serves to potentially challenge this notion for the first time using the case of Vietnam, which no study on creativity has focused on to this date.

The expectation Rather than examining creativity as an abstract concept, my study looks at the expression of creativity in students within and outside of their learning environment. From the literature, I have learned that most frameworks apply to a classroom environment that is supposedly either creativity-fostering or creativity-blocking. This proves to be a rather challenging task: although previous scholarships has provided many different ways to look at creativity and suggested conditions under which creativity might flourish, the criteria for assessment are underdeveloped at best, and not often adjusted for cultural variations. The Torrances four-componential of creativity, for example, is a very general assessment on the expression and articulation of ideas. Likewise, Urbans open learning environment framework and Cropeleys blocks to creativity provide standards that more accurately describe the kind of learning environment often found in Western countries. Moreover, these criteria are best for evaluating classroom environment rather than non-classroom learning environment. Thus, in my quest to evaluate creativity as expressed by Vietnamese students within the Vietnamese Education system, I attempt to make the best use of these frameworks but also adjust them for the purposes of this study: particularly, I added a component of agency in addition to the four components described by Torrance as criteria of creativity, because Torrances framework has been mostly criticized for its lack of focus on students and students voice. In using Urbans and Cropeleys framework to evaluate learning

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environments, I selectively choose those that could be observed and found in a Vietnamese context, (including conditions outside of traditional classroom), using my background as a Vietnamese student for 11 years. As explained in chapter 2 on reflexivity, my background and personal judgment play an important role in this research: they in effect serve as the cultural filters that lack in most of the frameworks provided by literature. With that said, frameworks of analysis are necessary for a researcher to conduct any substantial study: particularly, they tell me what to expect, where to find evidence, and how to know if it is true. Thus, Torrance, Urban and Cropeley as well as other scholars on creativity have led me to expect that: 1. It is possible to study creativity by looking at the way students express their ideas, using four standards (fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality) (Torrance) 2. There is a relationship between learning environment and student creativity. And 3. Under a more open learning environment, students tend to be more creative. Likewise, under a restricted learning environment, students tend to be less creative. A creativity-fostering environment possesses characteristics such as divergent thinking, balance between general and specific knowledge, openness and tolerance (Urban), while a creativity-blocking environment possesses the opposite qualities: emphasis on being right, excessive external pressure, and conformity pressure (Cropeley).

Reality check It is important to note that although this study takes a close look at creativity as expressed by students, it is ultimately a quest to search for a more effective education. Yet, throughout my study, what I have seen is the arbitrariness of what effective entails: there seems to be a

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disconnect between a presumably creativity-fostering environment and students actual expression of creativity. This disconnect is best seen in my comparison of two middle schools that form the focus of this study: Traditional School and Experimental School. As the two schools with the largest number of participants applying to the Creative Kid Project, they allow me to take the first look at the students that go to these two schools and their differences in expression of creativity, through students applications to the Creative Kid Project (See chapter 3). Results from this chapter show that students from Traditional School tend to be more creative, and older students (grade 8 and 9) also show higher traits of creativity. In chapter 4, I looked at the learning environments that presumably affect level of creativity among these aforementioned students. I found two distinct models of education between these two schools as a result of an extensive examination of the history, school culture and philosophy, and classroom environment through the perspectives of students, teachers and administrators. In all measures of a creativity-fostering environment, Experimental School seems to be a much better environment for student creativity: unlike the competitive, performancedriven, skewed nature of the Traditional School Model, the Experimental School Model is much more equality-driven and balanced. Mapping on to criteria described by literature, Experimental School should have students that are more creative (See chapter 4). However, chapter 4 yields similar results to chapter 3 with regards to student creativity: Traditional School students still continue to show that they are more creative than their peers from Experimental School. Within the classrooms, they seem to be just as obedient as any student from a typical Vietnamese classroom. But outside of this setting, they find various ways to express their creativity.

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Thus, this reality check stands at the crux of my study: why does a supposedly more open, creativity-prone environment not lead to more creativity? What explains Traditional School student creativity, or the lack thereof of creativity among their peers from Experimental School? And above all, what does it mean for my discussion on effective education, defined as an education that could engage more students in learning? In the next section, I revise the arguments made by socio-cultural theorists and Jin Li in her book Cultural Foundations of Learning, as described in chapter 1. In the words of Jin Li, [these] culturally formed ways of learning. shape how learners actually engage in their learning (Li, 2012, p.107.) Based on these alternative explanations, I argue that the disconnect found between theory and reality has to do with the lack of cultural standards for measuring creativity as well as evaluating conditions that foster creativity.

Culturally Relevant Framework revisited As expressed in the first chapter, the West has dominated research on creativity in education. Yet, socio-cultural theorists such as Cynthia Lewis and Elizabeth Moje or Joel Spring argued that this is a problematic standpoint, because it does not take into account the discourse and struggle that dictate individuals actions under a system of powers within their own cultural context. Particularly, this Western-centric research prospers on a basic premise that all other nonWestern processes would eventually converge and mirror that of the West. In fact, most of the measures of the conditions for creativity and the standards for open-learning environment in this study are extrapolated from Western thinkers and Western research. To fill in this gap, as I argued in chapter 1, my background and knowledge of the Vietnamese culture and my experience in the Vietnamese education system, as someone who

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studies within the system for 11 years, can serve as a filter for a more culturally-appropriate analysis. Thus, based on my own interpretation, what seems to emerge from a data is a different shape and form of creativity, what I shall call an informal creativity one that emerges outside of the realm of schools, classes, or what creativity literature would categorize as learning environment. Inside that realm, efforts to encourage creativity (or lack thereof) do not matter that much to students. The students in our opening vignette explained this sentiment perfectly: on the one hand, they were fully aware of the extent to which the Physics teacher, Miss Diep, was able to engage the students in learning and interact with them. Regardless, they were not impressed or motivated by it. They actually preferred Mrs. Binh, whose class, according to my observation, was not very interactive or engaging. My observation indicated that her class does not qualify as a creativity-fostering environment, according to established criteria: for the most part, Mrs. Binh focused on perfecting her lectures, using her soothing voice, tonal variety and in-depth explanation. The students were very quiet, meticulously taking notes and absorbing each and every word that she said. The class was not ranked very high on creativity-fostering scale, yet, to the students interviewed, Mrs. Binh was the ideal teacher, one that acts like a mother to them. In fact, many students in their interview have shared with me their idea of a good teacher being mother-like or father-like, which is never suggested in literature on creativity-fostering factors. To these students, one teachers teaching method does not matter as much as his or her ability to understand and relate to the students, a quality that brings them closer to the role of a mother, a father, or a family member, rather than just a good teacher. Huyen, the class president of 9K2, shared with me:

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Im in 9th grade now, and I regretted not having been fairer to Mr. Cong, our formal teacher. I hated him at first because he was very tough, probably one of the toughest teachers I know. He yelled at us all the time. In class, sometimes he even threw chalks at us if we did not listen. But now, as he has retired, I finally understood that he deeply cares about us he is someone that loves us the most among all teachers. To this day, even though he has retired, he would still call me everyday to check if the class is doing OK. We all consider him our father! Another student shares similar story: I used to hate my Math teacher for making me do so much homework and even extra homework. But now, as Ive grown up and understood more, I really admire her for that. She has put a lot of work in those extra problem sets its not like shes paid more for them! All she wants to do is for us to learn better. All these students are referring one way or another to a very Eastern-centric values and beliefs of learning one that places the teacher, rather than student, at the center. In her book, Jin Li (2012) argues that the major difference between the Eastern and Western concept of learning has got to do with the values: while Westerners value the mind and the process of exploring the world, Easterners value virtue and the process of perfecting oneself. The chart below best represents this idea. Charts 5.1: Diagrams represent mind-oriented learning processes in the West and Virtueoriented learning processes in the East (next page)

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Diagram for Mind-oriented Learning Processes in the West

Diagram for Virtue-Oriented learning processes in China/East Asia Source: Cultural Foundation of learning, Jin Li, 2012, p.123

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As seen from the chart above, the Western process of learning emphasizes values that closely align with creativity traits as suggested by literature, such as active engagement, critical thinking, or self- expression. These are also the arenas in which we observe and evaluate student creativity. However, if we look at the second chart, or the Eastern concept of learning, different areas of emphasis are presented: concentration, endurance of hardship, diligence, and sincerity. With the exception of concentration (that is related to focus/commitment in Urbans framework), all the other areas are not covered in creativity literature. This is a very pivotal distinction to make: while learning as a creativity-fostering process aligns perfectly with the Western conception, it is in fact at odds with the Eastern conceptions of learning environment. That is, just as students from the above examples express, students regard learning environment as a venue to perfect their virtues as studious students rather than as creative learners. This idea is confirmed even further if we look at some of the greatest similarities between Traditional and Experimental School learning environments. Despite many opposite characteristics that distinguish learning environment in Traditional School to be more competition-driven and that in Experimental School to be more equality-driven, students from both schools, as mentioned earlier, seem to express similar attitudes to learning, one that emphasizes earnestness and diligence, which, to a Western eye, might appear as a very passive style of learning.

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Chart 5.1: Breakdown of Classroom activities by students from both schools

Chart 5.2: Breakdown of Classroom activities by students from each school

Question: In class, what kind of activities do you spend most time doing. Rank the following from 1 to 5: Listening to teacher Monologues, Copying material from the board to notebooks, Interacting with teachers, Working in teams, Doing other things

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As seen from the charts above, while students from both schools spend most of the time listening to teachers monologue (36%) and copying lecture materials from the board (35%), Traditional School students tend to spend more time copying material from the board (39%) and Experimental School students spend more time listening to teachers monologue (40%). In both schools, very little time is left for students to engage in more interactive activities, such as interacting with teachers, working in team, or doing other things. All together, these activities cover only about a third of the time spent in class. Mapping this onto my analysis of creativity, a typical classroom at both Traditional and Experimental School is anything but a place for creativity. However, I argue that it is in fact informal expression of creativity, or creativity found in non-classroom settings, that emerge in the case of students from these schools. If we look at formal creativity, or creativity in formal setting that emphasizes learning and virtuous values, naturally it would be hard to find. Presumably, the formal classroom places high value on the teacher as a cultural norm and loaded requirements on grades and exams as an educational norm. This perhaps also explains why within a much more open-learning environment like Experimental School, students dont seem to be more creative. Simply, they do not view it as their place to express creativity, regardless of how open the environment is! However, this does not mean Vietnamese students are not creative as explained in chapter 4, they simply express their creativity through other channels: through rebellious activities in the class, through choosing to stay outside of the system, or, interestingly enough, via the Youth Union. Thus, this finding challenges the acclaimed universalization of the teachability of creativity and brings in culture as a potential explanation. That is, although creativity is indeed a

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more or less universal concept, the context where it happens is not. Thus, creativity in education might be a much more nuanced phenomenon than what literature describes.

Implications of Findings This insight sheds new light on my discussion of creativity throughout this study. First, it challenges my very conceptualization of creativity and conditions that lead to creativity. In the case of Traditional School students, the lack of a creativity-fostering environment within their learning environment seems to trigger their expression of creativity outside of the classroom. Paradoxically, creativity seems to emerge as a result of (rather than in spite of) a not very creativity-prone environment. Stories about Traditional School students doing Math homework in English class, or organizing student-run activities through Youth Union (see chapter 4), clearly demonstrate this very counter-intuitive correlation. However, in the case of Experimental School students, this argument seems inadequate. What explains their lack of creativity both inside the classroom as well as outside of the classroom? Why don they, like Traditional Students, find an outlet to express their creativity somewhere? It seems bizarre to think that conditions that are very conducive to creativity (like those provided within Experimental School) actually lead to non-creativity. That is, even if the argument holds true for Traditional School students, other factors need to be in place when explaining Experimental School students. Second, in a larger scheme of thing, this alternative explanation has a much broader implication not only for educators in Vietnam but also those from the Western world. On one hand, Vietnamese educators might have to rethink about the direction that Vietnamese education should take. As explained in chapter 1, Vietnam is going through yet

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another round of total and fundamental reform, this time around attacking head-on the long tradition of a heavy focus on examinations and the lack of soft-skills found among Vietnamese students. However, although the problem might seem clear and straightforward, the solution for it is much less so. As shown from this study, progressive models like that of Experimental School seem to at best have an arbitrary effect on students. More surprisingly, very conservative models like that of Traditional School seem to work just fine students still find ways to express their creativity elsewhere, presumably because their creativity is not enabled within their own learning environment. This, it is unclear whether policies to open up learning environment or keep it as is would be better for students, in the context of Vietnam. On the other hand, Western educators might also want to rethink about their conceptions of an ideal education, in the context of a culturally diverse world. In spreading the ideals of a good, effective education, such as open learning environment, divergent thinking, communication, student-centered curriculum, Western educators need to be very careful not to fall into the trap of believing that what is true in one culture must be true in the context of others as well. At the same time, it is important to think about the kind of creativity found in this study, and how that maps on to the discussion on effective education. The question is: is this kind of creativity, one that emerges almost as a reaction against education, desirable, replicable, or sustainable? As shown by our data, although Traditional School students seem to exude higher traits of creativity, it is often students from specialized classes that show the highest creativity level of all. Moreover, it is unclear from our study whether or not their actions to be creative outside of their classroom will be beneficial for them in the long run. How is their creativity

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received by their own culture? What are the implications of their creativity (or lack thereof) in the context of the cultural storylines that frame them?

Suggestions for future research There are several areas that this study either opens up or unable to explore that future researchers might want to look at. First, future research might want to take a better look at the correlation between learning environment and student creativity, perhaps in a cross-cultural context. Using a comparative framework, future studies can account for the cultural variation that hasnt been at the fore of research on creativity. That way, the question under what conditions does creativity flourish might be better explained. Additionally, the concept of creativity needs to be redefined in cultural terms. Future research can look at both emic and etic views of creativity to gain a better understanding of the potential gaps and loopholes in each of these views. As this study has created a new term for creativity informal creativity, future research can account for different channels through which creativity expresses itself, as well as the venues in which creativity could be found. That way, we could reach a more holistic understanding of the creative process. Second, future research also can look beyond discussion on creativity into the topics of education, especially effective education. Given the cultural constraints, what models are appropriate for students in one specific culture, what models do not work? Furthermore, crosscultural studies on effective education can compare and contrast the quality of learning environment, particularly the role of the teacher, in students. As mentioned earlier, this study is ultimately about what works best for students when it comes to learning: future research can look more into this question and perhaps find more interesting answers. If focus on creativity is not a

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remedy, what is? Can students be more engaged in their own learning? Is there merit in a student-centered education, even in Eastern culture? And above all, how to solve the paradox of education, as pointed out from the very beginning of this study?

Final thoughts: Vietnamese Education and the Creative Kid Project After observing Miss Loans Civic Education class, I was able to ask her to participate in a follow-up interview with me right away. Her class was one of the most engaging and interactive classes I have observed at Experimental School, and I would like to ask her questions regarding her pedagogy. You look so familiar! I think I have seen you before - I remarked before our interview. Miss Loan reminded me that she was one of the two observers that Experimental School sent to the Creative Kid Project during the summer of 2012. As Experimental School was our host school, My co-organizers of CKP and I had no problem with this request. I asked Miss Loan what she thought of CKP. She told me that she really liked what we did in CKP, especially with the brainstorming and role-playing. As a big fan of storytelling, Miss Loan thought that kids would definitely benefit from this kind of engaging activities. But there is simply no time for it, you know she explained. We had to follow a very strict curriculum mandated by the Ministry. There is so much you can cover in a 50-minute lecture. Even I sometimes had to leave parts of my lecture out to cover the main content required by the MOET. Miss Loans remarks still echoed in my head to this date. Her aspirations, together with those of other reform-minded teachers from both Traditional School and Experimental school

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gave me a reason to believe in an eventual changing scenario in the educational landscape of Vietnam. However, as it stands right now, Vietnamese education seems to move towards very incremental changes at best. The reason for that, as this study has pointed out, has to do with a system of cultural traditions and values that are deeply entrenched in the learning and teaching processes within Vietnamese schools. As someone from an emic perspective, I can testify the concerns and even frustration in Miss Loans voice in talking about Vietnamese education just like the concerns and frustrations expressed in different degrees by most students, teachers or administrators that I have had a chance to talk to interact with during the course of the Creative Kid Project as well as this research. Eight years have passed since I have made the first step out of that system into a whole new world. While many things have changed along the way, by and large, the system still look very familiar to the one I have left before I studied abroad. However, this time around, what has changed is the way I was able to remove myself from an emic perspective and try to see the system in its entirety for the first time, using yardsticks and measurements from an etic perspective, i.e. that from a Western world. The Creative Kid Project, in this vein, is my effort in piloting a culturally different idea among some of the most deeply acculturated actors in the system, namely those public middle-school students. What I have found while organizing CKP as well as conducting research for this research is that, there is a space and a way to engage students in their own education. Whether that is through an educational initiative like the Creative Kid Project, or by the students themselves through their agentic acts within their own school Vietnamese students are exuding their own creativity, and Vietnamese students are showing the world, including Western observers, that they are capable of being creative. It gives me a hope, both as a researcher for this project as well as the founder

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of CKP, that there is a space for creativity if one looks hard enough for it. In the cultural context of Vietnam, it might carry a different meaning. Nonetheless, it does exist in many multifaceted forms. For example, in the last day of the Creative Kid Project, one of the projects that the kids presented to their administrators is what they call Changing the Educational Scenario within the classroom. Six students from both Experimental School and Traditional school as well as one other public school proposed a plan to revamp the walls, tables and chairs of their classroom: more colors and drawing on the wall to stimulate sensorial creativity, wheels on the chairs so that they could be moved around easily, and round-tables for easier group work. As I look back at this proposal now, it represents the perfect meeting space between informal classroom and traditional classroom: the proposal to me symbolizes an imaginary space where informal creativity turns into constructive formal creativity. In the near future, the Creative Kid Project will continue to exist as the venue and space for students like those from Traditional School to express their own creativity, something that they have been thus far unable to do within their own school. CKP, in the short run, will continue to exist in parallel to traditional learning, not in replacement of it. If there is one thing that I learn from this research to apply in CKP, it is that change will not happen, until and unless it is in line with the culture that frames it. The problem of ineffective education in Vietnam needs a Vietnamese solution, not one that is borrowed from any Western framework, regardless of its effectiveness outside of the system. I hope that this research will add richness to the discussion on creativity scholarship in general. But most of all, I hope that it will contribute to the discussion on educational effectiveness within the Vietnamese context, especially as the Ministry is going to pass another round of Total and Fundamental Reform for the next two decades in Vietnam.

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Appendix A The Creative Kid Project Mission Statement & Organization Structure Source: CKP 2012 Information Packet

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APPENDIX B.1: Urbans Criteria of Open Learning Environment Source: Cropeley, Creativity in Education & Training: a guide for teachers and educators, 2001, p.150 1. Offering meaningful enrichment of the childrens perceptual horizons; 2. Enabling self-directed work, allowing a high degree of initiative, spontaneity and experimentation without fear of sanctions against incorrect solutions, errors, or mistakes; 3. Encouraging and accepting constructive non-conformist behavior; 4. Encouraging and accepting original ideas; 5. Providing for challenging and stimulating learning materials; 6. Creating organizational and structural conditions that allow open and reversible distribution of roles, themes and problems, as well as sharing of activities; 7. Providing support and positive feedback for questioning and exploring behavior and problem finding and not just problem solving; 8. Fostering identification of the child with school (learning) activities by allowing selfdetermination and joint responsibility; 9. Supporting development of positive self-assessment and a favorable self-concept; 10. Increasing autonomy in/of learning by recognition and self-evaluation of progress; 11. Making it possible for children to experience social creativity and the creative plus during group interactions and through joint projects with self selected partners; 12. Reducing stress on achievement and avoiding negative stress by introducing playful activities; 13. Fostering intense concentration and task commitment through high motivation and interest in self-selected topics; 14. Creating an atmosphere free from anxiety and time pressure without abandoning sense of responsibility; 15. Establishing psychological security, openness and freedom 16. Nurturing sensibility, flexibility and divergent thinking.

APPENDIX B.2 Urbans Framework of Analysis Source: Cropeley, Creativity in Education & Training: a guide for teachers and educators, 2001, p.154-156 Urbans Framework of Analysis for creativity-fostering learning environment Criteria Elements Observable behaviors Divergent Elaboration, Is asking questions allowed and appreciated? Thinking & originality, Is the teacher sensitive to problems raised by students? doing remote Does the teacher try to make children aware of open associations, questions, sensitive to their environment and willing to restructuring & use all their senses? redefinition, Are problems simply presented, or (to the maximum flexibility, degrees possible) discovered? fluency, problem Are pre-existing answers simply presented? sensitivity Do time and organization allow more than one attempt at finding a solution: Are objects and topics considered from different aspects? Are phrases or ways and/or goals/products kept open or shaped openly Are students encouraged not always to be satisfied with the first correct solutions? Is a deviant method or solution originality expected and appreciated? In general, does anything happen ( in school) that could be called divergent thinking or is learning nothing more than regurgitation or accumulated knowledge that has been obtained from textbooks or teachers? General Metacognition, Do learning tasks require and promote broad and knowledge critical & differentiated perception or do they restrict focus? and thinking evaluative Does learning use different sensory channels and base thinking, varying methods so that experiences and knowledge reasoning & may be anchored in memory storage in various ways? logical thinking, Is the structure of learning objects/subjects analyzed? analyzing & Is there a focus on the learning process rather than synthesizing results? memory network Are solution methods questioned or optimized? broad perception Are why? Questions asked and answered so that causeeffect relations can be studied? Is there instruction on systematic analyzing and synthesizing or problems, topics, facts, situations, etc..? Is evaluation asked for and desired? Is the learning process made explicit and reflected upon with students that metacognitive thinking is initiated and furthered?

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Specific knowledge base and specific skills

Focusing & task Commitment

Acquisition and mastery of specific knowledge & skills in specific areas of (creative) thinking & doing: expertise Topic/ Object/ situation/ product-focusing concentration steadfastness and persistence task commitment selectivity passion Need for novelty curiosity drive for exploration & knowledge communication self-actualization flow devotion/duty need of control & instrumental profit external recognition

Is the development of special interests encouraged, for example by additive or extra-curricular provision, mentor systems, competitions, etc? Are individual interests brought into or built into schoolwork? Are there opportunities/possibilities for students to obtain experience via in-depth studies? Is both experts and childrens expertise appreciated? Is sustained occupation with a special activity allowed or supported (for example research work on a project carried on for the entire school year)? Do the timetable and school organization support such activities? Is task commitment rewarded? Is there an expectation that tasks have to be fulfilled and brought to an end? Are children supported in recognizing and avoiding distractions? What is the role of self-evaluation and external reward? Are childrens questions accepted and expanded upon? Is the curiosity of the children stimulated and supported? Are there opportunities for self-directed learning and discovery learning in order to support and promote intrinsic motivation? Are individual interests appreciated and supported? Is unnecessary repetition avoided? Can children identify with their work?

Motives and Motivation

Openness and tolerance of ambiguity

Is school not only a place for traditional instruction, but a place of living, of fun of (mental) adventure? Does instruction bring the real world into school? Does instruction reach out into reality? Is school a place for fantasy and imagination? Is there a place for laughter (not at the expense of others) and appreciation of humor? Are there opportunities to explore and investigate objects in a playful and experimental way? Are errors allowed or are quick and correct results demanded? Is the individuality and uniqueness of each person appreciated or is conformist behavior demanded

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Appendix B.3: Graph The componential model of creativity

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APPENDIX C.1 Survey Questions for CKP Candidates in English PART I. GENERAL INFORMATION NAME * GENDER * DOB * SCHOOL * GRADE * CELL * Email * PART II. SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS Response in 1 or 2 paragraphs Extracurricular activities: *please list at most 3 extracurricular activities (sports, arts, volunteers) that you spend the most time with out of school

Can you elaborate on your most favorite activity? Why?

Personal skills *Please tell us what you can bring to the Project (skills, talents, etc..) Opinion about school" *How do you define a school? To you, what is an ideal school?

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Opinion about school" *Do you want to change anything about your school? If yes, please list at most 3 things you would like to change about your school.

PART III. ESSAY Imagine, in 20 years, you will be awarded a very honorable award (such as the Nobel Prize) for your contribution to Vietnam, or the the world. What will that hornor be? (essay should be maximum 1-2 pages on Word. Copy and Paste here) *

Do you have parental or school permission to go here? * Yes No THANK YOU FOR APPLYING!

APPENDIX C.2 Survey Questions for Candidates in Vietnamese PHN I. CU HI CHUNG H Tn * Gii tnh * Ngy sinh (Ngy/thng/nm) * Trng * Lp * S in thoi * Email * PHN II. CU HI NGN Tr li mi cu hi di y bng 1 hay 2 on vn ngn Hot ng ngoi kha *Hy k ra ti a 3 hot ng ngoi kha (th thao, ngh thut, tnh nguyn, v.v...) m em dnh nhiu thi gian nht ngoi gi hc Hot ng ngoi kha *Em c th ni r hn v mt hot ng em yu thch nht khng? Ti sao? Phm cht c nhn *Hy k ra nhng phm cht hay k nng c nhn em c th ng gp cho d n? Quan im v "trng hc" *Em nh ngha trng hc l g ? i vi em, mt ngi trng tt l nh th no? Quan im v "trng hc" *Em c mun thay i g v trng ca mnh k? Nu c, hy k ra 3 th em mun thay i PHN III. CU HI VIT LUN Hy tng tng rng, trong 20 nm ti, em s c nhn c 1 gii thng cao qu (v d nh Nobel chng hn) bi nhng ng gp ca em ginh cho Vit Nam hoc th gii. s l nhng ng gp g? Em s c vinh danh bi nhng thnh tu nh th no? *Bi lun ti a 1-2 trang giy trn Word. Copy v dn bi lun ti y PHN IV. CU HI PH Em c th tham gia ton b d n khng? *D n d tnh s din ra t ngy 30/7 n 4/8/2012 mi ngy t 8.30a.m n 4.30p.m bao gm 1.5 ting ngh tra Yes No Em c ng k theo nhm? *D n hin ti cng tc vi PTCS Thc Nghim & THCS Trng Vng. Hc sinh t cc trng khc xin vui lng tr li cu hi ny Yes No Nu c, nhm em gm nhng bn no? *Tr li cu ny nu em chn "Yes" cu hi trn Em c c s ng ca gia nh v thy c tham gia d n? *

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Appendix D.1: Administrator Interview Plan in Vietnamese Phng vn: BGH Nh Trng Ngy: 15/01/2013 Cm n c ng tham gia bui phng vn ny! Tn em l o Ngc Linh, hc sinh trng i hc Brown M v trng ban t chc d n Tr em sng to 2012, 2013. D n Tr Em Sng To nm 2012 c t chc thnh cng rc r H Ni vi s tham gia ca nhiu hc sinh PTCS Thc Nghim. gp phn chun b k cng hn cho d n Tr Em Sng To nm 2013 v cung cp d liu cho lun vn tt nghip ca em, bui phng vn ny nhm mc ch gip em v BTC d n hiu r hn v hot ng ging dy ca nh trng, qua xy dng ni dung d n 2013 cho ph hp hn vi tinh thn v s pht trin ca nh trng. Thng tin ca bui phng vn ny s hon ton c bo mt theo quy nh nghin cu v con ngi ca vin nghin cu gio dc M. Trong bui phng vn ny, em s ghi ch li nhng li c ni. Nu c cho php, em xin php c ghi m li bui phng vn ny gip em ghi li c chnh xc nht ni dung cu tr li ca c. Sau bui phng vn, em s gi li cho c vn bn ghi m c xc nhn v chnh sa tnh chnh xc ca bn vit. Em s ch c php dng nhng thng tin m nh trng v chnh c ng cho php s dng. Khng c thng tin no trong bui phng vn ny s nhm mc ch xut bn hay lu hnh bt hp pht ti bt k phng tin thng tin i chng no nu khng c s cho php ca nh trng v c. Trong bui phng vn, c c quyn c hu b mi thng tin thu thp v dng bui phng vn m khng cn nu r l do. C c cn thm cu hi g khng ? Cm n c! Vy xin cho php em bt u bui phng vn. Thng tin chung Xin php c gii thiu tn tui, chc danh v nm cng tc ca mnh trong trng Trng mnh hin ti c bao nhiu hc sinh? Bao nhiu gio vin? Cc cu hi v gio dc 1. Gio dc ni chung: Theo c hiu, mc tiu quan trng nht ca h thng gio dc l g theo quy nh ca nh nc Vit Nam v B Gio Dc? Theo tiu ch ring ca nh trng? i vi bn thn c? 2. Gio dc Trng Vng: Em c em trai ang tui ca hc sinh cp II trng ta. Gi s gia nh mun chuyn em sang trng ta, c c th ni r hn v im c bit ca chng trnh gio dc, cch dy v hc ca trng Trng Vng khng ? C nhng chnh sch no ca b Gio Dc nh hng n vic dy v hc trong trng? Nhng chnh sch ny c nh hng g n tnh hnh ti chnh ca trng? (hi thm v: lp chuyn vs. lp k chuyn/lp chn, hnk ca hs, truyn thng ca trg- 95 nm, s s lp & s lng hs, t l hc sinh thi hs gii ) 3. Gio vin: Nu em l mt gio vin mi n trng, em cn bit g v nhng tiu chun lm mt gio vin tt trng?

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C nh gi th no v h thng gio vin nh trng? 4. Nhn chung, c nh gi th no v hc sinh trng ta? (v mt hc tp, k lut, hot ng v cc mt khc) Cc em c thi hc tp nh th no? T l vo cc trng cp III tin tin ti H Ni ra sao? Trong nm va qua, bao nhiu phn trm hc sinh ca trng t chun kh, gii? 3. Theo c, trng ta s pht trin theo hng no trong tng lai? C nhng im mnh g cn khai thc, im yu g cn khc phc? C nhng c hi v thch thc no c nhn thy trong hng pht trin ca nh trng? 4. C cn c iu g cn trao i khng ? Cm n c rt nhiu!

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Appendix D.2: Administrator Interview Plan in English Hello. My name is Linh Dao, a college student interested in education in Vietnam. Today I would like to talk to you about your school. What Id like to achieve after today interview is a general sense of your educational objective and pedagogy. The information I receive today will help me write a thesis on educational practices in Vietnam. Anything you want me to clarify at this point? Lets go over some things (give them consent form if needed). I will take notes of what youre saying, hope you dont mind. Would it be okay if I record todays discussion? This will make it easier for me to capture what you say more accurately. Everything you say today will be kept confidential. In my report, I will make sure to make your answer anonymous. If you would like to, I can also change the name of your school so your school wont be affected either. Anything unclear? Lets begin.

Participant Background (consider hand them a survey for general information) Name Position Years at School Number of students in school Actual questions: 1. What, in your personal opinions, are the most important objectives of the education system in general (with regards to students, teachers, the school as a whole)? What is your understanding of that of the MOET? Do the two meet?

2. What are some of the strengths and weaknesses you could see in the running of your school? - Can you elaborate on the curriculum of the school and what makes a Trung Vuong/ Thuc Nghiem experience unique? - What are the different criteria/requirements for being a teacher in the schools? What would you say about the general staff? - What is the graduation rate? Can you tell me about the breakdown of highly-achieved versus challenging students? - Can you tell me more about Trung Vuong/Thuc nghiem students? How do they see their school? - How does the MOET assess performance and achievement in school? How does funding work? 3. Where do you see the school in the next 5 years? 10 years? What are the different opportunities and challenges you could see? Follow-up and Thank you

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Appendix E: Observation Log Questions How do teachers ask questions? - Close vs. open ended - Rhetorical questions, solution in form of questions or real puzzle? - Posing questions in different ways or repeat (in other words) How do teachers react to answer? - First correct solution? - 1 preexisting or multiple ways? Is deviance, divergence, originality expected/appreciated? How much time do students spend copying material from the board/listening to the teachers monologue/engaging in conversations with teachers/engaging in discussion with others/doing other things? How do teachers target students cognitive development? - Broad, different perceptions or restrict focus? - Use of different sensory channels? - Strategies for memory storage? - Inductive vs. deductive reasoning Why? Flow & goal - Learning objectives, bigger picture - Process, outcome How do they explain things? Is there any mentor system to assist special interest? - Does special interest in the first place? In-depth study, Expertise building How do teachers sustain students interest, focus and commitment? - Any semester-long projects? Special semester-long activity? - Do they fit with school timetable? - How to get rid of distraction? How do teachers drive students to study? - Expanding students question? - Self-discovery? Based on their curiosity - Can children identify with their work? How do reward work? - Internal vs. external? - Self-fulfillment or teachers pleasing? How open and relaxing is the environment: - Traditional instruction vs. living and fun adventure - Connect to real life? - Fantasy, imagination? Are children allowed to make mistakes? Any punishment?

Note

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Appendix F1: Student Survey and Interview in Vietnamese Cm n em ng tham gia bui phng vn ny! Tn ch l o Ngc Linh, sinh vin trng i hc Brown M v trng ban t chc d n Tr em sng to 2012,2013. D n Tr Em Sng To nm 2012 c t chc thnh cng rc r H Ni vi s tham gia ca nhiu hc sinh PTCS Thc Nghim. gp phn chun b k cng hn cho d n Tr Em Sng To nm 2013 v cung cp d liu cho lun vn tt nghip ca ch, bui phng vn ny s gip ch v BTC d n hiu r hn v tri nghim hc tp ca hc sinh mt trng cng tc, nhm xy dng ni dung d n 2013 cho ph hp hn vi tinh thn v s pht trin ca nh trng. Phn 1: Kho st Nhng kho st ny s gip BTC c ci nhn khch quan v cch dy v hc ca trng hc cc em thng qua ci nhn ca hc sinh. y l kho st gm 20 cu trc nghim ngn v mt khong 10 pht tr li. Lp: Trng: H tn: 1. Trong lp, gio vin khuyn khch em t cu hi v phn tch k cu hi ca em 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o 2. Gio vin thng t nhng cu hi nh th no (ng hay m, c sn cu tr li hay hc ba) o Cu hi ng (tr li bng C/khng) o Cu hi m (ti sao, th no, ti sao khng) o Cu hi c sn cu tr li o Cu hi thc s hc ba 3. Cc cu tr li thng: Prompt: gio vin phn nh th no vi cu tr li u tin ca em? o C sn/ ch c 1 li gii thch o Linh hot/ c th tr li bng nhiu cch khc nhau o C hai loi cu tr li 4.Gio vin kch thch em suy ngh a chiu o 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o 5. Trong lp, phn ln thi gian em ginh : o Chp bi t trn bng vo trong v o Nghe gio vin ging bi o Tng tc vi gio vin (hi v c tr li cu hi) o Hot ng nhm o Cc vic khc 6. Gio vin em thng ging bi rt d hiu: o 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o Followup: ging nh th no?dn dt th no vo bi ging

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7. Gio vin em thng ging bi rt d nh: o 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o Followup: ti sao li d nh? 8. Gio vin ca em dng nhiu phng php pht trin cc gic quan khc nhau ca em? o 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o 9. Em hiu ti sao mnh li phi hc mn hc ny ni chung, v cc bi hc nh ni ring? 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o Followup: ti sao? Cc bi hc lin kt vi nhau ra sao? 10. Theo gio vin ca em, ci g quan trng hn: qu trnh hc tp (s pht trin ca em) hay kt qu hc tp (im s, bi lm) o Qu trnh hc tp o Kt qu hc tp o C hai 11. Gio vin ca em to c hi cho em nghin cu chuyn su v mt vn : v d, mt d n n cui k np, hot ng nhm t chc xuyn sut 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o Followup: nu c, gii thch. Nu khng, ti sao? Do thi gian? 12. Gio vin khin em rt hng th vo bi ging: 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o 13. Gio vin ca em quan tm n s thch c nhn ca em v mang s thch ca em vo trong bi ging. Gio vin to iu kin cho em c c hi t hc/t tm hiu 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o 14. Em c th d dng lin h vi bi ging 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o 15. Gio vin lun mang n nhng kinh nghim thc tin ngoi i vo trong bi ging 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o 16. Em cm thy c hng hc khi: o Gio vin cho im cao o Em cm mnh hiu bi o C hai 17. Lp hc em lun trn ngp ting ci v giy pht th gin 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o 18. Em c php mc sai phm, khng c hnh thc x pht no qu nng 1(ng ) o 2o 3o 4o 5 (khng ng ) o

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Phn 2: Phng vn (c nhn/ tp th) Thng tin chung Em hy gii thiu tn, tui v lp em. Trong lp em c bao nhiu hc sinh? 1. n tng chung V d nh ch l mt hc sinh mi chuyn n trng em, em s ni g vi ch v ngi trng mnh? Trng em c im c bit g khc vi cc trng khc 2. Mi trng hc Em hy ngh n gio vin hay nhng mn hc m em thch nht trong trng, v ti sao em li thch nhng gio vin . im chung ca nhng gio vin l g nh? H thng lm g trong lp? Em hy nu mt v d c th v mt tit hc rt hay gn y ca gio vin c khng? By gi, em hy ngh n gio vin hay nhng mn hc m em cha thch lm trong trng, v ti sao em li cha thch nhng gio vin hay mn hc . (tng t) Hi thm v bn kho st: Suy ngh a chiu, kch thch no b, chuyn su, mc tiu v l do hc, hng th hc, mi trng an ton vui v Ni chung, em c thch hc trng khng? Lm th no nng cao/thay i? 3. Ngoi kha hc thm Ngoi vic hc trn lp, thi gian cn li trong ngy em dnh vo vic g? Em hin c tham gia hot ng ngoi kha no khng? Cc hot ng ny nh hng tch cc hay tiu cc n vic hc ca em trn trng? Ch nghe ni TV rt mnh v phong tro k qua? Ch nghe ni TN rt khuyn khch nhng hot ng mi th im? k qua..? Em c hc thm khng? Cc hot ng ny nh hng tch cc hay tiu cc n vic hc ca em trng? Ti sao li hc thm? Em thy hc trn lp cha? Em c mong mun g v hot ng ngoi kha hay tnh hnh hc thm ca em trng khng? 4. K lut Em thy mi trng ca trng em c an ton khng? Cc bn c ha ng khng? C bao gi xy ra chia nhm? Quan h gia hc sinh vi nhau nh th no? Vi hc sinh vi gio vin ra sao? Khi mt vic xu xy ra th hnh thc x php l g? C nghim khc khng? Gio vin c can thip vo mi quan h gia hc sinh vi nhau khng? Em c mong mun g v k lut ca trng khng? (sit cht/ ni lng?) 5. Kt lun: Ni chung, em thy im mnh nht ca trng em lm g? Em ngh c im g cn ci thin v Thc Nghim? Em cn mun chia s g na khng? Cm n em!

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Appendix F2: Student Survey and Interview in English Students Survey Plan Preparation Schools: Trung Vuong (public) and Thuc Nghiem (private) Grade level: 6th to 9th grade Outreach method Who How When CKP participants CKP email announcements, FB ASAP (all from both) announcements Non-CKP Through CKP contacts (snowballing) First week home participants School permission on observation days First week of spring classes (10 each school) Extra classes and restaurants Whenever possible Create a survey monkey: Please answer these following statements: Criteria Questions to ask Divergent In class, Im generally allowed to ask questions and get elaborated answers from Thinking teachers o Strongly agree o I dont know o Strongly disagree My teachers tend to ask me: o Close-ended questions most of the time (yes/no question) o Open-ended questions most of the time (why, how, why not) o A good balance of both o I dont know/care The answers to questions are often: o Fixed/pre-existed o Multiple solutions are possible o It depends on what class o I dont know General In class, teachers use differentiated teaching methods targeting at different senses knowledge o Strongly agree o I dont know o Strongly disagree My teachers provide me with clear learning objectives (reason why I study what I do) o Strongly agree o I dont know o Strongly disagree In class, my teacher focuses on o Process of learning o Outcome of learning o Good balance o I dont know/care

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Specific knowledge

Focus & commitment

Motives and Motivation

Openness and tolerance of ambiguity

I currently join extracurricular activities besides schoolwork o Yes o No My teachers provide me with chance for more in-depth studies beyond schoolwork, such as group project or competition o Strongly agree o I dont know o Strongly disagree My teachers bring my own individual interest in the curriculum o Strongly agree o I dont know o Strongly disagree My teachers require us to be very focused and committed to our studies o Strongly agree o Neutral o Strongly disagree My teachers require me to avoid distraction while studying o Strongly agree o Neutral o Strongly disagree In class, I spend most of my time: o Copying material from the board o Listening to the teachers monologue o Engaging in conversations with teachers o Engaging in discussion with others o Doing other things There are opportunities for self-directed learning and discovery o Strongly agree o I dont know/neutral o Strongly disagree Im very curious/ genuinely interested in what I learn o Strongly agree o Neutral o Strongly disagree My teachers always try to bring in relevant, real life experience o Strongly agree o Neutral o Strongly disagree My classroom is usually a place full of laugher and relax o Strongly agree o Neutral o Strongly disagree I am allowed to make mistake, there is no real punishment o Strongly agree o Neutral o Strongly disagree

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Day of interview Hello. My name is Linh Dao, a college student interested in education in Vietnam. Today I would like to talk to you about your experiences as a student at Trung Vuong/ Thuc Nghiem. What Id like to achieve after today interview is a general sense of your learning and schooling experience in your own perspective. The information I receive today will help me write a thesis on educational practices in Vietnam. Anything you want me to clarify at this point? Lets go over some things (give them consent form if needed). I will take notes of what youre saying, hope you dont mind. Would it be okay if I record todays discussion? This will make it easier for me to capture what you say more accurately. Everything you say today will be kept confidential. I wont be sharing it with your teachers or principals. I also ask you to make sure information shared here today does not go further than this room. In my report, I will make sure to make your answer anonymous. Anything unclear? Please keep your answer focused but feel free to expand/elaborate if necessary. We only have about 45 minutes. Remember there are no wrong or unacceptable answers. Please be honest but dont feel like you have to say anything you dont want to. Are there any questions? Lets begin. 1. General Impression Pretend Im a young person is going to attend your school. What would you tell me about your school? Tell me about a typical day in your school What do you like about your educational experience in this school? What do you dislike? 2. Classroom experiences 1. What is your favorite subject? Who is your favorite teacher? 2. Elaborate why? Can you give an example? 3. How much time do you think you spend on classes and studying in general? How much time is left to do other things? 4. Would you like to change anything about your classroom? What do you think could help students benefit more from learning here? 3. Social interaction at school: Tell me about your classmates How do students get along with each other? With teachers? How do teachers get along with other teachers? With the principals? 4. Extracurricular Activities 1. Does the school encourage extracurricular activities? 2. What kind of extracurricular activities are you involved in right now? 3. Do you think your participation in those jeopardize your scores? 4. Anything else? 5. Extra classes Do you go to extra classes? By your own teacher or teacher from other classroom?

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How much time do you spend in extra classes? Does going to extra classes support/interfere with your school work? Anything else youd like to elaborate? 6. Concluding thoughts: In general, what do you think Trung Vuong/ Thuc Nghiem does best? What do you think could be improved about your school? Anything else? Appendix G1: Teachers Interview in Vietnamese Thng tin chung Xin php c gii thiu tn tui, chc danh v nm cng tc ca mnh trong trng Cc cu hi 1. Quan im gio dc: Theo c hiu, mc tiu quan trng nht ca h thng gio dc l g theo quy nh ca nh nc Vit Nam v B Gio Dc? Theo tiu ch ring ca nh trng? i vi bn thn c? 2. Kinh nghim ging dy: C dy mn g ? C c phi GV ch nhim khng ? C c bin ch cha? Em thy trong lp c/thy:. C c th ni r thm v phng php ging dy ca mnh c khng? Trong lp, c thng ch tm nht n iu g? Cc em thng hot ng nh th no 3. Quan h vi hc sinh: C c th ni thm cho em v hc sinh trng mnh/lp c ch nhim c khng? C ngh hc sinh thch v khng thch ci g? C nh gi hc lc ca cc em nh th no? C k vng hay mong mun g cho hc sinh ca mnh? C c b quyt g gip hc sinh hc tt? Hc sinh hc c iu g nhiu nht t lp ca c? 3. Quan h vi nh trng: Nu em l mt gio vin mi n trng, em cn bit g v nhng tiu chun lm mt gio vin tt trng? Nh trng nh gi vic ging dy ca c qua hnh thc no? C nh gi th no v h thng gio vin nh trng? 4. iu g khin c tnh dy mi sng v ho hc c i dy? C t ho nht v iu g? iu g i vi c l kh khn nht trong vic dy hc? 5. C ngh mnh s u trong 5 nm ti? 10 nm ti? C nhn thy nhng c hi v thch thc g? C iu g c mun thay i hay ci thin trong cch dy ca mnh? C cn c iu g cn trao i khng ? Cm n c rt nhiu!

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Appendix G1: Teachers Interview in English Day of interview Hello. My name is Linh Dao, a college student interested in education in Vietnam. Today I would like to talk to you about your teaching experience. What Id like to achieve after today interview is a general sense of your educational vision, teaching methods and views about students. The information I receive today will help me write a thesis on educational practices in Vietnam. Anything you want me to clarify at this point? Lets go over some things (give them consent form if needed). I will take notes of what youre saying, hope you dont mind. Would it be okay if I record todays discussion? This will make it easier for me to capture what you say more accurately. Everything you say today will be kept confidential. I wont be sharing it with your teachers or principals. I also ask you to make sure information shared here today does not go further than this room. In my report, I will make sure to make your answer anonymous. If you would like to, I can also change the name of your school so your school wont be affected either. Anything unclear? Lets begin. 1. Vision What, in your personal opinions, are the most important objectives of the education system in general (with regards to students, teachers, the school as a whole)? What is your understanding of that of the MOET? What is your understanding of that of the school/principals? 2. Teaching Experience: What subjects do you teach? Are you the main or subject teacher? If I were a teacher newly recruited to your school, what would be your advice to me? (if observation already) I see that you (say something about their methods), can you elaborate more on why you do it? In general, what activities do you often do in the classroom? What do you think students like the most? What do they not like the most? Can you tell me more about your students? What would you like to see in your students? How do you often evaluate their performance? What do you think students benefit the most from your class? How does the school assess your teaching performance? Is there any guideline or instruction? What is the most rewarding thing about your teaching experience? What about the most challenging thing? 3. Future outlook Where do you see your own teaching proceed in the next 5 years? 10 years? What are the different opportunities and challenges you could see? Is there anything youd like to change or improve? Follow-up and Thank you

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Appendix H: Examples of Comparable Interviews Pair 1: 6th grade, male, assigned by teacher Interview Jan 8 with Huy Trang from Interview Jan 18 with Long from grade grade 6B, Experimental School 6A1, Traditional S. Very long interview because he tended to elaborate a lot on his answer and gave a lot of examples Not only did he understand perfectly what I was asking, he gave more information about adjacent topics. For example, he gave 5 concrete ideas on what hed do to revamp the school. Very short interview due to the way he gave Very articulate, particularly for his age only 1-sentence answer to most of my When unsure, he used I think, perhaps, it questions. is possible He took my questions for literal meanings and His favorite teacher was Arts & Literature, not for what I intended to ask. even though he didnt like the Art teacher E.g. When I asked: What about your favorite much. He liked teachers who are considerate teacher?; he answered: She is Mrs. Phuong and dedicated to teaching. To a question he didnt know the answer to, He was not afraid to criticize teachers he did he simply just repeated what I asked not like, and even revealed the underground His favorite subject was Math because his practice between parents & school officers to teacher could explain it clearly. allocate the student in a specific class. Pair 2: 7th grade, 2 girls, best friends Interview Jan 15 with Hoa & Vy, grade 7C, Interview Jan 8 with To Anh & Vyvy, grade Experimental S. 7K1, Traditional S. Their favorite teachers and classes were those Both were very proud of their school and their easiest ones where teachers gave good grades class they spoke at length about their class and did not try too hard to discipline the unique focus on interactive teaching & students. learning. They also seemed well-versed in the They told me about 1 event they co-organized subject of student activities and student clubs for Christmas as a surprise for their teacher which they think represents the strength of within the class. their school. In answering my questions, they used In answering my questions, they expanded and examples that spoke to their individual brought in examples from various angles experience. Both of them, especially Vyvy, were very Hoa seemed to express more ideas than Vy, articulate but both were shy and thus needed my They compared and contrasted different prompts to get to their points teachers to describe to me why they like They seemed to slightly misunderstand my certain ones. question about what would you do if you Their idea to improve their school is to were school administrator for a day, administer a poll so that all ideas of students mentioning how tiring the paperwork that could be captured they would have to do would be.

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