Do Schools Kill Creativity?
All kids have tremendous talents and we squander them, ruthlessly.
We should treat creativity with the same status as we do literacy.
If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. By organizing education so the worse thing is to be wrong, we are educating people out of their creative capacities.
The arts are at the bottom of the academic value system.
Our task is to educate a child's whole being.
These are some of the claims Ken Robinson makes in this TED talk. I tend to agree with him. But you probably guessed that a long time ago.
Labels: creativity, education, TED talk
posted by L.L. Barkat at 6:48 PM
5 Comments:
I wonder how many of us actually grieve the death of creativity in the individuals in our society.
And are encouraged to resurrect the creativity within us that's been killed by a well-intentioned (?) institution.
I do not wonder that you agreed with Mr. Robinson. ;)
Erin, that is so beautifully put. I caught my breath at the idea of grieving this loss. I think I do... grieve the loss, I mean. I think it's why I share things like this... hoping that there will be less loss in the future.
I grieve it too.
But I think I also kill it in my own well-intentioned (?) way; devil-may-care.
It makes me sad to face that truth about myself. Hopefully I'll be wiser for facing it.
To the future! Less loss, more life.
Indeed we do... I remember my first year in college, having to forget everything I had learned about writing in high school.
And I remember choosing my undergrad program because I wouldn't have to take any math or science! I don't regret the decision, the education I received there was invaluable. But it amazes me now, to discover how much I enjoy learning about the life cycles of plants, soil structures, insects, etc. For me, walking through the woods and taking pictures of what catches my eye compels me to dig deeper, to learn more about what I'm seeing. And planting things, watching them grow, learning how to prepare them in tasty ways, sharing what I grow with others, these activities engage me in studying things I used to dread. And I actually enjoy it! And feel so grateful-
Where were these treasures hidden away so many years ago in biology, or chemisty class?
p.s. a favorite by Billy Collins
Introduction to Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rop
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
-Billy Collins
Post a Comment
<< Home