Do Schools Kill Creativity?
This YouTube video by Sir Ken Robinson is a speech he gives at a Ted conference about how we should be creating an education system that nurtures creativity. He states that creativity, in his opinion, is just as important as literacy and the education system today is destroying people’s capacity to be creative. I do believe, from what we are learning in our education classes that this is slowing being changed. We learn more of a holistic approach to teaching rather than explicitly teaching most subjects. There are some parts of every subject that I believe have to be explicitly taught but creativity is a very important part of a child’s learning and development.
My favourite statement that Sir Ken makes is that our education systems are a that children are not frightened of being wrong, they will take a chance, he continues by saying that one will never be creative unless that are prepared to be wrong. He continues to talk about how our education systems are now focused on being right and that making a mistake is wrong.
When I attended primary/elementary school in the early nineties, all of our mathematics assessments were marked right or wrong; there was no such thing as 0.5 of a mark, or getting marks for showing how you got to your answer ( we were never encouraged to show the steps on how we came up with a certain answer). As I spend time watching the students during my observation days it seems that the teachers are doing the exact opposite, they are more focused on the students showing the steps they take to get the answer to a math problem, rather than getting the correct answer. I, as well as many people in the education field know that there is more than one way of finding the correct answer to a problem, and by taking the time to show the steps they take to show how they are getting an answer, whether that answer be right or wrong, is a step in the right direction. By showing their “work” , It is much easier for a teacher to pick up on where a child is struggling and also for a child to see, once the teacher corrects the work, where he or she is having trouble.
I’m not sure how I feel about there not being a “right” answer. There is usually a right answer, however the way that the person gets to that answer, or learns the process(es) to get to the right answer can be completely different for many students. We, as educators should be very aware of this and get to know our students so that we can use different methods to make the students enjoy what they are being taught and use those strategies to promote learning for all types of students.
I’m not sure how I feel about there not being a “right” answer. There is usually a right answer, however the way that the person gets to that answer, or learns the process(es) to get to the right answer can be completely different for many students. We, as educators should be very aware of this and get to know our students so that we can use different methods to make the students enjoy what they are being taught and use those strategies to promote learning for all types of students.
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