Does school kill creativity?

[omfgzmariah]

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_s ... ivity.html

In this video Ken Robinson discusses how children are scared to be wrong, when it is a good thing.
It talks about how we are restricting kids from being creative.

I think the points he brings up are very true and fun to think about. I mean, I think all people should be well rounded in all subjects. Why IS math held over art classes? When they could both be taught to their own extremities. It's sad that people waste their life away doing something they hate to get a paycheck when they could be doing something they love. Why is education underrated? And by that, I mean you go to learn your specific major. In college it isn't normal to take extra classes that aren't surrounding your major/etc. How is this okay when knowledge is all we have? I mean, people should be able to be educated on a free level their whole life if they chose to. I know this is unrealistic, but personally, I value my education more than anything and if I could I would go to school for ever to better who I am as a person.

This also makes me think of religion - I mean, we should be educated on all topics before deciding. Though I'm not saying we should decide, or that we have to. I mean, though I claim Atheist I am just a student when it comes to religion. Why can't that be a religion in itself?

And to be knowledgeable about all religion would truly test someone's faith. If someone said to me that they know about this, this, and this... But, they chose this because they used their reasoning skills to come to a conclusion. I would respect that answer no matter what it was.

Just throwing ideas out there.

[Kylyssa]

Schooling is meant solely to produce a product that performs to certain tolerances.

[Will]

Schooling is meant solely to produce a product that performs to certain tolerances.

Some schools, yes, but not all schools. I've recently been doing a lot of reading on the Montessori method of teaching. It's anything but a worker factory.

[Tank]

Interesting thread. My wife gained her doctorate studying 'Rough and Tumble' play in early years settings (4 to 7 years). She observed a class of about 20 kids, boys and girls, over a three year period. This was 10 years ago now and she has now co-authored 3 books on early years development and the critical need for free flow play in this vital developmental period. In a nutshell kids can't be programmed, they programme themselves through play. Short of active physical or mental abuse the worst thing you can do to a young child is to deprive them of natural unstructured physical play in a mixed gender setting. All the adults need to do is stand by with the band aids and a comforting cuddle when needed, we have evolved to do the rest.

[omfgzmariah]

Interesting thread. My wife gained her doctorate studying 'Rough and Tumble' play in early years settings (4 to 7 years). She observed a class of about 20 kids, boys and girls, over a three year period. This was 10 years ago now and she has now co-authored 3 books on early years development and the critical need for free flow play in this vital developmental period. In a nutshell kids can't be programmed, they programme themselves through play. Short of active physical or mental abuse the worst thing you can do to a young child is to deprive them of natural unstructured physical play in a mixed gender setting. All the adults need to do is stand by with the band aids and a comforting cuddle when needed, we have evolved to do the rest.

That's a really good point, I guess I've never really thought about "playing" like that.
That it was a necessity?

Why particularly in a mixed gender setting? Just curious.

[Tank]

Interesting thread. My wife gained her doctorate studying 'Rough and Tumble' play in early years settings (4 to 7 years). She observed a class of about 20 kids, boys and girls, over a three year period. This was 10 years ago now and she has now co-authored 3 books on early years development and the critical need for free flow play in this vital developmental period. In a nutshell kids can't be programmed, they programme themselves through play. Short of active physical or mental abuse the worst thing you can do to a young child is to deprive them of natural unstructured physical play in a mixed gender setting. All the adults need to do is stand by with the band aids and a comforting cuddle when needed, we have evolved to do the rest.

That's a really good point, I guess I've never really thought about "playing" like that.
That it was a necessity?

Why particularly in a mixed gender setting? Just curious.

My wife was studying the different roll R&T play had in the development of kids. R&T is vital to both genders but it is absolutly critical to boys. Children explore their environment through their imaginations and testing their imaginings against reality and through that work out what is real, or not. They have a mental story they tell to themselves and others as they play. Girls do this in a very much more verbal way than boys. Boys also have a mental story but it is expressed in an much more physical way than girls. Telling a boy to sit down and keep still is akin to telling a girl to shut up and don't talk. Boys practice their social skills more physically than girls who tend to do it more verbally than boys.

For example boys learn through play how to moderate aggression and understand what real aggression is and how to react to mock aggression ie recognise mock aggression as a jousting test. Wild animals rarely fight each other and this is because they have learned through play how to recognise the superiority of others through body language and verbal signals. If a child and in particular boys are deprived of early 'jousting' experience they don't 'get it' later and either end up bullied or bullying, they move to a safety behaviour of extreme passivity or aggression. This develops later on into the bullied trying to emulate the bully. Can you see the root of gang culture developing here?

Have to go out now but I'll say more if you're interested later.

[jduster]

There is a good reason why math superior to art.

Math is objective and requires a correct answer.

Art is completely subjective.  

The world needs great engineers and scientists and doctors - not starving artists.

[omfgzmariah]

There is a good reason why math superior to art.

Math is objective and requires a correct answer.

Art is completely subjective.  

The world needs great engineers and scientists and doctors - not starving artists.

Watch the video. :]
Why does one have to be greater than the other?
By art I mean music, painting, dancing, photography, etc.
So just because you are taught an art form means that you will definitely chose that as a career? ...
No.
And I'm not saying that art should be above math, but they can definitely be equal.
And why not be a starving artist? Life is not about $. It's about living.
Not saying I think it's realistic, but if that's what makes you happy, that's what makes you happy.

As an art major I know I struggled with whether or not I wanted to sacrifice my talent and love for something that would ruin my life. For something that would tear apart who I was. For something that wouldn't make me happy.

And why does an artist have to be starving, l o l. That is a fairly shady generalization.
I mean; TV Producers, Illustrators, Designers, Photographers, Web Designers, Cartoonists, etc. = artists = $

[omfgzmariah]

My wife was studying the different roll R&T play had in the development of kids. R&T is vital to both genders but it is absolutly critical to boys. Children explore their environment through their imaginations and testing their imaginings against reality and through that work out what is real, or not. They have a mental story they tell to themselves and others as they play. Girls do this in a very much more verbal way than boys. Boys also have a mental story but it is expressed in an much more physical way than girls. Telling a boy to sit down and keep still is akin to telling a girl to shut up and don't talk. Boys practice their social skills more physically than girls who tend to do it more verbally than boys.

For example boys learn through play how to moderate aggression and understand what real aggression is and how to react to mock aggression ie recognise mock aggression as a jousting test. Wild animals rarely fight each other and this is because they have learned through play how to recognise the superiority of others through body language and verbal signals. If a child and in particular boys are deprived of early 'jousting' experience they don't 'get it' later and either end up bullied or bullying, they move to a safety behaviour of extreme passivity or aggression. This develops later on into the bullied trying to emulate the bully. Can you see the root of gang culture developing here?

Have to go out now but I'll say more if you're interested later.

ahhh, I see! I guess I took "mixed gender setting" as play is different when boys and girls play together. Not play is different from boys to girls.

That's really interesting and makes a lot of sense. I don't have kids or anything, but I recognize the characteristics that you pointed out.

[Tank]

There is a good reason why math superior to art.

Math is objective and requires a correct answer.

Art is completely subjective.  

The world needs great engineers and scientists and doctors - not starving artists.

So we'd have the perfect car and no art gallery to visit, or music to listen to, or books to read. You sound like the sort of person who knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing.

Mathematics can be artistic



If all you want is a utilitarian subsistence existance then please feel free to espouse the destruction of human imagination and spirituality. I on the other hand would like a world worth living in.

[KDbeads]

Why not have both?  Seriously, I didn't have art classes in school.  I had math and science.  It was at HOME I got my art 'education'.  Schools can't teach everything, if they did we'd probably still be attending grade school.  People forget learning is a day long/lifelong process, just because a kid gets home from school doesn't mean they shut off learning.  More things can be taught at home than how to turn on the TV and play N64/Xbox/Playstation.

I am an engineer, call me biased.  But I also create.  I build.  I do things that require artistic ability of some sort.  I don't paint but give me the tools and I can figure it out.  I used to play piano and clarinet.  Now I make quilts, sew, etc, but not from kits or many patterns, I engineer my own designs because I have the MATH background to do so.  I have enough SCIENCE background to preserve foods and make soap and figure out how to amend soil for gardening without needing a step by step manual or a years long apprenticeship.


Without artists, the world would be bland.  Without engineers (etc) you wouldn't have your blackberry, your cars, your high-rises, the internet, your computer, Shall I go on?

[Tank]

A perfect educational system would simply allow each person passing through it achieve the best level of attainment in all subjects that they possibly can. People with an aptitude for Maths should become good mathematicians, if they happen to be a good artist then they should be that too. Just like my son did.

[Intercourseman72]

"Do schools kill creativity?"

The shortest possible answer I could come up with to that is as follows: "Does the Pope defecate in heavily wooded areas?"

The whole intent behind getting a bunch of kids to fill out pieces of paper to complete tasks for future scrutiny and judgment by authority figures is not to test how innovative children are with novel concepts or to explore what new things they can come up with. It's to assert authority and getting kids to comply with orders. Getting kids to obey for grades or even just to "get things over with." The lucky ones are the ones who can somehow be shielded by the implied incentives given by the school environment (we are talking the prussian 19th century model of schooling here. Not the progressive schooling george carlin attended or the montessori schools) and maintain their creative drives. Likely, they are the kids who annoyed the teachers so much that they were just given a D and passed along because the schools just didn't want to bother dealing with them. That's what happened to some famous CEO or something or other who would always skip school to go surfing.

The effects school has had on me are that I don't start projects at my own will. Unless I am assigned to write something I don't go ahead and write amusing fictional works. I only express that when i grudgingly accept an assignment from school and am pissed off by all the parameters and throw them out usually anyway and somehow manage to produce I can be proud of after procrastinating until the morning the thing is due. I doubt I am alone, but that is just one of the many effects public schooling has had on me. It's pretty anecdotal and doesn't prove anything, but it's by no means an extraordinary claim to make and for me at least does not require of me to gather extraordinary evidence.

[Byronazriel]

I hated school. The only reasons I went was for science class, the occasional art class, and free internet access/lunch.

I liked science class because I was good at it, and it was interesting. The only problem I had with it was that I would always finish my workbook months ahead of schedule... Which usually meant I would do boring crossword puzzles in the corner, that really didn't help with my social life. Most people were under the impression that I was a retard, probably because I looked a lot older than I actually was and attended special ed for math. I was in that class every year at the same level since I started that particular school, I was transferred, and when I transferred back to my original school I was put in an ADVANCED math class. By the way, I was in that school district for over six years and never advanced beyond pre-algebra... In my original school, which is literally four blocks away from my house, I tested into trig and AP calculus the first day I started after I transferred back. I also got good grades, and even a few student of the month awards. My mother was the one who transferred me out of town so I could get a "proper" education at a city school...

I have ADHD, and math is really tedious and repetitive... I am also really stubborn. Eventually I learned that copious amounts of caffeine, and a few tricks could get me through a math class or two.

The school systems need a lot of reform, but ultimately artistic types are going to be artistic types and the mathematically inclined are going to stay the mathematically inclined. Schools do have an influence in the way kids develop, but as long as the arts have any sort of place in schools it will attract those who walk that path like an ant to twinkie. Any publicity is good publicity.

From what I understand of education primary school is about teaching children Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. Secondary school is about refining those three, and introducing the next big three: Art, Science, and Philosophy. College is naturally where students expand upon these, and prepare for their life ahead.
 
Honestly, I learned a lot more on my own than I ever did in school. I even got a GED early because I was so bored of doing the same crap over and over...

I then went to college, where I first tried to major in chemistry, but found it wasn't the right fit for me... too much math. I then started on the path towards getting a double major in philosophy and writing, but dropped out before anything came of it.

I may go back one day, perhaps to a culinary institute... But for the moment I am content to write novels that no one will read, and fan fiction that will never bring home the bacon. At least I have my principles... And a plasma TV.

Novels and fan fiction doesn't make much money, but freelance work brings in more than enough to live comfortably... At least until I have to start paying all my own bills, and/or start a family.

[fishyfish]

I really think that as parents, you also need to be part of your kids' education.  If you think art and creativity is important, then develop these in your kids yourself.