Schools Kill Creativity?

I had to do a forum post for my hybrid class of Children Development II.   As from the look of my post below and past blog posts, I can be rather long winded.  But since I am taking this Creative Writing II class, I decided to share my post since it was on the wonders of creativity.

Sir Ken Robinson's big point of Schools Kill Creativity is that creativity is just as important as learning how to read.  Creativity is squandered by today's standards.  Creativity is part of being human and one of our most extraordinary gifts.  We have no clue what the future holds.  Children have an extraordinary capacity for innovation.  Yes, I am summing up some of his points.

I loved his stories, especially the one about the teacher and the six-year-old girl.  It sounded like a joke, but I could so see it happen.  The teacher asks the girl, "What are you drawing?"  The little girl said, "I'm drawing God."  The teacher responded with, "But no one knows what God looks like."  The little girl responded back, "They will in a minute."  That made me laugh.  The one with his son also made me laugh because frankincense does sound like "Frank sent this." 

But his whole point is that children will take a chance even if they have no clue where to go with it.  Children are not afraid of being wrong and making mistakes.  Creativity comes from the fact of people and children taking risks   With time they are taught, mistakes are bad and wrong and children and people become afraid to take risks.

He believes that the creative arts are just as important as any subject.  Almost anywhere in the world, people value mathematics -I think he meant to put science somewhere in here also- and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom is art.  He says this is due to the Industrial Revolution, though it helped standardize education, but also made getting a job a priority-"Don't do that because you won't get a job"- and we see intelligence is shaped by academic ability.  Children and people are geared to go to get a higher education, but people can also feel deterred since they did not get the right grades in school.

He believes that we need to adopt a new outlook on human ecology where we need to take a new view on how we look at intelligence and how we educate our children.  We need to embrace creativity, imagination, and educate their whole being.

I actually agree with him.  I think a lot of early education programs have the right idea already.  I have heard more than one of my GTCC Early Education professors say that they wished the later grades taught more like the early education programs where the whole child is embraced.  I think the type of education and how we look at intelligence that Sir Robinson is talking about will embrace all types of different intelligences of the child and of many people.