Schools Kill Creativity
I watched this Ted talk a few weeks ago. Since then I've been able to walk around with my head held high. I've always felt like I didn't belong in school. I've always felt like the way I was taught in school just didn't work for me. Since moving on in my life, I've found the things that I love and I've grasped them with all of my ability and I've embraced them. While in school, I was that kid. I was that kid that would sit in the back and draw. I would draw anything and everything I could think of. My drawings were never any good, but they enabled me to escape into my own little world. I never did exceptionally well in school. I was always told I was bright and that if I would just put my mind to it, to something, then I would be able to be successful at it. That something was supposed to be my academics - the maths, sciences, literature, etc. Oh, how I hated literature.
I never did very well with the teachers that everyone else loved. Rather, I excelled with the teachers that everyone else hated. I'm not quite sure why that was, but it's the way it always worked out. Mrs. Hodge in 4th grade was the teacher that made parents pull their kids from public school and put them into private school. I received an 'E' for excellence in behavior. No one liked our 7th grade Art teacher, they hated her in fact. I took two semesters of Art from her because we got along so well.
Thinking back about these teachers, I think I got along with these teachers so well because they got me. They understood that I needed to be me. They understood that the system was broken and that all they could do in the mean time was to help those students that came through their classrooms.
In kindergarden, I had a teacher literally tell my mother that I had to have Attention Deficit Disorder. She insisted that the school counselor come and sit in on one of our classes. The counselor did. That day, we were given group puzzles to work on. Apparently I sat and worked on that puzzle for about an hour until I had solved it. She didn't find anything out of the ordinary and she let my teacher know. The teacher was quite upset because 'this was not how I normally acted'. She contacted my mom and insisted that I be tested. So, off I went, to be tested. The same things happened. They sat me down and put some puzzles in front of me. I worked and worked and worked on those puzzles until I had solved them. They came back and said I didn't have ADD, I just needed to be engaged and that I was bored in school. The teacher still wasn't happy.
In this video, when he talks about Gillian Lynne, and how she was put through the same situation, only back in the '30s, I'm given hope. I'm given a renewed sense of 'can do'. Here's an incredibly successful woman, who knew she had a tallent, an ability, that needed to be nurtured. Yet she was treated as an outcast by those in the system. Luckally she found her calling and her own mother helped her to achieve her dreams. Does this make her any less intelligent? Any less bright? Any less educated? I should say not.
The fact of the matter is that our educational system is broken. We're teaching our children based on notions that were ideal in the industrial age. These same ideals are absolutely archaic in todays age. These ideals stagnate us for advancement. If we're not allowing our children to think creatively, we're stifling our chances at inventing the solutions to our problems and the solutions for our future. We've proven that the minds of today don't have the ability to come up with the solutions that we need in order to launch ourselves into the future.
Rather than telling our children that they shouldn't pursue their dreams because they're 'nonsense', why not embrace them, and stand with them? Who knows what just might happen. We might just save humanity from drowning in a sea of sorrow.
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