Schools Should Teach Creativity



Perhaps your experiences differ from mine, but as I went through school, creativity and imagination lost focus. From games and activities in early years, to almost entirely fact based 'by-the-rules' type projects in the later years. It almost felt as if moving away from creativity was being pushed as being a part of "growing up".

I think this can be seen in the attitudes of students as they go through the years. If you ask a class full of 6 year olds and a class full of 16 year olds if they want to be there, the 16 year olds will undoubtedly have a larger percentage that would rather be somewhere else – anywhere else. There are a lot of reasons for that, but I think one of the biggest is that it's not fun.

What do you get when you focus a bit more on nurturing creativity? Stories. Art. Science. Technology.

Without creativity, there is no progress.

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4 Comments »

  1. spudart said,

    Agreed.

    You should check out Bernie DeKoven's blog http://www.deepfun.com/

    September 9, 2009 @ 5:58 pm


  2. cactus Joe said,

    I was just reading a book subtitled "Why All the Music You Hear Sucks" and in one of the later chapters he talks about how arts and music funding has been cut in the schools and how studies show that not only does this breed cultural illiteracy (young people are subject to the very narrow sampling of music they hear on the radio, which they think represents "good" music, because the record companies must know what is best for us…), but also makes kids dumber. They compared schools with and without music programs, and the kids who had music were way smarter. Now there is probably some bias there, since socioeconomics affect the amount of funding schools get overall, but it still validates my raison d'etre as a rocker. I will check out that link from Spudart.

    September 10, 2009 @ 8:49 am


  3. kim said,

    Agreed. Thus why band and choir were my favorite classes in school? 😛

    September 15, 2009 @ 11:37 am


  4. Abby Connors said,

    I agree that school should teach creativity – my website includes musical, storytelling, and dramatic activities I've taught for twenty years – hope you find it helpful!

    September 18, 2009 @ 7:43 am


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