Creativity is the most valuable resource we have available.
It is the foundation upon which both the arts and sciences are established.
There is no situation in the world where the phrase, "Oh, what a predictable solution!" is considered praise.
And yet, institutions, I would say categorically kill creativity in youth.
Sir Ken Robinson makes one of the most compelling appeals to redeveloping the school model in order to capitalize rather than economize our growing workforce in an ever-changing world:
If you don't have time to watch the entire TED talk (which is brilliant) here are some key points:
- Creativity (defined) is the ability to come up with new ideas that have value
- Creativity is impossible without the ability to fail or to make mistakes
- Failure and mistakes are precisely the thing schools stigmatize every day
- Creativity is not learned, but natural, and can be schooled out of children
Here is a chart of the Scientific Method:
I've made it color coded for convenience and to be less scary.
It is a flow chart, essentially you come up with an idea, draw on past experience, test it, figure out of it is working, and if it is, draw conclusions, and finally share that with others.
Now this chart daunts middle/high schoolers of all ages.
AND YET! AAAAAAND YET!
Babies do this.
That's right.
Fucking babies:
Babies perform research.
They have rich, detailed ideas about how the world works, and when it doesn't fit into their mold, they engage with it, expecting further discoveries.
Creativity and research go hand in hand since we are infants.
To squash one will kill the other.
It is so innately human to be curious about the world, to feel awe in the face of wondrous objects, and to search for truth and replicate it.
And yet we deny children and teenagers the ability to search for their own unique perspective on the world: schools cut funding to sports and arts programs, colleges are reduced or combined, and parents and teachers tell children that their hobbies are not careers.This is the single greatest calamity to happen to the education of our youth, a remnant of the Industrial Era where our education system is lodged, where children are run with factory bells to train them (can you say: Pavlovian conditioning?), where maths, sciences, and finally the humanities are given importance, rather than equal or individual study.
Keith Johnstone, an improviser and theatre teacher, says this in his seminal work Improv:
I once had a close rapport with a teenager who seemed 'mad' when she was with other people, but relativly normal when she was with me. I treated her rather as I would a Mask--that is to say, I was gentle, and I didn't try to impose my reality on her.
I'm remembering her now because of an interaction she had with a very gentle, motherly schoolteacher. We were in a beautiful garden (where the teenager had just seen God) and the teacher picked a flower and said: 'Look at the pretty flower, Betty.'
Betty, filled with spiritual radiance, said, 'All the flowers are beautiful.'
'Ah,' said the teacher, blocking her, 'but this flower is especially beautiful.'Betty rolled on the ground screaming. Nobody seemed to notice that she was screaming, 'Can't you see? Can't you see!'
In the gentlest possible way, this teacher had been very violent. She was insisting on categorising, and selecting. Actually it is crazy to insist that one flower is especially beautiful in a whole garden of flowers, but the teacher is allowed to do this, and it is not perceived by sane people as violent. Grown-ups are expected to distort the perceptions of the child in this way. Since then I've noticed sch behavior constantly, but it took the mad girl to open my eyes to it.I say let us be gentle with one another, let us not insist or push our own realities on one another.
In so doing, I hope that we can understand one another and learn from one another.
No one can teach you to be creative, no one can teach you to be an artist, no one can teach you to be a scientist; you already are one.
And no one can take that from you.
