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Wednesday 10 March 2010

Do schools kill creativity?



An inspiring presentation by Ken Robinson provoking us to change the way we educate our children. Children need to be motivated to discover their strengths and weaknesses and should not be afraid to make mistakes. We have all been led to believe that holding a diploma of some sort makes you an intelligent person, but what about all the students prevailing in other subjects? Is their intelligence inferior?

Some interesting quotes from the presentation:

"Many talented, creative, brilliant people think they're not!"
"Our body is used as a means of carrying our head"
"If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."

Ken Robinson gives us some food for thought. All over the world education systems have the same hierarchy, math, science and language are of a higher status. I'm sure we've all caught ourselves (myself included) at some point or another, saying that music and art are not so important and that our children should focus on the "important" subjects. "You'll never have job security as a dancer so go to your room and study for your science test!" Some try a more subtle approach, "Acting is a great hobby, but it doesn't pay the bills."

Greece is a typical example of the endless chase for diplomas and certificates. Children are pressured from a very young age not to develop their talents but to acquire as many qualifications as possible and of course gain entrance to a higher education. It's time we saw students for what they really are -students , not walking memories waiting to be stuffed with unimportant facts.

*Στο video υπάρχουν και ελληνικοί υπότιτλοι. (View subtitles-> Greek)

2 comments:

Torn Halves said...

The answer to the question in your title is surely "Yes", but there is another question: "Do schools have to kill creativity?" and the answer to that is surely "No". As teachers we can set up tasks that require students to be imaginative and come up with their own ideas and thoughts. If we have to give marks, we can do so for things like originality, imagination, depth and critical engagement. We need to put the emphasis on questions where it is obvious that there is no one right answer.

english.gr Κεντρο Ξενων Γλωσσων said...

Thank you for dropping by our blog Torn Halves. I apologise for the delay in my response. This blog has been bombarded by spam lately.

I agree with you that schools do kill creativity. In a perfect world we would be able to give marks only for al those factors you mentioned. Why not grade students on their effort as well. Unfortunately,the focus is always on exams and qualifications and that's what parents look for too.

It is our responsibility to try to balance the emphasis on qualifications and the emphasis on real-life skills.

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