Are Schools Killing Creativity?

I am going to be completely honest in saying I have never really considered this question. School is school, and education is education and education is hardly creative.

I remember my year 12 media teacher showing us a video that some of the year 10s had put together that was just so unbelievably wacky and out there. She showed us this before we began working on our assignments and said: “The younger ones just have no shame! They come up with the strangest ideas.”

This really relates to what Sir Ken Robinson talks about in the video Do Schools Kill Creativity, in that students seem to get less flexible with their ideas and less creative as they get older. We all struggled to come up with ideas that we were willing to share or act out, whereas I remember in year 10 putting together a media film with a group of three girls and running around the school dressed in a black sheet as a Dementor.

I also remember in high school referring to art and music as ‘bludge’ subjects, or subjects of little importance that I didn’t need to put any effort into.

I do agree with Sir Robinson as we should be fostering the growth of creative ideas and encouraging children to pursue creative outlets, not telling them to give up as they will never find a job in more creative areas.

 

 

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