childhood

Education is what you plant in students not what you pour in to them.

August 27, 2013 — Leave a comment

I watched the speech by Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?  as there was no unlecture on this week (even though I actually showed up).

 

When I was in grade 2 at school we had to colour in a picture of a wombat. Everyone in the classroom coloured theirs in brown, except for one girl. She coloured hers in purple.

The teacher got angry at her and told her to rub it out and change the colour. She asked why she couldn’t leave it in purple. The teacher simply replied that purple wombats do not exist so it would be stupid to colour hers in that colour. She reluctantly obeyed.

But why can’t there be a purple wombat? This story has stuck with me over the past decade because when I first saw her colouring in the first thing I thought as a seven year old was ‘genius!’. At the time in art we were studying Pablo Picasso, one of the most famous artists that had ever lived. He painted people in green. But green people do not exist. Yet his work is seen as genius.

What about Dr. Suess? I idolised Dr. Suess as a child. Lorax’s do not exist. Ham and eggs are not green. A whole world of Who’s can not exist on a dust spec on a flower.

Like Ken, I think that adults have got it all wrong. Kids are not afraid of being wrong. That is what allows them to have such a huge imagination. In their minds wombats can be purple. A whole world of Who’s can exist on a single dust spec. If you’re too afraid to be wrong you’ll never come up with something new, something original. This is why the education system should consider all aspects of education. Creativity is just as important as literacy. As Einstein said, ‘The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination’.However it always annoyed me how as children we were steered away from the subjects we enjoyed like art (which used to be my favourite) on the grounds that ‘we would never get a job doing that’.

Well my dad taught me otherwise, and I am so thankful for it. He always said choose a job you’re passionate about because when you are older you’ll be a lot happier if you wake up in the morning excited for what you have to do. If you love what you do the money will come. I put all my trust into his words and that is why I am studying media. I love films. I don’t care how corny it sounds, I want to spend the rest of my life making films that make me happy. And if any one person happens to enjoy one of my films too then I will feel successful.

Creativity is something that everyone starts off with, however we are educated out of it. We are told to think responsibly. We are told to grow up.

So I will leave you with my absolute favourite quote of all time by my idol.

 

“Too many people grow up. That’s the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don’t remember what it’s like to be 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors. Well I won’t do that.”

 

-Walt Disney

 

 

The closer you look, the less you will see.

August 20, 2013 — Leave a comment

I recently went and saw the film “Now You See Me” which I was pretty excited for considering I love magicians. It had nothing on the prestige, although I still reallllly enjoyed it, just because any trick a magician does whether it is an elaborate underwater cage escape or a simple card trick, freaks me out (in a good way).

Has anyone seen Dynamo on TV?  If you haven’t I recommend you YouTube him right now. RIGHT NOW. He’s amazing. He has me convinced that he’s a wizard. He must have some sort of degree in black magic. He performs street magic by approaching random people in the street. He moves tan lines up people’s arms or makes objects disappear right in front of your eyes. What I said right there wasn’t even very impressive but I assure you if you watch an episode of his show you’ll be mind blown.

A while ago I watched a magician live performance. There was this certain trick that stuck with me. I cannot figure out how it was even slightly possible. The magician got an audience member to sign a piece of paper. The magician then grabbed a banana, peeled it, cut it in half and in the middle of the banana he pulled out a piece of paper. The signed piece of paper. My face was like…

THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE ANY SENSE.

 

In today’s society we are always told that there is a rational explanation for everything and that is why I find magicians like these so fascinating. In our minds we know that magic does not exist, however what we are presented with before our eyes seems to have no other explanation. It takes me back to when I was a child and I didn’t really understand the world around me which led me to believe all sorts of crazy things like monsters and all that stuff. Magicians are a flicker of childhood, a flicker of imagination. Something that twists everything I believed in before and now makes me question whether my eyes are decieving me. How did that tan line move up the girls arm? How did the piece of paper get inside the banana? As much as I am dying to find out, I’d rather not know. Although the world now seems to have a thirst for reality. News programs are always hunting down figures to the decimal point. “What is your microwave really doing to you and your family?” “Are your supermarkets scamming you?”. At the end of the day I think adults enjoy watching someone perform that brings back that nostalgic feeling of childhood.

 

Anyway I am tempted to drop out of uni and become a magician’s apprentice and learn all of their secrets and become the most mysterious person in the world.