Schools Kill Creativity

Near the beginning of the school year our class had a discussion about how schools often want you to think in one way and that way is the right way. Those who have different interpretations are immediately shut down and told they are wrong. Thus, imagination and creativity is discouraged and even worse, forgotten.

I watched a TED Talk yesterday, the most watched in history (having about 25 million views), that was about how schools undermine the creativity that people are born with. Ken Robinson, former college professor and creativity expert, explains how schools often strip away the creativity that students have naturally. He says that although people think that people need to create their own destiny, they are already born with it but have lost it due to the education systems. I strongly suggest you watch it, and even though it's 20 minutes long, it's one of the most engaging videos I've seen in a while.

"Every education system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts." It's interesting to see that there is always such a systematic and structure-filled approach to learning, and even from the way that classes are ranked by importance we can see that some classes are discarded because they are not taken with priority. It's almost sad that the humanities and arts are often so belittled that they become unimportant and unachievable in the work field, which undermines their importance in life.

Near the end of the video, Robinson states, "Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip mine the Earth for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles in which we are educating our children." I couldn't have phrased it any better, and I think that this American Studies class is the first step in this improvement, as our class encourages creative and innovative thinking and urges people to think things in their own interpretation of it, which should give other classes an idea of a more efficient and beneficial way to teach.