Creativity

This is meant to be a discussion about creativity, but also it's place in schools, society, and everyday life. What do you do that's creative? How do you become more creative? Why is creativity important? Anything and everything, and to open up the floor, I have hired Sir Ken Robinson, thank you everyone.




EDIT: Sorry for the commercial at the end.

Creativity, Children & Education

It is true that the educational system is severely lacking in terms of creativity. Comparing my brothers schooling to my own, I see less creativity and imagination, replaced with more detailed knowledge of sciences, history, and more. Is education and intelligence more important than creativity and imagination? No. Should education and intelligence be the primary focus within a public school? Yes.

With the example of Gillian Lynne, he talks about how she was reprimanded at her school for being unable to pay attention in class. In this example, Gillian is taken to the doctor and he discovered her ability to dance, her personal creative outlet that must have conquered her ability to pay attention. Her mother nurtured this gift by taking her to a special school, where Gillian became a very successful and talented woman. In my eyes, the importance of this example is not that the school was wrong about her, that they somehow mistook the prodigy for a bad student.

It was not the school's responsibility to discover her skills to begin with. It was her parents. Just as he said; "Someone else would have put her on medication." It's true, a modern parent would likely do such a thing. That is why I think it is so important for the parent to be the person(s) who nurture the creative outlet in their child's minds. Parents need to pay close attention to their children; they are responsible for them, not just for survival! If you want your child to amount to something more than yourself, you need to put as much care and devotion into them as your life allows you to do.

Though I excelled in school, my father and mother still nurtured my creative abilities by signing me up for after school art and dance classes (since they were at work, it was a better option than babysitting). Also, I was urged to read, and write, and my father would always challenge me both intellectually and imaginatively. When I failed in one area, I was challenged in another, and when I succeeded there, I'd be challenged again elsewhere. Because of this, I am both an intellect and an imaginative soul. Indeed, my family survives on intelligence; but thrives on creativity. I will pass this on to the next generation.

What do you do that's creative?

I do everything. I daydream, I read, I write, I draw, I take pictures, I play games: video, board, or just running around the yard with kids in a make believe story! I don't excel in any one part, instead I dabble between all sorts of different creative outlets. I am truly a jack of all trades, master at none.

How do you become more creative?

Instead of becoming more creative, I've chosen preserve my level creativeness and pass it onto my son, my brothers, anyone who wants it, needs it, or is curious about it. I am happy with who I am, and I spread what little I know and do to those around me, in hopes that something may peak their interest. Who knows, maybe one amateur thing I accomplish will inspire a truly talented person to accept their creativity and let it blossom.

Why is creativity important?

Creativity has boundaries only in the mind who holds it; which is why I find it so important to pass it on to others. This is how inventions and technology come to be; the same idea is passed from generation to generation until one mind is creative enough to expand the idea into something new, something better. Creativity will never die, no matter how much the public tries to squash it.

Sorry my thoughts are choppy, I didn't even get to talk about academic inflation (something I'm sadly experiencing at the moment). Anyway, I just thought that this video merited a response, even if my thoughts aren't fluid and well written.

Creativity, Children & Education

School was always a brooding pit for me. I always had the greatest inspiration and motivation to write while at school. And spending 7 years in a school isolated in the mountains with never more than 25 students (a high max), creativity was kind of fostered. More so than here in a city. So I think school actually helped me. However, I do realize that is not the case elsewhere. In high school, I simply didn't care. I spent most of the class periods writing notes on my world instead of the lecture. I still do in college...

What do you do that's creative?

I write. I create. I love creating, and writing. I have an entire world I would love to write about, but I have trouble writing it out, except in notes that no one besides me would want to read. I also play a lot of video games, which inspire me to write more as they expand me idea database. Reading does that for me as well. I've read quite a few books

How do you become more creative?

Well...I'm still working on that. I'm hoping that I can actually write my books someday, and then I will consider that the peak of my creativity.

Why is creativity important?

Well...with creativity you have technology, you have innovation, you have entertainment, you have dreams, and, last but not least, you have religion (a staple for many, many people, myself not included).

I watched this video as part of my Creativity Class, (before you ask, no, it's not about teaching creativity, it's more of a study of what is creative. Read: A good excuse to go to productions for cheap.), and as such have already discussed this video somewhat.

I must say, that I fall into the disobedient prodigy class. I was fidgety in school, and would often flop around on the floor, and such. I was going to be put on Riddilin (sp?), but then the school came out with a self-directed program, (read: special care). I was put into it, and I finished the entire math curriculum in half the time. Such a shame reality crushed my hard work ethics.

Anyways, in our class, my professor postulated this; Given a number of subjects, there was probably that one subject that you really didn't get. You did well in all the other courses, but the teachers and parents kept nagging you to pick up your grades in this one area. So you put 90% of your time and effort into that one thing to get average, marks, when you could have been spending your time doing something you enjoy and doing well.

Also, I was really hit home with the stigmatism of failure. I know that I, (one among many), have asked a silly, or off the wall question in class, and have never since lived it down (at least in my mind). I think schools (and work) should not focus so much on 'doing' right and wrong, so much as a process of trial and error, or an evolution. Later in life it's the missed opportunities in life we will regret, not the 'wrong answer', or the 'silly idea'. I find that silly ideas are often the most exciting, and the most, shall we say, creative?

Those are great points! I know that I have refrained from speaking up in class, either to offer a suggestion to a problem or to ask a question, because of the fear of being wrong. It is something I still haven't gotten over, and likely never will. Even if I know the right answer, I still don't usually speak up (just in case, y'know?)

Perhaps it would be easier to teach kids to speak up if they knew that every right or wrong answer was necessary to figuring out not just what was right, but how the whole thing works and how to reach that right answer, by evaluating and considering every option.

If class size were say, 10:1 or so, it would be much easier to explore the 'silly ideas' offered by children in class. But when a teacher is forced to stick to a certain syllabus, and she has 30-40 children each with unique creative ideas, there is no way she can address each individual one as well as keep up with the workload.

So while I understand what you are saying, I don't see how it can be implemented into schools as of now. I'm all for a big revision of the public school system, but I have some of my own ideas that I want to see go into action first (like basic anthropology courses in high school, evolution taught NOT alongside intelligent design, etc.)

Well, the problem with class size and subject availability is directly related with school funding. Schools simply don't get enough money. If they did, there would be more school buildings and as well as more teachers, and that would result in a wider range of topics available to students. So, if schools and teachers had more money, you would have more creativity. Being forced to work with a limited budget means that creativity is stifled so that the basics can be taught they way those in charge say they are to be taught. There is no room for variation.

So, basically, more money to the educational system solves both problems. I could be wrong though. A more knowledgeable person is more than welcome to correct me.

I agree that the amount of creative classes and just how much variance they have depends heavily on the school's budget.

Silvone, you attended a very small school! I've never even heard of any being that tiny! Here, I thought mine was small. We had less than 80 kids in my graduating class. I always thought it was strange that some people went to high schools where they didn't even know everyone in their own grade. My fiancé attended a large school like that.

Our school was in a very small town called Orion (which was also the name of the school), and I don't know about elsewhere, but at Orion, they were at one time considering cutting things like golf, chorus, and I believe track to save money. It ultimately never happened. We only ever had one single art class that we could choose to take each year too, unlike a lot of high schools, where students get to choose between types of art classes. Our art teacher was good about introducing us into many mediums of art, so we got to expand our horizons a bit more by learning more diverse things than just one single medium.

If class size were say, 10:1 or so, it would be much easier to explore the 'silly ideas' offered by children in class. But when a teacher is forced to stick to a certain syllabus, and she has 30-40 children each with unique creative ideas, there is no way she can address each individual one as well as keep up with the workload.

That is quite true.

My mom is a teacher who teaches a 5th grade class, so she experiences a lot of this. (Originally, she was a kindergarden teacher, but then she stopped to become a stay-at-home mom. When my brother and I were a bit older, she started subbing, and did that for 10 or so years before finally starting to teach again.) When it comes to creativity though, my mom isn't the art teacher, but she often times has her students doing very thought-provoking and creative assignments, such as writing about an invention that they'd want to make and drawing a picture of it, then explaining it to the class. Unlike some other teachers that teach there, she's even spent quite a bit of her money decorating her classroom and it filling it with colorful posters, books, pictures, and such. She even brought in a beanbag seat of mine that I no longer wanted for them to sit on and read in the reading corner. She also printed out some of my artwork to display in the classroom. So, while it isn't her job to necessarily teach them to be creative in most ways we think of creativity, she does help to inspire it.

You make a good point Fate; each teacher has their own range of creativity, and chooses whether or not to implement it in the classroom. Surely, the teachers that choose to do so become well rounded individuals who are very likely favored by the students.

While I wish I could say 'all teachers must be more creative in the classroom', the fact is that your mother put personal money into her job to expand the creative field within it - and that is not something you can ask every teacher to do. Not everyone has the means or the will to put forth their own earnings in order to give a better quality to their surroundings!