Life and learning: Are we killing creativity?
Photo by Dragos Gontariu on Unsplash
I strongly believe in education. But what interests me is what an education means and how children are educated – why do we naturally think first of Maths or Science and Arts or Dance last? Is creativity or diversity part of the curriculum of education?
“My contention is all kids have tremendous talents and we squander them, pretty ruthlessly”
- Sir Ken Robinson.
With views reaching over 65 million since its first release in 2006, Sir Ken’s talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” is still the most watched video on the TED platform. Why? Maybe it’s because Sir Ken’s talk is really funny but I think it’s because he really understands creativity and what he says speaks a lot of truth.
Having underlined the idea that all children have the capacity for extraordinary innovation, Sir Ken states that creativity “comes through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things” and that intelligence is diverse.
When we apply this to the way we frame the significance of creativity in our lives and at work, we see that innovation is often the result of diverse thought and is influenced by the presence of different voices, reached through collaborative efforts.
“And you cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.”
Sir Ken believed in the transformational power of education - that children should be taught in an organic fashion more in line with the natural course of human development as opposed to treating learning as a “mechanical process”.
Just last week, my mother told my sister off for cutting into her clothes. She is six years old with an affinity for creativity but whenever she asks for more than two or three sweeties, I really ought to say no.
“No” teaches discipline and is better than “alright then”; it also means fewer cavities, less dentist fees, dinner first, and a treat once or twice a week. “No” is healthy, I guess. But there is also a part of me that feels that “no” is trying to force a social construct on us, that we should learn in the mechanical way Sir Ken warns us about.
Learning to be disciplined is an important path to growth, but in life and especially during lockdown, there’s not always time for “no”. We have slowly tipped from healthy into havoc and the cycle just continues.
In the time I have refrained from saying “no”, my sister’s little fingers have grown to know no limits and her aspirations deny any thought to cost for the trail of ripped up clothing she leaves in her wake. In short, she’ll butcher anything!
Although my mother is an open advocate for what is artistic, she doesn’t believe in making deliberate holes in perfectly good clothes. The result? My sister is told off and pointed to the naughty step.
As Ken implies, ideas are often informed by different sources and, being aware this can include memories of a unique lived experience, I am keen to create lasting ones that allow my sister to remember her childhood with fondness, having seen how it prepared her to look to the future.
With these thoughts in my head, I think about alternative ways of approaching this scenario – perhaps we could show her how to mend her clothes. From learning to sew, she could find a desire to knit, craft or design clothes, thereby feeding her creativity.
As creators in this industry, I believe we must cherish young minds and help them to grow through encouragement and alternative methods of teaching – allow children to forge their own paths of creativity. Afterall, it’s exciting not knowing what ideas could lead us to extraordinary new beginnings.
