Do Schools Kill Creativity - Aysha Tak

This question has been the talk of the town for a while now. Creativity is as important in education as Literacy. However, children are being taught that it's important to do things the right way rather than giving it a try and if wrong, make necessary changes. Being creative means that you have to be willing to be wrong and that you're willing to try and the education system treats being wrong as the worst thing possible. In doing this, we are taking away a child's natural urge to ‘give it a go’.

All education systems globally have a ‘hierarchy’, with math and language at the top, social sciences in the middle and arts at the bottom. This is because of the childhood education the system was developed to satisfy the industrial revolution of the 19th century, where math and science were essential for jobs, but we need to understand that times have changed.

While once people just needed school for a good job, then a bachelor degree, and now these degrees are no guarantee for a job. Degrees have had a form of inflation over time, and this shows it is shifting too quickly. Having children go to school just to attend university is not really equipping them to work any more!

 We know 3 things about intelligence

• It is diverse – we think in many ways – visually, in sound, movement and abstract, being a few. 
• It is dynamic – original ideas come about from the interaction of many different ways of seeing things.
• It is distinct – people have their way of doing things – Ken’s example is a ‘problem student’ who couldn’t sit still at school, but when moved to a dance school fit in fine – she needed to move to think. Her dance skills went on to give her immense fame and fortune, bringing value to millions of people. 

In modern times, she would probably have been given ADHD medication and been put told to calm down.

We need to redefine our education system – our current way is one of ‘strip-mining’ our children for the most desired properties, in the same way, we mine the Earth for ore. We now need to use our imaginations and creativity wisely, to face an uncertain and problematic future. We may not see this future close and clear, but we do need to equip our children to conquer it in the best ways possible. 

Aysha Tak
The Fabindia School
Email atk4fab@gmail.com