Do Schools Kill Creativity

Last Thursday in my Instructional Technology class at York College we watched a presentation given by Ken Robinson at last years TED conference title, "Do Schools Kill Creativity?". While he was giving his speech, our class was back channeling on a document in order to share thoughts with each other and to dig a little deeper into this topic.

One of my classmates has this to say, "All schools want are results and test scores, but an education is much more than that. Being creative and doing something outside of vocabulary and math problems helps children to release stress and think with a difference part of their brain.". I have to agree, if we continue to push for higher test scores and make curriculum tighter and more streamlined to cram everything "testable" in, there is less free time for even the teacher to express any creativity. When students want to express their creative side some of their only outlets, within a school day, are the arts and increasingly we find them first on the chopping block when budgets and test scores collide.

Mr. Robinson spoke about the need for creativity in schools, especially through the arts and he tied it into being wrong, or students being afraid to be wrong. He made the point that nothing creative will ever come out of someone who is ashamed to fail and he's right. We are killing creativity not by just cutting the arts, not just by over testing, but by instilling in our students that being correct is highest achievement there is and being wrong is abject failure. Perhaps finding a way to express creativity starts with saying "maybe" a bit more often.