"Education" is squashing creativity

[brymble]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/11/03/robinson.schools.stifle.creativity/index.html


What is the argument? In a nutshell, it's that we're all born with immense natural talents but our institutions, especially education, tend to stifle many of them and as a result we are fomenting a human and an economic disaster.

In education, this vast waste of talent involves a combination of factors. They include a narrow emphasis on certain sorts of academic work; the exile of arts, humanities and physical education programs from schools; arid approaches to teaching math and sciences; an obsessive culture of standardized testing and tight financial pressures to teach to the tests.

The result is a disastrous waste of talent among students and their teachers. To sense the scale of this disaster, you only have to look at the alarming rates of turnover among faculty and the levels of drop out, disaffection, stress and prescription drug use among students. Even for students who stay the course and do well in education, the rules of success have changed irrevocably. Just look at the plummeting value of college degrees.


It happens in part because the dominant systems of education are rooted in the values and demands of industrialism: they are linear, mechanistic and focused on conformity and standardization. Nowadays, they're buttressed by major commercial interests in mass testing and by the indiscriminate use of prescription drugs that keep students' minds from wandering to things they naturally find more interesting.

The tragedy is that meeting the many social, economic, spiritual and environmental challenges we now face depends absolutely on the very capacities of insight, creativity and innovation that these systems are systematically suppressing in yet another generation of young people.


Education is about developing human beings, and human development is not mechanical or linear. It is organic and dynamic.

[wrenjamin]

Scary. I am working on my masters degree in education right now, and it seems as though we are constantly trying to figure out ways to avoid everything that article said....

[Human]

What a beautiful speech.

[halolain]

Wow! What an intellegent, funny man. I agree with everything he said. And I'm so glad I took my children out of school to home-educate them myself. They hated going because they love music & painting etc, which they only had one lesson of each a week. Children should be able to express themselves through art & music at least as much as they need to learn the basics like maths, english & science.

[)O( ~ Khara~ )O(]

This is why it is more important than ever to fight to keep arts funding in the school system! It allows that creative expression on a regular basis. Gives the child a chance to try out different things and know what they like or dislike and what works best for them.

[Tiberias]

Alarmist old dude is alarmist.

[Terra Mater]

Yeah its all the fault of the schools and not at all the fault of the parents who are too busy and too worried about the mess that would be made if they let the kids be creative at home.

Parents want to increase creativity in their kids but scream when Johnny or Susie draws on the walls. If its their room then what is the harm in letting them draw on their walls and then teaching them how to repaint the walls when they get full. What is more important: your child's creativity or how pretty the walls look? Renting? That's what washable markers are for.

Parents want to whine about the schools not encouraging more creativity but discourage their little ones from making mud pies and decorating their own cupcakes and cutting out their own cookies. Put down a tarp in the kitchen and let the kids go to town with decorating the cupcakes and each other with the frosting. They drag a little mud in the house, then clean it up. Don't tell me you don't have the time, you chose to have the kids, make the damned time.

Can't afford top quality crafting supplies? Make salt dough and paint it with diluted food coloring or color the dough itself. Want some edible clay, do a search for peanut butter play dough.

Parents take their kids out to homeschool them and talk about the joys that their kids are having in their lessons and forget that most of life's lessons aren't fun and aren't easy and leave their children ill equipped to deal with the harsh realities of life and wonder what the hell happened when their home schooled child ends up flipping burgers and digging ditches for a career because their parents were too worried about what the child wanted and being their buddy to focus on what the child needed and being their parent.

Of course, its easier to blame the schools. If its all the fault of the schools then the parents do not have to work on changing their own techniques.

So while it may partly be the fault of the schools, its more the fault of the parents who fail to provide at home what is missing at school.

[Denikke]

So while it may partly be the fault of the schools, its more the fault of the parents who fail to provide at home what is missing at school.

Terra, I have to agree with you here. I think society in general is failing the kids. But it all starts at home right? A lot of parents have lost sight of what their kids really need. It's not just food and water and clothes and shelter. It's not just love. So many people have forgotten how to play or be creative or have fun. It's sad...but other things are just taking priority in the majority of peoples lives.
It's not like this is new either. Who was the last really great painter you heard of?? or the last great inventor?? or the last great scientist who was really trying to do something completely new and not just expand on another idea??
I can't honestly think of anyone in the last 50 years. We, as a society, are stagnating. Society in general needs a huge overhaul.

[memnoch]

Yeah its all the fault of the schools and not at all the fault of the parents who are too busy and too worried about the mess that would be made if they let the kids be creative at home.

Parents want to increase creativity in their kids but scream when Johnny or Susie draws on the walls. If its their room then what is the harm in letting them draw on their walls and then teaching them how to repaint the walls when they get full. What is more important: your child's creativity or how pretty the walls look? Renting? That's what washable markers are for.

Parents want to whine about the schools not encouraging more creativity but discourage their little ones from making mud pies and decorating their own cupcakes and cutting out their own cookies. Put down a tarp in the kitchen and let the kids go to town with decorating the cupcakes and each other with the frosting. They drag a little mud in the house, then clean it up. Don't tell me you don't have the time, you chose to have the kids, make the damned time.

Can't afford top quality crafting supplies? Make salt dough and paint it with diluted food coloring or color the dough itself. Want some edible clay, do a search for peanut butter play dough.

Parents take their kids out to homeschool them and talk about the joys that their kids are having in their lessons and forget that most of life's lessons aren't fun and aren't easy and leave their children ill equipped to deal with the harsh realities of life and wonder what the hell happened when their home schooled child ends up flipping burgers and digging ditches for a career because their parents were too worried about what the child wanted and being their buddy to focus on what the child needed and being their parent.

Of course, its easier to blame the schools. If its all the fault of the schools then the parents do not have to work on changing their own techniques.

So while it may partly be the fault of the schools, its more the fault of the parents who fail to provide at home what is missing at school.

this

[Philosophia]

Who was the last really great painter you heard of?? Brett Whiteley is a name I came up quickly.


or the last great inventor?? Go here (http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/2078467.html) for that.


or the last great scientist who was really trying to do something completely new and not just expand on another idea?? Go here (http://cern50.web.cern.ch/cern50/50ansSciences/1954_en.html) for that.


I can't honestly think of anyone in the last 50 years. We, as a society, are stagnating. Society in general needs a huge overhaul.

There has been a lot of things happening in the past 50 years. We have moved forward incredibly fast and I'm astonished that you can't think of anyone that would fit those requirements.

[Denikke]

Philosophia:
I was talking household names. Einstein, Picasso, that sort of thing.
And as for the progress that we've made....at least a large portion of it isn't truly unique, but just building on what other have already invented.
If I'm not making myself clear there:
1955: TV remote-TV's already been invented as has a method to change channels, now you just don't have to get up to do so.
1955: Microwave oven-figured out how to make microwaves already..lucky coincidence that someone figured out that it can cook food.
1958: Jet airliner-expanding on the Wright brothers plane idea. They made it bigger, they made it better, but the concept remains the same.
1961: cordless tools-batteries already invented, power tools already invented. Someone put the 2 together. Not new.
1978: GPS-digital maps. paper maps have been around for centuries and obviously they've been doing satellite imaging.
1998: MP3 player-just one more method of storing and playing music

I'm talking completely new, everyday inventions that you can walk down the streets and ask someone "who invented this?" and they'll more than likely know. Even if there are new inventions coming out.....you don't really hear about them in mainstream society. Being an inventor, or artist, or musician is not something that most people would encourage their kids to be. Society doesn't encourage people to pursue careers in that direction either.

[memnoch]

It's not like this is new either. Who was the last really great painter you heard of?? or the last great inventor?? or the last great scientist who was really trying to do something completely new and not just expand on another idea??
I can't honestly think of anyone in the last 50 years. We, as a society, are stagnating. Society in general needs a huge overhaul.

past 50 years, many would say Dali is one of the greats, Picasso was still around...as for inventions, I don't know, since the 50's we've had microwave ovens, tv remotes, industrial robots, the communications satellite, LED's, Drones, Synthesizer, Smoke dectors, CO detectors, Radon dectectors, cell phones, atm's, mri's, gps, dna fingerprinting, the internet, nothing important though

[Philosophia]

Philosophia:
I was talking household names. Einstein, Picasso, that sort of thing.
And as for the progress that we've made....at least a large portion of it isn't truly unique, but just building on what other have already invented.
If I'm not making myself clear there:
1955: TV remote-TV's already been invented as has a method to change channels, now you just don't have to get up to do so.
1955: Microwave oven-figured out how to make microwaves already..lucky coincidence that someone figured out that it can cook food.
1958: Jet airliner-expanding on the Wright brothers plane idea. They made it bigger, they made it better, but the concept remains the same.
1961: cordless tools-batteries already invented, power tools already invented. Someone put the 2 together. Not new.
1978: GPS-digital maps. paper maps have been around for centuries and obviously they've been doing satellite imaging.
1998: MP3 player-just one more method of storing and playing music

I'm talking completely new, everyday inventions that you can walk down the streets and ask someone "who invented this?" and they'll more than likely know. Even if there are new inventions coming out.....you don't really hear about them in mainstream society. Being an inventor, or artist, or musician is not something that most people would encourage their kids to be. Society doesn't encourage people to pursue careers in that direction either.

Nearly every single thing that has been invented were usually things that have been accumulated upon. The television was a complex invention, relying upon many different inventors and scientists. It wasn't just one inventor that created that. The microwave oven was a lucky find. Nothing exists in a vacuum and there is rarely anything "new" that doesn't have something old predating it. For example, the Wright brothers airplane wouldn't have been made possible without the hang glider's before it. It's the same with most, if not all, inventions.

Household names are things that take years to accumulate. Plus, you have the added bonus of having an extremely large number of artists, writers, inventors, etc. to choose from. Unlike the past, there are possibly millions of potential creative people who do this work every single day because they can. The internet has opened up doors and allowed people to express themselves.

I think the problem is that there is so much out there. Look how many books are consistently being published. It is a lot more than it was in the past. Look at how much art is being put out there. Again, it is a lot more than in the past. The inventions are enormous, especially the leaps in technology. I'm just mystified that you think that society stifles creativity. If anything, we stifle our own creativity because there is a lot of it out there.

[Terra Mater]

Society doesn't encourage people to pursue careers in that direction either.

Society never has. Einstein did his best work as a patent clerk. Picasso worked hardest when he was broke. Genius shines out best when it isn't supported. Its only in the modern world that we got the idea that people had to be encouraged to be creative when history shows us that the most creative minds were actively discouraged at almost every turn.

Genius, true genius, does not thrive in the popular climate, it thrives in spite of it. It comes from those who would risk all for the ideas that burn in their brain. Its not pretty, its not popular, and it often isn't recognized until years after the genius has shuffled off this mortal coil (with certain notable rare exceptions).

[Stormbeard]

Not a new idea.

"When we grew up and went to school
There were certain teachers who would
Hurt the children any way they could
By pouring their derision
Upon anything we did
And exposing every weakness
However carefully hidden by the kids
But in the town it was well known
When they got home at night, their fat and
Psychopathic wives would thrash them
Within inches of their lives"

Bonus points for anybody who knows the source.

[Stormbeard]

Society never has. Einstein did his best work as a patent clerk. Picasso worked hardest when he was broke. Genius shines out best when it isn't supported. Its only in the modern world that we got the idea that people had to be encouraged to be creative when history shows us that the most creative minds were actively discouraged at almost every turn.

Genius, true genius, does not thrive in the popular climate, it thrives in spite of it. It comes from those who would risk all for the ideas that burn in their brain. Its not pretty, its not popular, and it often isn't recognized until years after the genius has shuffled off this mortal coil (with certain notable rare exceptions).
tl;dr - An Artist Needs to Suffer

[Tiberias]

I'm talking completely new, everyday inventions that you can walk down the streets and ask someone "who invented this?" and they'll more than likely know.

How about the personal computer, brought to you by Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak? Or Linux, courtesy of Linus Torvalds. The segway, straight from Dean Kamen's mind.

Besides, what you're complaining about isn't the lack of inventors - it's the fact that nobody really cares WHO did the work, as long as the work is done. I don't really see a problem with that. Why should I be expected to know who designed the wireless mouse I'm using? He gets paid, I get functionality. We both win.

[banondraig]

Philosophia:
I was talking household names. Einstein, Picasso, that sort of thing.
And as for the progress that we've made....at least a large portion of it isn't truly unique, but just building on what other have already invented.
If I'm not making myself clear there:
1955: TV remote-TV's already been invented as has a method to change channels, now you just don't have to get up to do so.
1955: Microwave oven-figured out how to make microwaves already..lucky coincidence that someone figured out that it can cook food.
1958: Jet airliner-expanding on the Wright brothers plane idea. They made it bigger, they made it better, but the concept remains the same.
1961: cordless tools-batteries already invented, power tools already invented. Someone put the 2 together. Not new.
1978: GPS-digital maps. paper maps have been around for centuries and obviously they've been doing satellite imaging.
1998: MP3 player-just one more method of storing and playing music

I'm talking completely new, everyday inventions that you can walk down the streets and ask someone "who invented this?" and they'll more than likely know. Even if there are new inventions coming out.....you don't really hear about them in mainstream society. Being an inventor, or artist, or musician is not something that most people would encourage their kids to be. Society doesn't encourage people to pursue careers in that direction either.

By that logic, the plane was not an impressive invention either because it built upon the work of whoever invented the wheel.



Not a new idea.

"When we grew up and went to school
There were certain teachers who would
Hurt the children any way they could
By pouring their derision
Upon anything we did
And exposing every weakness
However carefully hidden by the kids
But in the town it was well known
When they got home at night, their fat and
Psychopathic wives would thrash them
Within inches of their lives"

Bonus points for anybody who knows the source.

Pink Floyd, "Another BricK in the Wall, Part 2"

[Stormbeard]

Pink Floyd, "Another BricK in the Wall, Part 2"

Close, but no 'have a cigar'.

Any other takers?

[banondraig]

Close, but no 'have a cigar'.

Any other takers?

Oh, was that not part 2?

Drat.

[Corvis Canis Latrans]

Philosophia:
I was talking household names. Einstein, Picasso, that sort of thing.
And as for the progress that we've made....at least a large portion of it isn't truly unique, but just building on what other have already invented.


So....and how was Einstein original?

He wasn't. Most of his ideas predated him. He based his work on others.

http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s8-08/8-08.htm

Every invention in existence is based on earlier inventions. There's no such thing as truly unique invention.

[Corvis Canis Latrans]

That's not to say I disagree with the premise of the thread, I do agree that we've overbalanced away from individual creativity and too far toward a failed attempt (or maybe pathological attempt) toward conformity in terms of emphasis on certain types of knowledge.

But as others have pointed out, that's true everywhere, and is the historical norm.

When you look at the social pressures Leonardo operated under...well, he didn't exactly receive encouragement for anything but his war machines and art in his own lifetime.

Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake.

Most truly creative people have almost invariably operated against mainstream currents.

If they didn't have something to oppose, they wouldn't feel the need to think outside the box, nor end up with the determination to do so when it became necessary.

That's not to say that enabling creativity is bad. I don't think so, there are plenty of issues that challenge people today, regardless of whether they had a standard educational background, or one more geared toward creativity, and it's the ones with new ideas that are probably more likely to have the ideas to solve it. But what I fear is that their lack of familiarity with the ins and outs of the "system" and how to play it, how to advance, will cripple all too many.

I also think that the public schools (and private ones) for that matter, more often shelter children from the realities of the "system" far more than they help them to navigate it.

Homeschooling can and often does suffer from the same flaw (though there are far more opportunities to see how different aspects of society work, and actually engage in different parts of the system, if the parent has the time and inclination to show these aspects to their child).

Public schools have more resources to engage, but more needs and ideologies to conform to, less one on one introduction.

I'm more an advocate of homeschooling than public schooling, but both have their advantages and disadvantages. Homogenization of the population operates against creativity and new ideas, but being familiar with that homogenization and how to work with it is what gets those creative ideas implemented.

[Stormbeard]

Oh, was that not part 2?

Drat.
It was "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" the track before pt. 2

[Denikke]

So obviously, part of my arguement has been shot down in flames :P That's okay.
Actually, I think Tiberous said what I was trying to say (and failed miserably at). Okay...there may be inventors and artists and whatnot out there, but people don't really care much about them, who they are. The convenience of the item is there, who cares who created it.
I think I lost my point somewhere along the way. So I'm just going to leave it where it is and go attempt to remove my foot from my mouth :P

[ninurta2008]

One way to keep the drop out rates, keep doing what we are doing. Want to get more kids to go to school, spending more money and adding more things to school lessons won't do shit if you don't include creativity and allow them to grow on their own. One flaw in the system is that its not individually based. To allow them to grow along their own path, the best thing is for the parents to help after school and get involved.

I agree there are serious problems with the way the system is set up, that is no excuse for you not to do what the school won't after school.

[Terra Mater]

How about the personal computer, brought to you by Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak? Or Linux, courtesy of Linus Torvalds. The segway, straight from Dean Kamen's mind.

Besides, what you're complaining about isn't the lack of inventors - it's the fact that nobody really cares WHO did the work, as long as the work is done. I don't really see a problem with that. Why should I be expected to know who designed the wireless mouse I'm using? He gets paid, I get functionality. We both win.

Sorry, but the first complete personal computer was the Commodore PET which was introduced in June 1977. None of the three gentlemen you listed were attached to Commodore. The Apple II was also premiered in 1977 but was released months later than the Commodore PET. Bill and the Steve's brought us improved versions, but not the original.

Linux was inspired by Unix, again an improvement on the original but not the original itself.

I'll give you Dean Kamen and the Segway. Though the concepts had been bantered about for decades, he was the one who had the unique combination of vision and will to make the vision tangible.

However, it does demonstrate your point about not knowing who invented what. It also demonstrates the point that several inventions we think of as wholly new are just newer versions of older work. With the Commodore PET the only reason I know about them is that I worked on one of the first ones to be used in a public school as part of a Mensa school group. While once considered cutting edge, the cheapest cell phones have more memory now than the PET did.

One way to keep the drop out rates, keep doing what we are doing. Want to get more kids to go to school, spending more money and adding more things to school lessons won't do shit if you don't include creativity and allow them to grow on their own. One flaw in the system is that its not individually based. To allow them to grow along their own path, the best thing is for the parents to help after school and get involved.

I agree there are serious problems with the way the system is set up, that is no excuse for you not to do what the school won't after school.
Actually the system is too individually based now. Too many special kids with too many special needs and too much special attention takes away from programs that would benefit the group as a whole.

[ninurta2008]

Actually the system is too individually based now. Too many special kids with too many special needs and too much special attention takes away from programs that would benefit the group as a whole.
Yeah, it tried to be, but there just isn't enough with the state can afford. My point though was that its impractical, and is why parents should take part in teaching their struggling children. If they can't help their children then they either need to learn for themselves or have their child not pass. my point was that parents should be more involved, I know its hard and sometimes impossible, but thats the only way to fix it.