Creativity and School

Great Minds

2018-12-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

'’There’s no need even to have a college degree […] if somebody graduated from a great university, that may be an indication that they will be capable of great things, but it’s not necessarily the case.’’ - Elon Musk

This quote really grabbed my attention. This is his standards for hiring someone and I think it's a bit idealistic. Nowadays, if you want to be hired you have to have at least a phd and the competition is tough. Wouldn't be great though that every company whether it is small or big would consider any applaicant and would actually look at the person's streghts and weaknesses instead of his résumé.

I like this quote from John Dewey, one because he still plays a huge role in the philosophy of education and two because you kind of have to read it twice to understand it. Our goal as teachers is to create the adults of tomorrow, adults that will create things that do not even exist yet, adults that will have jobs that don't exist yet, so it is really important that our education up-to-date. It's not an easy task, but I believe that to focus on creativity is the path to take to create an education that will take into consideration these factors.

Being knowledgeable means being creative ?

2018-12-03T07:34:00.000-08:00

This is Tim Leunig, an economist, he argues that creativity is actually the knowledge you need to be taught. To illustrate his thinking, he provides a specific example: Pauline Williams. She is a doctor for a drug company and she read an article about the death of babies, in less developed countries, because of the infection when cutting the umbilical cord. She realized that there is an antiseptic in the mouthwash they have created that could save the babies. She then proceeds to transform this antiseptic in a gel in a little foil container, so people don't need scissors to use it.

I think he is not wrong, if this woman were not to have extreme knowledge scientifically, she wouldn't have been able to create this gel. However, does this mean that we need so much mathematics and sciences classes or else she would not have been able to create this gel? I don't think so, at this point, I think it's because of the knowledge she gained throughout advanced education that she was able to create this product. I believe there should be a wider range of subjects in elementary and high school where students can express themselves, experiment and actually work in discplines they want to work in.

I believe creativity is so much more than knowledge such as Tim Leunig believes, and it's so much more than just art and music. Especially in schools, it's when a child surprises you with a new perspective, it's when a child finds a solution you have never thought of and it's when a child believes in his ideas and finds a way to achieve his goal. I'm not saying having subjects like mathematics and science is not good, I'm just saying that we need to teach it more in a learner-centered way. By doing so, the student is the one experiencing, he is the one creating and he is the one in charge of his knowledge.

Ken Robinson- Do Schools Kill Creativity?

2018-12-02T12:18:00.001-08:00

Ken Robinson has presented one of the most watched Ted Talk shows ever about school and creativity. He says: “we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather we get educated out of it”. In other words, everyone is creative at first, but schools threaten this process with all the standard subjects that we think are so important while some subjects like art and music have less time in the curriculum.

He also says that children are not afraid to be wrong, but all of this changes when they grow up. Troughout my few experiences in my practicum, I was able to observe this phenomenon. They are afraid to answer your questions because they don't want to look stupid in front of the other students. It's by trying and testing new things that children use their imagination to become more and more creative. It's a shame that students are afraid to speak up and to make mistakes. And by the way, what's wrong with making mistakes, we, as adults, still make some mistakes in our day-to-day jobs, our colleagues are there to help us and we learn from our mistakes, so we can do things differently, better. Students are often asked to do different assigments alone, they are expected not to make mistakes and it does not help them prepare for their future.

Final Assignment ?

2018-12-02T09:29:00.001-08:00

As I have mentionned earlier, I changed my mind a lot of times about the final assigment. So, when I found an idea that I liked, I was really interested in making this a new learning experience. I had started a comic book about bullying when I realized it did not work at all. The plot lacked some important elements, it was hard to follow the story and it definitely did not come out the way I expected. I wanted so badly to do something new, something original that I had not realized how hard it was going to be. Since I have never used such a tool in my past school experiences (I wonder why?) I struggled with the process and the content ended up suffering from it. Here is a screenshot of one of the pages of the comic book.

As mentionned in the definition of creativity from Ken Robinson, I have used my background knowledge of different disciplines to create this comic book (I have used my art knowledge on perspective to show that the dad is just passing by). This is great because it proves that since I had the opportunity to chose the medium for this assignment, I have actually, created something unique.

In the end; however, I ended up abandonning the comic book because I thought it did not fit the intent of this assigment.

Final Assignement

2018-12-02T08:59:00.001-08:00

For this class, we had the opportunity to pick any medium we would like to use for the final assignment. At first, I thought it was great because we never get to pick the medium and we are so used to following many strict guidelines that I thought that having freedom was a great opportunity to fully show my potential. However, I quickly realized that it was a poisoned gift. I have been thinking about this assignment for about two weeks now, I changed the topic of my assignment twice and I changed the medium three times. At least, the positive side of all these changes is that I am now comfortable with my final choice because I had time to assess the pros and cons of every medium. However, I have asked myself a lot of questions: how am I supposed to find a unique topic while most of my life I have been told what to write about? And that's when it hit me! Schools often jeopordize our creative process. I have been told a text is an introduction, body, conclusion, and I should not be doing this or that and now that I can do wathever I want, I'm having trouble, why's that you say ? The traditional schools I've gone to! Most of my life, I've been drilled to follow guidelines and in the end to create papers that satisfy the teachers' values and expections. Where is the freedom in that ?

What is even worse than the creation of a superficial essay for the sole purpose of having a mark is the overuse of standardized testing schools use to evaluate the children. These tests are not evaluating our knowledge or our intelligence, they evaluate if we are able to regurgitate facts that we have just ''learned''. Because, of course, we will forget more than half the information we were suppposed to retain, thanks to standarized testing! Finally, as teachers we are supposed to be tolerant and welcoming to all the different learning styles, but these tests do not allow the students to express themselves, which is kind of hypocrite of us.

Introduction

2018-12-02T07:57:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered if our school were enabling the creativity of our students to their full potential? I have and I wanted to be more knowledgeable on the subject before I would give my opinion. That's why, on this blog, you'll see different professionals adjudicate on the purpose of school. After reading about what they have to say, I can now take a stand and say that more often than not school jeopardize creativity.