Wanted to take a second here to respond to my classmate Alex’s post on a specific Tedtalk: “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” by Sir Ken Robinson.  I mean this topic comes up a lot and I feel like it’s not exactly a new idea, but it’s still so interesting every time I come across it.

I think we’ve all heard the argument that the school systems we all partake in focus so heavily on certain ways of becoming “smart”, that anything out of the norm is immediately squashed into bits and blown away. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, creativity flies out the window as well. Creativity, something so special, is so easily pushed aside we often forget how important it is. When was the last time you truly did something out of the box? We always talk about being unique, special, out of the ordinary, game-changing, yet too often we fall to the same routines, over and over again. There’s another video/speech that I really want to talk about that pertains to this topic- I think i’ll write about it in my next post. Before it’s too late, we must learn to snap out of the default setting that our bodies get so used to, and go back to where creativity first started.

Something Robinson points out is, the current way we formulate students results in the creation of university professors. Not saying there’s anything wrong with professors (Robinson used to be one himself), but surely there has to be other methods of being talented than this. I’ve never really thought about the end result of my education in this way before, so props to looking at what I do in a new way.

I think there’s always this expectation that we all learn a certain way, but that’s subject to change. An appropriate quote for this situation:

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Cliche, I know. But it’s popular for a reason! Defining intelligence in only one way, and squashing creativity results in many, many people who will spend the rest of their lives being scrutinized for things they just weren’t meant to do. And until we re-asses the learning system put in place by people no smarter than us, we will remain locked away with our potential.

Alex’s blog: https://amansblackjournal.wordpress.com/2016/04/25/schools-kill-creativity/