GP - ‘Education kills creativity.’ Discuss.

In some ways, formal schooling stifles creativity.

Instead of teaching knowledge in a way that prepares students to think creatively, too often schools teach students to learn by rote memorization, and they are then tested on their ability to regurgitate the one right answer.
1. What really matters in many schools today are the tangible symbols of education in the form of grades, certificates, degrees and titles. However, the emphasis on performance in examinations means schools teach to the tests rather than teach subject matters more generally. It also results in a narrower curriculum.
2. In the UK for example, children take SAT tests in reading, writing, Mathematics and Science in the final year of primary education. This has encouraged some schools there to “teach to the test”, dropping subjects such as History, Geography, PE and Art to give students exam coaching, in India, children as young as four and five year olds are being put under a lot of stress due to the competitive environment around them and are forced to rote learn concepts. Students in China spend a large part of their time studying Math and Science subjects to prepare for competitive examinations to attend College and pursue economically profitable careers.

Schools in essence can be anti-creative. Almost undervalued within many education systems are lateral thinking, safety to take risks and make mistakes, playing with ideas, appreciating the value of the ‘slow mind’ (which is associated with creativity and wisdom) and breaking established patterns of thinking.
1. In a bid to instill discipline and order, many schools pay lip service to the idea that mistakes are condoned, individuality is valued and new ideas are welcome, in fact mistakes are often punished and conformity is rewarded. Schools value consistency, standardization, and subservience to authority.
2. Until recently, corporal punishment was considered an effective way of controlling misbehaviour in schools in South Korea. Discipline usually took the form of hitting students with a stick that is often applied to the student’s clothed buttocks, but may also be given on the calves, the soles of the feet, or the front and back of the thighs. Boys and girls alike are frequently punished in this manner by teachers for any offence in school, from not completing homework to perceived insubordination. These punishments are typically administered in a classroom or corridor with other students present and it is common for several students to receive corporal punishment together.

Schools are inherently conservative and bureaucratic organizations, slow to respond and adapt to changes in the larger society. Even though creativity is more important today than it was in the past, changes to the education system require time and planning to take effect.
1. In the meantime, the rapid rate of change in the world today has made some of the skills taught in schools obsolete and it seems like schools have neglected to place emphasis on creativity and other skills important today.
2. Many schools today are still designed to meet the needs of industrialism, where knowledge and learning is the process by which knowledge gets stored. However, while in the past a person could earn a living by diligently applying what he has been taught in school, today, robots can do that. In the future companies will hire people to succeed in areas where computers fail. Applying set procedures, mechanically and repetitively, has become the work of computers and not people.

However, it is not fair to say creativity has been completely extinguished in schools.

With the world and technology developing so rapidly, many governments around the world are beginning to realise the importance of having citizens and workforce with more diverse talents, knowledge and skills in order to remain competitive.
1. Since her Independence, Singapore has developed a quality workforce through a rigorous and traditional education system that emphasised textbook learning and examination. However, the government has come to recognise that in order for Singapore to remain economically competitive in the 21st Century, there is a need to move away from rote learning and encourage creativity amongst its people.
2. Singapore has thus refined the education system to help foster creative thinking and the entrepreneurial spirit among the young. In recent years, the government has launched a series of educational initiatives aimed at adapting the education experience to match the new economic and social challenges that Singapore is facing. In 2004, for example, Prime Minister Lee called on teachers to “teach less” so that students might “learn more”, to transform learning from the emphasis on quantity to quality.

There is a wide variety of technological tools today to facilitate the teaching of creativity in schools. This makes it easier for schools to imbibe creativity into the curriculum.
1. Teachers today have access to a large variety of resources and tools to encourage students to engage in a range of learning experiences. Teachers can use technology-based resources to design and customize instructional activities in response to students’ learning styles, preferences and abilities so that students develop questions, propose solutions and elicit feedback on their learning. Students can also use technology to collect and synthesise information and solve authentic problems through projects they propose. This enables students to plan, manage and reflect on their own learning.
2. For example, programmes like Odyssey of the Mind and Thinkquest bring together students from around the world to design creative solutions and bring them to competition. Teachers can also use creative arts and media-oriented programmes to encourage creativity in the classroom.

Our imagination is developed from the knowledge we gain so creativity should not be taught at the expense of content. Schools should not swing to the extreme of downgrading content knowledge in favour of creative thinking skills.
1. Creativity requires both convergent thinking, which focuses on speed, accuracy and logic, and divergent thinking, which uses information in unexpected ways to produce alternate or multiples answers to a problem. Schools must therefore develop both content knowledge and creative thinking abilities.
2. Just as songwriters must understand chords and scales and writers must know spelling and writing conventions, students are likely to benefit when creativity and academic content are taught hand in hand.

The question assumes that schools can teach creativity but can creativity really be taught?
1. There is a school of thought that considers creativity as a gift possessed by a privileged few who are genetically predisposed to some innate trait, instead of as a resource to be cultivated or honed. If that were the case, the role that formal education plays in encouraging or destroying creativity is of little significance.
2. Einstein, for example, said that true creativity was the product not of words, but of images, feelings and sound. He claimed the theory of relativity occurred to him by intuition and that music was the driving force behind it.

GP – ‘Education kills creativity.’ Discuss.