A lecture on how schools stifle creativity

[SFG75]

I found this video on CNN and became very interested in the topic. Here is a good summary.

The waste of talent in education is not deliberate. Teachers are as anxious about this as everyone else, but many of them feel trapped in the awkward groping of national reform policies, many of which misunderstand the problems as well as the solutions. The waste of talent isn't deliberate, but it is systematic.

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.

Do you agree with this gentleman or is he off a bit?

 

[joderu95]

I agree with him in that schools are still stuck in a mode that was better suited to a time when the country needed large quantities of only slightly skilled labor and that our economy no longer resembles that so neither should our school system.

 

[The Mythwriter]

I think the public school system is in desperate need of reworking. How is where everything falls down, of course. About the only thing I know for certain is that they ought to increase the standards they use to hire teachers. I had an algebra class taught by a coach who could not count beyond the number 6. I'm not lying.

I think the other major issue is concern with political correctness. A lot of things are stifled, religion or otherwise, because someone else might (or does)complain that it offends them, the parents more often than the student.

I don't know what to say about drugs to control conditions like ADD. I had it, outgrew it, am studying to be an engineer, and never took drugs. I say it's up to the parents, and leave it there.

The question is, if the school system does need to work differently on a fundamental level, how should it look? I'm betting everyone's answer is different, and therein lies our problem.

 

[Jez]

Yes, I agree the school system stifles creativity, but more importantly, it stifles thinking in general. I disagree on one point though: I think it is deliberate.