I don’t know how many of you watch the TED talks, but they’re very interesting videos. This is a TEDtalksDirector video that I thought was especially good.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY[/youtube]
i saw that before.
yes, they do.
Creativity isn’t that urgent.
It’s more of a luxury that is necessary but takes a back seat to menial conservation of any system at all.
Schools, particularly private schools, have a tradition of imposing roles upon children - half at their individual cost, and half for their benefit through preparing them for the menial world of the tired (mature) professional adult that is ahead of them. This world is a creative and created web, but it is only held together by the indispensible adhesive of all the very many useful structures that those in the past have created.
In order to advance them even further, creativity is needed - but their existence precedes their improvement.
None of this is to say schools have the right balance, it’s just the most practical balance - to uniformly train people to either be obedient or deal with boredom. Those who take to this process best are generally the only ones who get to the necessary positions of power that “allow” creative change to legitimately occur. Their tendency to take to the Conservative homogenisation process proves their creativity to be limited, but clearly this optimal level of creativity is what is most appropriate. Anybody who is more creative is essentially useless.
The problem here is the implied institutional command that we must all be useful.
Artists, in general, can rarely find a place in “the way things are”. This “Gillian Lynne” is a notable exception, but realistically most artists fit the stereotypical lazy waster image. Ken Robinson is absolutely correct in pointing out that this doesn’t mean they’re “sick” - but their uselessness comes across as sick in a world where uncreative practicalities come first.
So there is a much higher demand for the uncreative than the creative. What is needed is a shift from the Capitalist demand for only useful, money-making individuals, to a more socially applicable economic design that fits people a lot better. Technology and automation is perfect for addressing this imbalance, it’s Capitalism that necessitates that everyone must still be inserted in “useful” roles that become increasingly superfluous - despite the increasing amount of technology intended to give people a break from this.
This kind of fundamental economic shift is what is needed to allow this problem to be addressed. Schools are merely a small part of the bigger picture.
Well-said, Sil.
huh?
To answer the OP, trust me, it kills the courage and curiosity it takes to be creative, but if just look around yourself and you will notice creativity is everywhere.
Sil,
Idk, I like to think God would have a more perfect answer and say something like - “Creativity is my gift to all.” The only gift in life is creation, if you ask me. Love is… never mind. Honestly, don’t feel like typing and I might edit it later, but right now I am hungry.
Not nessesarily, just doesn’t promote it. Also poor teachers can indeed discourage creativity.
Fortunaly I don’t give a damn about others oppinions if they’r wrong, unfortunaly I don’t give a damn about others oppinions if they’r wrong …meaning I’m not a group thinker that will be manipulated by others, unfortunaly in my carelessness I’ll step on people’s toes in the process.
Where Ken R goes totally wrong, when saying the importaince of dance vs math, is that math is readily useful and very importaint to live in a society, but dance isn’t.
I don’t think he’s suggesting that dance is as readily useful as maths. The point of what he is saying here is that not just dance, but all the arts, are very important in the development of young minds, and should be treated as such. Every child IS an artist, in their way, and many of them ARE benignly steered away from things they are good at, from things that give their personal life fulfillment, because it’s just not seen as important. This is a problem.
Schools are organized institutes that are desgined for certain purposes for certain societies. It sure as hell kills creativity, along side many other things.
Please forgive my clumbsy wording, I didn’t say that he said so, but I merely tried to say that his comparison was absurdly stupid.
In what way was his comparison absurdly stupid?
Again - the arts are important to the development of young minds. Math is more readily useful to most people, but that does negate the importance of the arts within education? Considering the state of public education, I think it’s hardly absurd or stupid to bring attention to the ways in which the arts are being neglected.
Math is extremely importaint for the continual function in a highly developed society, not nessesarily math on a high lvl, but the basic knowledge of math, where dance has close to zero relevance, nada …niente! Everybody can easily get by without ANY knowledge of dance.
Therefore his comparison of math vs dance is absurdly stupid! …well imo.
I think the most important implication of all of this is that society ought to, and can now be shaped around people - as opposed to people being shaped around a conservative idea of how society ought to be.
The current deemed necessity is to be “useful” i.e. applicable to the limited set of jobs available that are seen as the most important for keeping everything going.
If you do not fit yourself into these roles you are deemed useless and not entitled to legal means to live other than welfare.
Keeping everything going is becoming easier and easier with technology and work method knowledge. Yet the demands remain the same, fitting people into roles to which even maths, langauges, sciences etc. are increasingly irrelevant. The link between education and vocation is becoming increasingly obscure.
This is not the fault of education.
It is the fault of the perceived need to fit people into society rather than the other way around.
Education can be to cultivate all shades of creativity and/or utility in all children, in line with an appropriately decreasing regard to the currently accepted vocations.
Children can then be free to shape their vocation around their tailor-made education, which does not discriminate between the traditionally more important jobs and the ones that cultivate other aspects of human expression.
Human expression is not to be squandered - or you end up in a society where everyone is mostly unhappy. It is to be explored and built upon for a society that is really for people rather than in spite of them.
The creative arts enrich life … they are the frosting on the cake. If you just want to live, then you only need the cake but if you want to live fully then the arts are essential.
I absolutely agree with you, and I think Sir Ken said kind of the same thing, just with different words, particularly the section I bolded.
It definitely isn’t the fault of education, but I’d say it is the fault of the education system, because the people who designed the system, as you say, percieve the need to fit people into society rather than the other way around.
Then O wise one, tell me where dance actually has any greater relevance to the society?
Yes, as I said in another thread, you are emotionally based, which reflects on your reasoning and logic.
What Silhouette says is beautiful rethorics, very seductive to those who demands no specific things, those who doesn’t demand claims to make sense nor actually work.
The educational system is designed in this way because the majority of people want it that way. It’s a response to parents’ and students’ requirements that an adult coming out of the system is employable and is able to function effectively in society. Attempts to introduce arts program to students have resulted in complaints that ‘Johnny’ can’t get a job after graduation. Arts programs have been dropped as a result.
It may be desirable that society values an arts education and provides employment for creative graduates, unfortunately society is too big to change quickly and so it is easier to fit a person into society. To change society, small changes are required which move values in the desired direction over many generations. That requires continuous support for the arts from many individuals. I don’t see that trend at this time.
No one here is saying that maths are unimportant. The two need not be compared, this is not an either/or situation. This is a matter of giving children a complete, rounded education. How can you sit here and say that is unnecessary? The world is changing all around you every day, and obviously the way we have been doing things, the way we have been educated, is not really working out very well. It is time for a new approach. NOT an approach that disregards maths and sciences, but an approach that encompasses all, or at least more, areas of learning, that recognizes the value in providing an environment in which a child can explore all manner of disciplines. In the past ten years, funding for arts programs in public education has been severely cut. Some schools have had to do away with art programs altogether. Do you know what No Child Left Behind does? It cuts funding for schools with low standardized test scores. Which programs do you think are the first to go when a school’s funding gets cut? This is not a successful system.