Do schools kill creativity?
Vijay
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
Ankit Chandra
this is a great video. I totally agree. I think most of us would prolly agree, as that's why we are here in this group in the first place.
I also think that this is actually a very fundamental change in the way we look at learning and education... How do u think we can bring about such a fundamental change in one's cognitive processes when we as a group would talk to them for maybe thrice or at max 10 times i guess?
I guess what I am asking is where should we nail the box? I think the email based mentoring could actually be extended to a more 1:4 (student to us ratio, say, ) long term relationship between us and the kids there. I am willing to talk to 4 kids for 2 years continuously to try and instill what ken Robinson tries to say...
What do u guys think?
Ankit
Snehit Prabhu recommends this very interesting video:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
koi bhi desh perfect nahin hota...
usey perfect banana padta hai...
ankitchandra.blogspot.com
Aarti Ramaswami
I totally love the TED Series. Talking about creativity ... My mum, being a school teacher and principal then, everyday brought back stories about what students wrote in exams...and I'd like to share some with you ...these were actual answers of 4th or 5th graders...
1) physics question - what is volume?
student answer - volume is what's on the tv which you turn to hear it louder
2) phy/chem - what is matter?
student answer - when babies cry, people ask what is the matter?- that is matter.
3) history - short answer - ie - 3-4 lines - question on why buddha left his palace (expected answer to seek nirvana, etc etc)
student answer - Buddha was a prince. But buddha was a bad boy. He left his wife and and child in the palace. He went out at night to sit under a tree. (it took some goading to get the teacher to give the student marks...well, he was right in a way!)
4) 2nd grade question on who a farmer's best friend is. the expected answer is of course "earthworm"- it keeps the soil aerated etc student answer - his wife. (inst that brilliant!!!)
5) numerous instances in drawing classes where you are asked to color within the line...ever asked why? my brother colored puppies in blue and green (of course for other reasons), but he didnt get marks in drawing class...
As Mark Twain once noted "Dont let school interfere with your education". So, basically at every grade in school there are numerous situations where we are expected to give the "right" answer...and there might as well be one in the natural sciences (if at all), but not in the social sciences or humanities...if there is a "right" answer, then students may be taught at creative ways to reach that answer...ie...there is a difference between creativity in outcome vs creativity in process.
That being said, there is one school of thought that says you need to "teach students to the the exam", meaning teach them or coach them in ways that they will ultimately be tested. So if your exam is a creative one, then great...indulge in all the creativity you want. If your exam is like the Board exams we have in India (thanks to which Navneet exams guides and the like have survived...hey, i used one for hindi, so cant complain much), then creativity in answers or thought process doesnt really help much...it of course depends on when you want to inject creativity in the learning and thinking process, at what grades, and how we can teach students to turn in on and turn it off during competitive exams - which unfortunately are crucial in our system. So, if students need to "survive" the competitive Board exams which dictate which schools and courses they can take, i doubt they can marinate in creative processes...it will rather be a side dish, tasted if at all at these crucical grades. I dont mean to say that it is not imporntat at these grades, just that it might not be received with great enthu. Of course, at other grades that have fewer implications on one's admission to colleges etc, sure why not!
Perhaps we can also learn something from the homeschooling tradition - while it depends on the parents' approach towards learning - does it encourage creativity more than in regular schools?
One more thing - is there such a thing as disciplined creativity? Can creative thinking be given structure? There is a bunch of research on this in the psych area of course, but what are ur thoughts?
About Ankit's note on mentoring - yes, i too agree that we can each be "in charge" of 2-4 students in a long term mentoring relationship...has anyone connected with a specific "mentee" yet, ie, in the true sense of e-mentoring thru this group?
Aarti
khushboo desai
Hello All,
Vijay, thank you for sharing the video.
I feel that the Indian education system is absolutely rigid- including the way the schools function, teachers who teach, way the various examination boards function and the mind-set of education ministers. This kind a situation where free thinking and expression is judged as right or wrong, good or bad, worthy not worthy, definitely prevents a child to be creative- in short be Himself! He has to give "valid" reason for all that he does- may it be writing an answer in blue ink instead of black or then colouring a dog green. What is needed is not just letting the child think and be creative but also device ways that will help him study creatively (cause ultimately, he does not have a choice but to be a part of those lengthy examinations). This is to say, devise methods and modes of learning the normal mundane things that are very strenuous and demanding in terms of time, energy and confidence.
I was talking to one of my friends about how difficult it was for me to enjoy studying history while I was preparing for my Xth boards. And she told me that for her, history was the most fun subject ever and one of the few subjects where she did not have any trouble attempting those 300 words long answers. She said that her way of studying was through making connections using the technique of mind-mapping and also through little visuals. While she attempted to answer the questions, she could immediately think of the visual she had made which further took her thought process to the mind-map that literally "mapped out" a whole chapter in few words and visuals. And these techniques could be used more or less of all the subjects that involve mugging up.
Today I personally use these tools for my work and I've realized that I can think and remember visuals more effectively than words and sentences.
I may be wrong but I have seen this in my school.It also seems that as child grows, his interests in the filed of performing arts decreases drastically. Teachers themselves do not encourage students to take part in extra-curricular activities. From my personal experience I can say that students are not even exposed to different career options other than medicine, engineering, CA, and MBA. My teachers were not really supportive when I decided to study design. I feel its absolutely essential for teachers to broaden their thinking and views about "good paying" careers and jobs. So then is it essential for us to address teachers as well ? ( this could be tricky).
Introducing students to these kind of FUN and INTRIGUIGING tools can help them not only during the exams but also make the PROCESS of learning and understanding a lot more interesting.
Any comments?
Regards
Khushboo
Anshul Kundaje
Hey All,
I agree whole heartedly with a lot of stuff that has been stated by everyone about our education system. It obviously needs reform and massive restructuring.
But there is a dilemma in my head when it comes to the topic of ‘alternate careers’.
First, it is very important for most people to get into reasonably well paying, stable careers? Several alternate careers involve a lot of risk (take sports or music for instance). The chance of making it big is very remote. And if you aren’t big you have a hard time paying your bills. This especially applies to children in India, some of whom are middle class and a huge chunk are from not so well-to-do families. I personally feel it is hard and to some extent illogical to convince people from this demographic to take up interesting, yet high risk careers. So I guess one of the questions I ask myself is - what demographic are we targeting?
Secondly, what are the job opportunities that you have back home? Many of us who are now in the US work in these alternate careers. Outside India, several of these fields have matured and offer ample job opportunities atleast to the deserving candidates. But the story is totally different back home. Absolutely gifted kids are denied admits into even the so called standard desi fields simply due to the ridiculous competition and anti-massive lack of resources. And we cannot assume that every kid back home has the monetary ability to leave the country to pursue a career in a field that is unheard of back home. How then do we ask them to take their focus away from the standard fields and risk losing out both ways? Should we first focus on preparing that infrastructure and then encourage people to take these up as their life careers? I guess one of the goals of TII is to offer one aspect of the resource crunch i.e. appropriate advice/mentoring and access to resources.
Building on the second point: In contrast to the absolute lack of infrastructure and resources to support several alternate careers, several of the standard career options such as engineering and medicine do have a semi-decent support structure back home. So I would think it would be relatively easier for TII to add the required boost to these fields. All I’m saying is, in our enthusiasm to widen the outlook of students, we shouldn’t ignore the paths that might yield the most fruitful results. I guess there needs to be a balance and no prejudice towards one side or the other.
Ok, so my main point is that while it is EXTREMELY important for all of us to encourage students and children to keep their eyes and mind open to alternate careers, to try their best to participate in extra-curricular activities; IMHO it is more important to help them find what they are gifted at and more importantly help them find a balance with the realities of the world that often prevent people from pursuing their dreams. I don’t see anything wrong in 99% of the kids going in for the standard careers if that is one step closer to a making their lives a little better. I personally would love to see kids get into the new, upcoming and neglected fields but we have to face the reality as well, that there needs to be a parallel infrastructure in India to support these kids once they are out of school and looking for jobs.
This is just food for thought ... not intended to contradict or undermine anyone else’s opinion.
Cheers,
Anshul.
Vijay
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
Hey all --
I hope every TII volunteer aggressively engages with what Ken Robinson
has to say.
These are things that rarely get addressed in public debate, anywhere
in the world. Certainly very few teachers talk about creativity in
Indian classrooms. There, the teacher-student ratio is often something
like 1:65 and teachers fear that if every kid is given the space to
express his / her individuality, the classroom will soon grow
impossible to control. It isn't common for teachers to have the
training, the cultural capital, the energy or the motivation to
encourage children on a daily basis. Many high school teachers are too
insecure to deal with kids asking genuine or smart-alecky questions;
their mindset is, if one kid is allowed to get away with that now,
every kid is going to harass them on a permanent basis. We've all
known those teachers -- but to be fair, knowing what brats some of us
were, as kids, who can blame those teachers for trying to shut out
individuality and creativity?
This much is obvious. More intriguing and worthy of debate is the
assertion that so many of my engineer friends make in passing: that
there is virtually no art to logic, and definitely nothing logical
about aesthetics. They say there is no balance to strike.
To many, the word "creative" represents the feverish capture of
emotions on some medium: canvas, paper, computer screen. When I see
the word "creative", the first image that forms in my mind is this
cartoon caricature in side profile of a man, who for some reason wears
a brown jacket, a Fedora and the mask from V for Vendetta; he's
excitedly making squiggles with a paintbrush on a canvas. As a
practitioner of an art form, I should know better than to buy into the
stereotype of the painter-in-a-perennial-state-of-thrall. It's also
strange, in an interesting way, because I have an Master's in creative
writing, not fine arts; you suppose I would instinctively connect
"creativity" to the visual of a writer at his desk.
On the other hand my training and life experiences have taught me to
be wary of connecting "creative" with "writing". Perhaps by creating a
wedge between those two, I've tried to convince myself that I am not
creative... in that way. In conversation, I sometimes self-consciously
drop the "creative" and say "MA in writing". "Creative" people --
especially the ones who have cultivated a careful eccentricity -- get
admiring looks and find themselves suddenly engaged in sexy
conversations about the state of the world with attractive, well-
dressed contemporaries. But outside those privileged social circles --
that is to say, among people like my engineer friends -- they are
commonly dismissed as "arty-farty". The public generally conflates
good writing with flair and large words; people are not as easily
impressed by interesting ideas expressed in clear language.
Presumably, if you don't fart you aren't arty enough.
For me the writing process does not involve outbursts of passion and a
frantic expression of feelings. "Writing" summons the image of the
Lego models that my parents bought me when I was a child. I did not
grow up to be a technology expert; I nevertheless connect the process
of writing to reason, logic, structure, order.
One is not a writer merely because one writes; one is a writer, by
inclination, because one tries to think. Of course I believe in
'creativity', but the word strikes me as flaky. Frankly, its
reputation needs some salvaging. We need to recognize that creativity
is not limited to writing or pottery or advertising. It manifests
equally in public administration, gardening, physical training or
inorganic chemistry. Creativity is required, possibly demanded, in
virtually any area (unless your job requires you to, say, enter
numbers for the telephone directory, in which case you should stop
reading this note now).
"Creativity" is the ability to apply a fresh perspective to a problem:
sometimes, by taking a step backwards, at other times, by making a
closer inspection of the problem. It should not be confused with
unfettered freedom. Creativity demands energy; above all it needs to
be harnessed. In this context, it might be useful to examine how
creativity applies the inter-disciplinary context. A student with a
Bachelor's in Mathematics will often have interesting insights to
offer a graduate class in, say, ethnography (a method to study human
societies, through prolonged fieldwork and interpretation). Even if
this Math major has forgotten everything he ever learned about Bessel
functions, he will recognize that his mind works in a particular way
because of his training. Even if, at first, he asked "stupid"
questions in the ethnography class -- things that are obvious to any
anthropology major -- very soon you'll find that he can quickly re-
calibrate his thinking. His structured approach will continue to
inform the exhilaratingly "creative" questions that he has started to
raise in class.
If you are inclined to think I am agonizing over semantics, and going
on and on about something that seems be self-evident, you risk missing
the larger point. Creativity, like critical thinking, demands steady,
rigorous workout sessions -- it requires practice. Kids in India can
be incredibly creative, but they have little or no exposure to
concepts such as rigor. They aren't taught to think through issues;
they are expected to conform. As a result, they tire themselves out
before they are able to take any original idea to its logical
conclusion.
In order to be productive, people need to support their creativity,
like the way civil engineers use framing in building constructions. It
is this framework that gives us the rigor to sequence our thoughts --
be more ambitious with our thinking, in the process learning to focus
on larger patterns -- instead of congratulating ourselves for having
come up with one or two isolated "creative moments".
Let me reiterate: obviously the idea isn't to throw complex ideas like
"rigor" in the children's direction. Do refer to some of the
discussions posted on our Google group for practical ideas; several
members have made important contributions. I have offered suggestions
elsewhere about how to approach a classroom session:
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=43059787269
Through classroom sessions and its fledgling mentoring program, TII is
trying to help children in the age group of 13-17 hit a threshold
point of self-awareness; beyond that, those children will be in a
position to start figuring things out for themselves -- although we
would be glad to share our perspective with a few, hopefully over the
period of a lifetime.
Anshul Kundaje
Hey All,
Some thoughts on the TED talk:
- Loved the stress on creativity and ofcourse the humor
However,
- I felt that a lot of what he said was extremely applicable to the Western education system – the story back home is very different and a lot of what he says doesn’t apply directly.
- I got the feeling he was trying to link creativity specifically with the arts. There seemed to be prejudice against the sciences as if they were in some way decorrelated with creativity. Maybe I misunderstood. But if that is the case, I think he is VERY wrong. Creativity does not go hand in hand with any particular field. It needs to exist everywhere and must be encouraged in all walks of life, not just dance, music and writing.
- He talked only about the success stories. People talk a lot about success stories. What is the probability of success and how much of the talent factor do you need to make it in the field is something people rarely talk about. What are the opportunities an average person has to make a living by pursuing a particular field? I felt like he totally ignored the practical aspect of it all.
Inspiring talk nonetheless ..
-Anshul.
chet
Dear All,
I love TED.com. I've often come through extremely interesting stuff
there, and this one was definitely thought-provoking. Thanks for
sharing it, and thanks for the comments. Here are my thoughts:
About the talk itself:
You do need a certain amount of showmanship- humour, style, command on
language and a galore of anecdotes to sell a radical concept. (Don't
get me wrong- I love the talk). And when you express an idea in term
of a story, you automatically make people think, rather than spoon
feeding them.
Content and ideas expressed: Here's what made me think-
1. Learning for future and unpredictability thereof
2. Creativity Vs Literacy
3. "They use their bodies as a transport mechanism for their heads"
4. Story of the little girl who knew what God looked like
5. We grow out of creativity as we grow up
Responses to the Talk:
1. I'm with Ankit on mentoring 4 kids for two years at a stretch, or
even a lifelong mentoring. The way I look at it is that my mentees are
tomorrow's mentors.
2. Arati, the examples you've quoted are great, and to me, they bring
up the issue of CONTEXT which is an important aspect of critical
thinking. For most part, creativity gets misinterpreted as lack of
logic (as Vijay has quoted), which obviously is not the case.
Creativity has its own discipline, and the beauty of it is that it is
not a confining one.
3. I am thrilled about visual representations of ideas and mind
mapping techniques. It's amazing how universal their applications are
( I used a lot of 'connecting' strategies during my GRE prep.)- so
thanks Khushboo for bringing that up. That would definitely be
something to experiment with, esp with low scorers.
4. Thanks for bringing up the point of Teachers, Khushboo. I think
it's an important conversation (teachers being an integral and
indispensable part of the education system) and may be we should have
a separate thread for it.
5. Alternative Careers is definitely a topic of debate, Anshul, and
I'm glad we are talking about it here. The range of alternative
careers is VAST. I'd divide it in two parts: the arts- as in dace,
music, writing, painting, drama, films- and so on; and the other
careers such as small businesses, hospitality, news industry, and so
on.
Let's talk about the latter first: I had a friend who barely managed
to get a first class in his HSC while the rest of us came out with
flying colours and got into Engineering or BCS. He, instead, did hotel
management, and groomed himself well and got a job around the same
time as the rest of us. Funny thing is, He was, and still is, paid
much higher than most of us who were academically far better than him.
Similarly, an uncle of mine, who only scored a first class in SSC and
then completed a diploma in electrical engineering, one day decided to
quit his reasonably paying, stable job with Electronica and started
his own EDM-Wirecut workshop. Five years down the line, He owns the
most cutting edge equipment and all the infrastructure needed for
future growth, and is on his way to becoming a millionaire. (Which he
would have never become, had he stuck to his job) The point is, there
are many many career options apart from Medical, Engineering, MBA, CA
and so on that kids are never introduced to, and these careers may be
a far better choice for some of the so called 'not so smart' kids. If
we could get this point across, so that kids start thinking about
starting their own businesses or careers that they can be passionate
about and make money with, it would be a significant step in the
direction of expanding horizons.
As for pursuing a career in arts- having the strength to stick it
through is I guess more important than having the talent. These
careers are not for the faint hearted, because there is no easy way to
get to the top here. As a film student, when I expressed my concern
about stability, my teacher advised me to go back to engineering- for
there is no stability in a film maker's life. When you choose a career
in arts, you also choose the insecurity and instability that comes
with it, and if you stick it out long enough and work your ass off and
make intelligent choices, chances are that you will make it big some
day. The best we can do for those who want to pursue such careers is
help them understand clearly what they are getting into, share with
them some survival tips and strategies to plan their careers, and help
them develop the inner strength that these careers demand.
As long as they are making conscious choices, it does not matter
whether they are choosing an alternative career or a mainstream one.
6. And yes, I absolutely agree that creativity is not exclusive to any
one field- it has applications in every single walk of life: from
education to business and science and arts and cooking and love
making. And it is this kind of creativity that percolates into
everything one does, and further flows into the lives of those who
surround them, transforming their lives into something more beautiful;
this infectious creativity that becomes an instrument of change, is
what I believe we are talking about here.
Ankit Chandra
So how are we planning to move ahead? I wanted to find some action points and see what do we plan to do with them
I think the following are a few points we can get together (on say skype etc to coordinate)
- Get the 'Mentees':
- How? is there an evaluation/selection criteria?
- through an official channel or by self?
- do we represent the group or just self?
- is there some material that we create/use to start (standardisation)
- how do we coordinate and strategize?
- is there a weekly update approach? so that we can see if anyone needs anything and whether we could provide them
- When we say critical thinking and creativity, we might mean different things. So do we need to have some kind of common definition, or go ahead with our own versions? There could be variations, and we prolly need to see if we want to have the same message to be shared from Teach in India initiative.
Lemme know what you guys think
Ankit
