Week 2: Why Aren't Kids 'Crafty' Anymore?

Is there a problem with creativity in our education systems?

EDMON DE HARO

(Source) "Today's young children are working more, but they're learning less."


"Creative individuals need skills that schools can teach, but it is also characteristic of such individuals to find tightly organised teaching frustrating, and they do not always perform on cue in ways that society currently demands. To be highly creative is to have a tendency to work obsessively towards certain ends, often in the pursuit of perfection. This is an idea with which democracies have difficulty. We worry about the trophies awarded to outstanding performers, about the hyper-parenting that may be going on behind the scenes, and about the emotional costs of both failure and success on fragile, driven individuals. Scratch the surface of the idea of creativity and you expose a host of anxieties about psychology and social justice. We must discuss these openly if we want (as we should) a truly creative educational system."  -Dr Ruth Cigman

Senior research fellow in philosophy of education

Institute of Education

London WC1

I taught mixed ability classes from years seven to 11 in three comprehensive schools and worked alongside teachers of mixed ability classes in a number of comprehensive schools as adviser and inspector. I am delighted that comprehensive education and mixed ability teaching are firmly back on the agenda thanks to educationalists such as Melissa Benn ("How do we make our schools fit to face the 21st century"). Nothing seems more important to me than the provision for all our children of an enriching and stimulating education in a challenging and empathetic environment, an education based on the understanding that all children have the potential to do well; that "intelligence" is various and fluid, not one dimensional and fixed; and that the education of the emotions is at least as important as the education of the intellect.

Look at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/sep/04/how-do-we-make-schools-fit-for-children
So in a way we're talking about a difference between learning and schooling. Schooling for exams is very different from an appetite for learning.

Why was my childhood experience different to that of the current generation? What has changed with the educational system, what has changed with common parenting habits?

Kim, who is a professor of education at the College of William and Mary, analyzed scores on a battery of measures of creativity—called the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT “children have become less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.” 

Peter Gray Ph.D. Freedom to Learn