American Curriculum and the Debilitating Effect on Creativity

Dr. Linda Taylor presented a very well put-together speech on creativity and how it relates to education.  She described how education (particularly American education) confines creativity and only awards thinking that is not done out of the box.  Her mentioning the fact that Americans have not been winning Nobel Prizes as an example of how education has acted as a hindrance in some cases.  If children were taught early on that out of the box thinking was a good thing, then perhaps we would have more stand out individuals coming out of the school system.

The assertion that the heads of schools and school districts are overwhelmingly administrative types and do not start out as teachers is quite alarming.  I believe that there should be an equal ratio of teachers and non-teachers in administrative positions to make sure that all of the business decisions being made are first and foremost in the best interests of the students.

Perhaps the best part of Linda's talk were the examples she provided to illuminate us on how long the idea of thinking outside of the box has been around, but still works of art and articles are being created detailing how the schools are forcing children to think one way instead of approaching education from an outside the box perspective.  First came the poem which depicted a child's creativity being held back by the school systems, then came the song, then the article, and finally the video we all had to watch prior to her presentation.  All four illustrated the creative constraints students are placed under by the school system. 

 I particularly liked the song which told the story of a boy who wanted to color a flower all the colors of the rainbow, but he was told that flowers are red and that is how he should do it.  He conformed and once again, creativity was constrained.  But the last chorus or verse of the song almost made a call to arms to stop putting these children inside these boxes and destroying their creative impulses.  This last part of the song really spoke to me because it gave a little hope that the situation in some schools may be resolved and creativity may be allowed to flow from children after all.