Is Education Stifling Creativity?

After reading Mr. O'Connor's blog post about creativity, I started thinking a lot about how creativity affects education, but more about how education affects creativity. I came upon a video of Sir Ken Robinson giving a speech called "How Schools Stifle Creativity" at the TED conference in 2006.

This video showed me a perspective that I was lacking as a student myself. Mr. Robinson believes that although we are all born with great innate talents and creativity, our creative abilities are not recognized in traditional schooling curriculums and we are therefore rarely able to apply them in settings where they should matter the most, in places where it has the greatest potential to grow if given the opportunity.

Education is narrowly focused to the output. As Mr. Robinson puts it, the goal of public education is to produce young adults that have the cognitive ability to be "college professors," a profession where factual education trumps creativity. He makes the argument that "We don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it... we get educated out of it." I've never given this idea much thought, and right after I watched the video, I didn't think I agreed with Mr. Robinson's perspective. But after pondering it for a while, I have realized that traditional schooling environments don't give kids and young adults the opportunity to regularly tap into their creative abilities, and since it is not actively being used, it becomes useless.

Where do you stand on this issue? Do you believe that school systems are stifling (not necessarily intentionally) children's creativity, or not? Does academic accomplishment define success? How does creativity have a role in success?

Invisible Racism

In People magazine a few weeks ago, the cover article was about children who vanished without a trace. Recently, I was reading some reflections on this article, and there was one that made me think about how race silently continues to impact America: "Being the founder of the blog Black and Missing But Not Forgotten, I was happy to see that your cover included two missing blacks. It's a relief to see that someone knows it's not just whites who vanish."

This quote made me realize that inequality between the majority and minorities in America continues to be a problem today, just not as explicitly and not in the same way it used to be. The purpose of Black and Missing But Not Forgotten "is to raise awareness of the racial disparities in mainstream media's reporting of missing persons of color... to draw more attention to missing minorities and help bring them home." The founders of this blog believe that the media pays less attention to minorities than to the majority. But why? This doesn't make any sense to me. We're all American, so for the media what makes missing whites more important than missing blacks?

According to Ernis Suggs, vice president of print for the National Association of Black Journalists, "There is a certain level of interest, a certain fascination with White missing persons... Americans identify with who they want to be." After processing this quote, it occurred to me that there are people that still equate being white with being American, while they should equate being American with being American. Although inequality between races does not affect the public the way it used to, it's clearly still an issue. In class, we have talked a lot about how the media chooses what information to feed to the public. In this situation, what gives the media the right to write stories pertaining to some races more than others? Are they the root of this invisible racism?

Forest Kindergarden

Earlier this year, I blogged about the idea "experience is education," that children need to experience something to fully understand it. Recently, I read an article about forest kindergardeners, a concept that directly addresses the importance of learning through experiencing. Forest kindergarden has been popular in Europe for years and is now gaining popularity in the United States. The 23 forest kindergardeners at the Waldorf School at Saratoga Springs (there are over 100 Waldorf Schools across the nation that offer a variation of the same program) spend at least three hours every day outside, warm or cold, rain or shine. These kids- ranging in age from 3 to 6- have no academic curriculum until first grade. For them, nature is their classroom and the sky is the limit. 

Using their natural surroundings, these children are able to make discoveries that are not possible in a traditional classroom setting. With their imagination and Saratoga Spring's 325 acres of land, there are an infinite number of things to explore and examine.

I see nothing wrong with this type of education for young kids. I think that experience can only enhance and reinforce education, and this forest kindergarden supports this. According to the Waldorf Schools, this type of schooling for young children is favorable because "research has shown that free play in nature increases children's cognitive flexibility, emotional capacity, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, use of imagination, self-esteem, and self-discipline. It makes them smarter, more cooperative, healthier, and happier." So if forest kindergarden has all the above benefits, what is the downside to this type of early education? Should schools across America continue to adapt this type of program, or does traditional preschooling provide a better learning environment?

Ho Ho Ho. What Do You Want for Christmas.. The Swine Flu?

At a mall near my grandparents house in Michigan, there is always a large Christmas display in the weeks leading up to Christmas. As expected, children line up to tell Santa what they want for Christmas, a harmless tradition that brightens a child's day.

Last weekend, I was at this mall but since it was before Thanksgiving, Santa was not yet there and no children were waiting to sit on his knee. But soon, thousands of children would line up to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas. As we passed the tree and seat where Santa would sit, my mom shared with me something she had heard on the news earlier that morning. Due to the H1N1 epidemic, sitting on Santa's lap is not favorable this holiday season. Because his suit is not washed every day and Santas are in constant contact with children all throughout the holiday season, the spread of germs easier. This puts both Santas and visiting children at high risk for getting the virus.

I couldn't help but laugh. This is such an innocent tradition that many kids will be unable to partake in this year due to fear of the flu. But is this kind of alarm necessary? Do we have reason to be this worried? I understand that H1N1 is a highly contagious strain of the flu, but are we being overprotective and worrying too much?

How Did They Get In?

I'm sure many of you have heard about Tereq and Michelle Salahi, the couple that crashed the White House state dinner on Tuesday night. According to Would-be Reality TV Stars Crash Obama Party, the couple was not on the guest list, but still managed to make it through the White House security and mingle in the same room as the other 300 plus guests in attendance. This being said, the couple was screened for weapons before entering, and therefore posed a minimal threat to President Obama and the other guests. 

Earlier this year in a preliminary interview for "The Real Housewives of DC," Michelle Salahi said, "President Obama has made it very accessible for anyone to visit the White House, so that's like a big thing right now." She and her husband proved this to be true on Tuesday night when they crashed the party. 


But I'm left to wonder how the Salahis were able to do this. The White House is one of the most secure places in America; It has to be for the President and his family to safely live there. But if it's one of the most efficiently guarded places in America, how can there be a large enough flaw in security that the Salahis were able to enter without difficulty? Is the President really safe? How does this mistake reflect on our country as a nation?

Is Facebook Blurring Boundary Lines?

Tuesday afternoon, I had a conversation with my 11-year old brother about his day at school. We pretty much have these conversations daily and they never sieze to be entertaining. You see, his teacher (I'll call her Ms. Smith for privacy purposes) refers to herself as "Smith-zilla," often saying things like, "I didn't drink enough coffee this morning, so don't upset me or Smith-zilla will come out of her cave."

This being said, her teaching tactics aren't exactly conventional. But on Monday, my brother told me that over the weekend, Ms. Smith had sat down at her computer with a list of her 6th grade students and searched each one on Facebook. While looking, she found that one of her students did have a Facebook page. Since the page wasn't blocked or protected, she was able to read this student's wall-to-wall conversations and look at her pictures even though the two of them were not friends. Then on Tuesday morning, she confronted this student and shared what she had learned about her personal life.

At first I thought this was out of line and not something a teacher should be doing. But the more I thought about it I realized that she wasn't technically doing anything wrong. Teachers have rights to Facebook, as do students, so there isn't anything preventing teachers doing this, but should there be? Is this a morally wrong thing for teachers to do or do teachers have the right to do this? Is it an infringement on students' privacy?

The moral boundaries over the years have been so blurred that there is little separating teachers and students. I remember my mom telling me that when she was a kid, she didn't even know her teachers' first names. Now, students and teachers interact through social networking tools. This is how much our society has evolved over one generation.

Is a Pencil a Weapon?

I was flipping through the Chicago Tribune on Sunday morning and I saw an article about an 11 year old boy who poked a classmate in the knee with a pencil. Harmon Dehnert, who suffers from severe ADHD, was expelled from his school until next fall for this "act of violence." As to why he was expelled, the Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202 board (in Plainfield, Pennsylvania) "unanimously decided Harmon used the pencil as a weapon and expelled him on Oct. 26."

I understand that this school is trying to protect their students from weapons and violence, but I think this punishment is harsh and unnecessary. All kids make mistakes, and I think Harmon made a small mistake that was blown out of proportion. First of all, his ADHD had a huge impact on this situation-- Harmon does not have someone monitoring his actions in class, and his ADHD is a known cause for his lack of focus and periodic outrages in the classroom. This being said, this incident could have easily been prevented if there was a teacher helping him stay on task in class.

Had Harmon been carrying or using a more threatening "weapon," I think this punishment would have been appropriate. The father of the poked child says that his son is fine, but asks the question, "what if it had been his eye instead of his knee?" I think there is a big problem with this argument as the basis of Harmon's expulsion. Yes, it could have been his eye, but it wasn't. The school board is overlooking what actually happened and instead focusing on what could have happened. But if you apply this idea of "what could have happened" to the whole school, anyone could poke another's eye out, and therefore everyone- not just Harmon- poses a danger. For this to be a logical argument, pencils would have be seen as weapons throughout the school, not just in this particular situation.

Due to the basis of Harmon's expulsion, I think this article raises an interesting question, one that is relevant now in a time of frequent school shootings and acts of violence at school. Do you think Harmon's punishment is fair? What constitutes a weapon? And more importantly, what constitutes an act of violence?