Another good link from guess who

[avevale_intelligencer]

pbristow linked to this. Go see. I'll wait. :)

One of the original commenters said "I can't find anything to disagree with in this," and that's kind of my feeling as well, which is interesting because what seems to be expected is more sort of leaping up and down and yelling "Amen! Woohoo! Tell it, Daddy!" or, erm, words to that effect. I can't fault what he's saying, but...

But...I can't escape the feeling that it was about the time that I was passing through the ejumacational system that the rot started to set in, and that was precisely when they started going on about creativity and discovery and letting the kiddiwinks find their own way. I was lucky, in that I got the last gasp of the old not-meant-to-be-fun-boy mode of learning in which you got given the straw (whether you thought you wanted it or not) and taught how to make bricks with it. I could have had a more enjoyable time at school, but I'd have learned a lot less. As it was, I left school convinced that life was going to be a lot easier than it is, and it's done me no good at all.

The story about the girl who wanted to be a dancer is very moving and all that. It would be nice if we could all follow our individual star and carve out our own paths. I've been enthusiastically pilloried for saying, as this chap seems to be saying, that creativity is an end in itself and should be encouraged and rewarded; people have said things like "and who, pray tell, would dig the ditches?" and it's a telling argument. If children are allowed to opt out of learning maths and languages because they want to be dancers or painters or whatever, we'll get a bunch of dancers and painters who can't talk to people or make change. (I am still horrified by the boy in front of me in the queue who stood there staring vacantly at the two twenty-pence and one ten-pence coin in his hand till the kindly checkout operator assured him that yes, that did add up to fifty pence.)

Many people, and I know this will come as a shock to a lot of my exceptional friends, don't want to work. Gods know I don't. But we have this complex framework of society that supports us, and it depends for its survival on lots of people spending their time doing what they don't want to do. To do this effectively, they have to be taught things they don't enjoy learning, not just rote facts (though they are important) but basic skills such as sitting still when they're told to and not being disruptive. They have to learn that sometimes you will be bored and discontented and frustrated and downright unhappy and that there is nothing you can do about that. Otherwise adult life will come as a terrible shock to them.

As for creativity...well, in my experience, if it's that important to a person it busts out anyway. Sometimes even in university professors. And yes, by all the gods, it should be encouraged. By the parents. When the kid is not at school. When that doesn't happen, or when the reverse happens, it's a tragedy that cries to heaven for redress, but that doesn't mean that the time in which the children are supposed to be given the tools they'll need in life should be spent encouraging self-expression and fostering unreasonable expectations.

I think what the man says is well-meant, and in an ideal world true, and when we have the work-optional society that the powers that be have been trying to hold back from us for the last four decades his ideas will be crucial in forming the educational system that will be needed then. But not yet.

And yes, I do live in my head. I do regard my body as a support mechanism for my head. I don't know how to live any other way. (There was a Feiffer cartoon about it that I remember to this day. "this is my body. it is funny-looking. it malfunctions. it looks best in winter clothes. lucky for my body that I need it to transport my head around. otherwise out it would go.") But school didn't do that to me. I was that way before I ever went to school, and I successfully resisted all its attempts, through music'n'movement and PE and games and so on, to convince me otherwise. I just wish I'd known I was supposed to be a university professor.

Comments

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I wish I'd had you as a university professor (OK, there's a matter of age in the way), you'd have been better than many of ours.

I haven't seen the linked thing, I don't have access here and won't have access to anything with sound until at least Sunday evening, but I certainly agree with you about things which are necessary. I saw (although fortunately didn't have to experience) the mess caused by the "let the children learn what they are interested in" theories. (Although I've been known to stare at 2 twenties and a ten and not add them up, and for that matter have got hung up on "what is two plus two?", on several occasions, but that's a brain which malfunctions.) And that it's the parents' job to encourage creativity primarily, not the schools'.

There are some places in school where creativity is and/or should be encouraged, though. Writing in English (and other language) classes. I'm in favour of music teaching in schools. 'Crafts' classes (woodwork, metalwork, art, cookery, etc.). We had those when I was at school, balancing the 'hard' subjects which had 'right' answers. But children do need those 'hard' subjects as well.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, there's definitely a place for some exercise of creativity. But those outlets were available when I was at school, and I'd be willing to bet they still are.

Do look at the thing when you can. He is a very entertaining speaker, and, as I said, I have a lot of sympathy for his ideas.

[do0odlebug.livejournal.com]

Don't fully agree with him. But I've put the full reply on the linked to item, where I hope it will get a wider readership (and probably ripped to shreds too).

And by the by, it's not the powers that be that have stopped us reaching the work-optional situatioon we were all promised back in the sixties. The simple truth is that the technology is STILL not up to it now, and won't be for at least another generation. The problem is compounded by the fact that, having reduced the amount of work actually needed a bit, no-one has figured an "economic" way of distributing the leisure so produced anything like evenly (though the working hours directive is a step in the right direction, Tony Blair et al not withstanding).

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

What you and Keristor both said. Life in the Real World requires a certain amount of rigour - we all have to spend large chunks of time doing things we don't really want to do. Where are we going to prepare for that except at school?

I think education is about equipping people to learn and continue learning, and to use what they learn. And all of that takes effort, time and discipline.

Creativity needs to be fostered, too, because without it what we learn won't be transformed into action, or into productive free time (as opposed to going out and getting blatted all the time - which has its good side, but only occasionally....), but, well, take writing, for example:
I want to write, I'd like, ultimately, to have original fiction published, but if I sit and wait for the big idea to come along without practising in the meantime, then if/when it hits, I won't be able to do anything with it. Writing is hard work, time-consuming, requires and education, is an education, needs critical faculties, etc. etc. etc. You know all this. Sitting around at school fiddling with this and that for five minutes at a time isn't going to get anyone anywhere.

I've been very impressed with the French school system so far. #1 started at age three. Now, they're not going to be reading Balzac at that age, but what they do learn is a lot about sitting still, listening, concentrating, turn-taking, perfoming taskes that are given to them, and any number of pre-maths, pre-reading skills. By the time they hit primary school, they are READY for the graft they're put through. Personally, I don't think they get enough of the arts/crafts/creative stuff at primary school, but there's plenty of extra-curricular stuff if one is prepared to chase it up, and - as you point out - there's home.

Well, I suppose my point was: yes, I agree. Jolly good show.

[eleri.livejournal.com]

I both agree and disagree with you, but my brain is too mushy to articulate it right now.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Hey that's what I should have said.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

I wish my brain was function well enough to jump into this. I can see why this man is a Sir, he's brilliant. But we do need ditch diggers and garbage men. Although there's nothing to say they can't be creative in their off hours. I've bookmarked the page and will go back at some point to listen to it again.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"But we do need ditch diggers and garbage men. Although there's nothing to say they can't be creative in their off hours."

I think this is missing the point (in the same way that other commentators are missing the point).

We need ditch diggers and garbage men who can be creative in the *on* hours. Creative about how the resolve the problems that arrive during their jobs: How to stop the water gushing out of that pipe we didn't realise we were about to dig into (and don't have the tools to properly repair on the spot); How to get the garbage truck out of the street we're currently blocked into by the overturned van just ahead of us...

And as the nature of the technology we use everyday changes, and along with it the size and shape and distribution and maybe even the *nature* of our civilisation's infrastructures, we'll need ditch-diggers and garbage men who can creatively adapt to whatever new roles emerge for them, rather than going on strike to demand that more ditches be dug whetehr they're needed or not, just so that they can stay in employed in the only job they know how to do.

OK, so the literal "going on strike" problem is fairly rare in the UK these days compared to the 1970s, but the more subtle, less conscious phenomenon of hitting a problem, not knowing how to proceed and *not even attempting to figure out* a solution, is very widespread, and becomes more acute as technology becomes more complex and virtualised; as companies become more diversified, more functions are outsourced, and chains of responsibility become more fragmented and harder to interpret.

I think the case he quotes of the dancer is perhaps a red herring, inspiring though it is, because it leads people back to the idea of "creativity is what artists have, and isn't what 'workers' need", which is exactly the industrial-age mind-set that we need to egt out of. Creativity is something we *learn* through art, and need to *apply* in every facet of our work.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Now that I understand. I've worked with way to many people who just threw their hands in the air when a problem arose. Didn't even try to solve the problem. Think outside the box? you've got to be kidding. And what's really sad about this is that many of these folks are working with kids. The ones who are supposed to be helping teach kids how to solve problems.

Ontario's new ciriculum is supposed to be teaching kids how to solve problems and be creative, I'm not convinced anythings changed.

[bigjobhagmissy.livejournal.com]

I have so much I'd like to say about this, but I don't have the time right now. But in brief I think do it is essential that children master the basics of written and spoken communication and mathematics. Smallship 1 is so right about straw and bricks. I also think it is vital to teach children self-discipline and application: achievement does not normally come on a plate, most of us have to strive for the end result - this is reality. However I believe formal education should ideally be about 50% hard grind, and 50% inspiration and enthusiasm - and inspiration requires creativity. Creativity is born from using both mind and body in as many diverse ways as possible, and what is good for one person may not be for the next. The greatest thinkers have often polymaths - not confined to one discipline. To take an example, the memory enhancement techniques I have come across require a lot of active and focused imagination. They are hard to learn as an adult, but for a child under 10 - I should think the sky's the limit.

Sorry if this is a bit disjointed - I am being severely distracted at the moment! I would love to hear what others think on this.

[jahura.livejournal.com]

I think the point of the tale of the choreographer was lost. The doctor found a creative solution for her particular problem. The most successful teachers and educators have always found creative ways to meet their challenges, and passed that on to their students. To me the message is not really so much about art but seeing math from the view of an artist, and educating the educators to try using both sides of the brain instead of simply pounding data into the left.

At least, that's what I got from it.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

[NODS] That's it. See my reply to smoooom, above.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Yes, you're both right, I can see that...but I think in that case it's not that anything needs to be taken away or changed, but that something needs to be added. The basis for creativity, if it is to have any chance at all of arriving at a right choice (more critical perhaps in the case of a ditch digger than of an artist, who can maybe afford to make all the wrong choices on the way to the right one), is the raw data pounded into the left side. Without that data, creativity is operating in a vacuum. And sometimes the thing that's been done the same way for hundreds of years is actually the right thing, and knowing that helps.

Education could end up taking a whole lot longer if it's to be done right. Which would be easier in a work-optional society than it is now, when economic survival of the individual depends on getting whatever paid employment is on offer, and the more educated you are the bigger debt you've got to repay. (Another way I was lucky...)

[jahura.livejournal.com]

If your definition of "creativity" is to provide a counter to logic, then that's a logical argument for logic. :) No educational system of the masses can be designed or adapted to meet the needs of the individual, and bland conformity in combination with apathy is the one survival skill conventional education provides for dealing with any situation outside the home. That's why home schooling has become more and more popular over the years and may eventually replace the current rigor in a couple of generations.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

See Eleri's comment above. I had a long reply written and it was boring me to death, I don't know about anyone else. The sum of it is, while I would trust anyone I know personally to do home schooling for their children if any, I think my friends are exceptional, and I think an educational system is going to continue to be necessary, and the needs of the individual are just going to have to be fulfilled elsewhere. And if agreeing that two and two make four is conformity, then yes, I believe we need some degree of conformity.

[jahura.livejournal.com]

Yes, two and two make four.
Three and one make four.
One and one and one and one make four.
Negative seven and positive eleven make four.
Twenty over five makes four, ten take away six makes four, and the square root of sixteen is four. While logical and correct, two and two are not the only way to acheive four and by insisting it is, is the soul of conformity. Open-mindedness isn't rebellion, but we are spoon-fed the belief that it is.