Thursday, June 17, 2010

Creativity Extinct?

I have written down so many great quotes as I researched the idea of homeschooling.  I'll share them throughout our journey.  Recently, a friend shared a video with me that really resounded with my concern for my daughter if she should remain in a formal classroom at this time.  I worry that she is a creative individual who will be told that she cannot be.  Here are my favorite quotes from Sir Ken Robinson (I recommend watching his 20 minute presentation.):

Kids will take a chance.  If they don't know, they will have a go...They're not frightened of being wrong...If you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original...and by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity.  They have become firghtened of being wrong...and we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.  And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities...

It would be interesting to note how many groundbreaking inventions occurred on accident?  How often did people try things without fear of what might not happen, but what COULD?

We don't grow into creativity.  We grow out of it...or rather we get educated out of it...

Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the thing they were good at in school wasn't valued or was actually stigmatized.

I spent middle school and high school in a small town that glorified sports, namely football.  The band was wimpy, the choir rarely performed, and we managed only one drama production in my entire high school career.  For an aspiring performer, I had to quench my thirst for creativity in my local church youth group.  But to be deemed a success to the population of athletic fans, was to be one of them.  I became an average athlete to please my peers.  But it wasn't where my passions lied.


Homeschooling will provide my daughter the opportunity to explore what she loves and is naturally good at, instead of forcing her to become what a system has decided she should be.  Creativity is life-giving, innovative, and essential to future progress.  It's counter-productive to stamp it out.

This world needs fidgety people like Bella.

Photo by Squeezebox Photography.

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