Do Schools Kill Creativity?
A little girl from a public school was telling a little girl who attends Rainbow Mountain Children’s School that she has a principal at her school. The Rainbow child boasted, “We don’t have a principal at Rainbow, we have an executioner!”Â
What we actually have is an exectuive director, but that child wasn’t worried about whether she had the word exactly right. Young children who have been raised compassionately are not afraid of making mistakes or of being wrong. They say goofy things all the time, and if no one has mocked them, they don’t mind adults chuckling at how “cute” they are. In order to learn, they have to be willing to dig in and try new things, without fear of doing it “wrong,” or, as we say at Rainbow, without being too self conscious. In a marvelous lecture by Sir Ken Robinson (from a past TED event), SKR points out that it is this willingness to explore, to “have a go” at something, that leads to creativity.
Unfortunately, in conventional education with its atmosphere of tesing, children early on learn that mistakes are the worst thing they can make. SKR argues that in the American educational system, children are educated out of their creativity.
To see all of Sir Ken Robinsons’s TED speech titled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?,” visit Do Schools Kill Creativity? SKR has classic English wit, so be prepared to be entertained AND educated.
Our mission statement includes the word “discovery.” We agree with Sir Ken Robinson when he claims that children are born creative, and our job as educators isn’t to teach them how to be creative, but how to enhance their creativity and make is useful. Both at school at home, we want our children to feel safe to explore, try new things, and to learn from their mistakes.
