Ideas on education

I understand if the video is a bit too long for you to watch and ultimately it is not necessary.

So, does school kill creativity?

My personal experience is that when I was in primary school, we weren't given any art lessons after the age of 8. None whatsoever. They really only ever got you to draw when they didn't have anything else for you to do. We certainly didn't have dance classes or cooking classes and if we ever did they were usually once a year things.

In high school, maths, english and science dominated my timetable, with 3 other lessons once a week on different subjects such as art, sport and home economics until year 11. Then we got to choose our own subjects for the last 2 years of high school.

So in my opinion yes, school (mine at least) certainly has a way of undermining creativity.

I believe the hierarchy of subjects within the curriculum is definitely in need of questioning and rewriting. Ideally, all subjects should be given as much importance as one another. The question of what and how we teach subjects to children needs to be reconsidered.

My questions:

- Can you imagine what kind of system (or parts of one) that would best facilitate a child's learning in primary school years and onward?

For example, would it be a good idea to bring classroom numbers down to a lesser and more manageable number for teachers so that they can focus on each child and cater more specifically to each child's interest?

- Should children be given the opportunity to pick what they would like to learn? If so, what would be a good way to construct a system in which they are able to do this?


Any kind of input would be appreciated.

I've always believed that playing is the best way to learn about the world. Through playing I've made many mistakes and learn't most from those mistakes, but I find its handy having people giving a bit of their guidence so I discover things more quickley.

Oh haha, I didn't even know anyone had actually replied to this, so thanks Squarepants.

Okay, maybe it was a weird idea to try to start up this kind of discussion on a forum where maybe 1 or 2 other people are actually interested in where the education system is actually headed?

Hmm, I think I am actually going to look into getting this Sir Ken Robinson fellow down to my part of Australia so that he can hold a seminar for educators. Of course, this would be once I actually get a job within the system while studying for a qualification, which luckily I can do, being trained as a T.A and such...I wonder how it would pan out if I talked to schools principals that I will work at and try to get them in on the idea of getting this guy down for a seminar.

I mean, gotta be able to do something along those lines right?

Even if we can't get him to come to our part of the country, perhaps I'll just somehow obtain a good quality video of his speech so that I can organize to show it at schools around the place just for the teachers, just to get the word out and get discussion happening about it. Maybe I'll find out that people here already know about these ideas and are already discussing it. I would hope so.

I'm very positive about this.

We have to start somewhere, and the more people that discuss the topic, the more ideas and solutions are more likely to be had.

(Oh and I'm not out to aim this at everyone on the forum exactly, I understand a lot of you might not be interested in this stuff, just looking for those I know that are interested in the system....*looks at hedgehog*) lol

Thank's I've watched this vid before. I'd say he pulls his punches. Schools are prisons. Check-out John Taylor Gatto. Get behind homeschooling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1kgSlLawyQ

I believe Einstein said it's a miracle that imagination survives modern schooling.

(I have not watched your video yet, didn't have the energy to do so)

Do schools kill creativity?

Off the bat, my answer to this is yes it does. And when I say this I am referring to main stream schooling systems, I think there are schools out there that only very rich parents can afford that take a more creative arts based approach to their teaching methods - but these aren't the school we're talking about, these aren't the schools that most of the population have to go to.

I understand your feelings towards attending schools where your range of subjects is severely limited to prioritizing non creative art subjects. My schooling history was a little varied, I went from junior high in New Zealand to high school in Australia, and I was severely affected by the fact that in New Zealand I was exposed to and had the opportunity to pursue to a variety of creative arts subjects, to being in a school where such subjects weren't even heard of (in Australia).

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- Can you imagine what kind of system (or parts of one) that would best facilitate a child's learning in primary school years and onward?

For example, would it be a good idea to bring classroom numbers down to a lesser and more manageable number for teachers so that they can focus on each child and cater more specifically to each child's interest?

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Just to first address your example, yes, reducing class sizes would make a remarkable difference. I taught primary education for a few years in Australia and I can tell you, with having a class size of 30, any reduction in number made a difference. If a child was ever moved to another teacher, or was leaving the school, which meant my class size was just one less, it made a difference. It affected my work load which meant it affected what I could give as an educator to my class. But it was never enough. I think if the mainstream schooling system hopes to succeed in not stunting children's brains and their creativity, class size reduction has to be one of the top priorities - and I'm talking about dramatic changes, like a class size of 15 or less. Now is that going to happen or is that even on the agenda for the people in power - I don't think so.

What kind of school system would best facilitate a child's learning?

I think the whole system, the curriculum, schools institutions the way it currently are need to be thrown out and recreated. I know that might not sound like a very productive statement, because it means something so expansive and large scale and hence it ain't likely to be part of any society's near future or future plans, but I have very strong feelings behind why I say this, and my past relationship with schools as a result of teaching in mainstream schools has alot to do with it. Having been a teacher myself and having seen the education system from a more inside place, I have come out of it with opinions that shape me and will shape my children's lives when I have them - ideas such as, I do not want to send my children to schools, I intend to teach them myself. Schools as they are, are places where children get mentally and emotionally messed up, their self esteem gets skewed into believing that they have to conform to bullshit standards in order to feel successful, their brains get leached of their abilities to think in their own unique ways - all these things and more in the end affect their ability to be their own creative beings.

A restructuring of the system would have to include:

- A reformation of what 'school' actually means and represents.

Schools are machines of society and the function of this machine is to create individuals that will fit the requirements of society. Eg, society needs its accountants, lawyers, doctors, teachers, checkout chicks, truck drivers, cleaners etc, hence the purpose of schools is to create individuals equipped with the ability to perform these tasks.

Also, schools currently are institutions that are supposed to fill in all the holes that exist in society by delivering where society and parents fail E.g. if too many children are drowning in local waters, schools are looked upon to provide swimming lessons to reduce deaths from drowning. Hence, schools are required to parent children in lieu of actual parents.

According to me, in an ideal world, the definition of a school would be something along the lines of:-
A nurturing place where people go to explore the things that they desire, a place that provides them with the means to explore the things they desire.

Given this definition, the answer to your second question:

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- Should children be given the opportunity to pick what they would like to learn? If so, what would be a good way to construct a system in which they are able to do this?

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is yes, children would perpetually have the opportunity to pick and choose what they want to learn. How would we create a system to enable this? No quick solution. It would mean so much more money, so much more resources invested into changing the way teachers teach; the way students are graded (if graded at all); moving away from an authoritative, the teacher is the creator of activity in the classroom environment to a student is being the central figure of what they learn; having more teachers per classroom; scrutinizing the personalities of those who wish to become teachers in order to determine if they get the job; creating classrooms based on the theme of what is being pursued by students. The list goes on.

Such changes to the school system would mean profound effects on the students and on society. One thing I think that would be awesome, is that we would no longer have confused people who when grade 12 is over, going into the world not knowing what they want to do. I was definitely one of those people - confused, didn't know what I was supposed to do, and everything that I really wanted to do was buried under crap so deep that there was no way I could pursue what I truly wanted.

I think it is very unfortunate and backward for the human race that we do not have leaders willing to put such immense changes in action, leaders not willing to dedicate the full extent of their resources towards changing something that would impact human progression in such a core way. There are probably so many new ways of thinking that would open up as a result of not stunting young minds, and in them being free to think them, we could actually learn new ideas from them. Maybe we wouldn't have to wait centuries for a new Einstein to come along.

Such an awesome post, really helps to clarify the subject in my mind to a greater degree.

It is an overwhelming thought that ultimately, it is as you say, we do need to do a whole restructure of the education system and wipe the slate clean.

And of course, not all of society will be easily convinced at all, that this is what the education system needs. As of now, I don't even believe that majority of people even percieve that there is something direly wrong with the education system.

It's as though we need to concieve of the dream / ideal first, in unison as a whole society, in order to move forward at such a huge level. This would mean more books should be published on the subject, hard-hitting documentaries need to be made and aired, which would hopefully cause grand discourse through various media, infiltrating peoples living rooms constantly.

So I suppose the only place we can start, is to ask ourselves how we as individuals, can do our part to communicate & spread that ideal unto others in our own way, the way in which we would find ourselves being most effective and satisfied with. Perhaps we need to accept that this is all we can do as of now, believe in the ideal and hope that our collective efforts at communicating it, over however a large expanse of time, will eventually be realized at the greatest mass level possible.

As an aside, I find that sometimes when I am thinking about this issue, I can get into this mindframe where I am talking about it in such a rash, impatient manner because, like I'm sure is a case with a lot of people, I get very exciteable when I percieve an area of society where change needs to made, and then I always desire to see it happen in the near future. I then become unnecessarily frustrated with the whole issue because I want it to be solved now, and see the world that would benefit from such a change. But becoming frustrated about it isn't productive and can actually result in someone becoming unproductive and losing hope because their excessive expectations and desires cannot realistically be achieved. I think this is something I struggle with and am going to have to come to peace with in the end.

In regards to your final paragraph:

I was the way you described but more so internally, in my own head, because I don't think I had many people to talk to when it came to my passions. I would sorta get this immense burst of energy when I thought about some idea that could be done and that would yield progressive results. But this would be followed very quickly by what felt like a deflation in my thoughts and passion towards that goal when I saw that realistically, I couldn't make the change that I was envisioning quickly or any time soon. The end result was me feeling fatigued and demoted. I think I am no longer so much this way as a result of dealing with alot of personal issues, issues to do with my family, issues to do with my childhood and abuses I had received in my life, all things which appear to be what you are dealing with in your life.

When I think about it more, I would say that the behaviors you and I have just described, if indeed they are similar in nature, occur the way they do because for large portions of our lives our passions and spirit were suppressed and controlled by the environments we were raised in. But these passions were never killed, instead appeared in bursts here and there, manifesting in different, sometimes distorted ways, such as what we have described. I think the reason it manifests in impatient, urgent manners is because we were not taught that our passions would be successful, that our passions can lead somewhere and enhance the world around us, that our passions are useful, causing us to be sort of desperate when we do feel passionate because we fear that it will disappear, for we weren't given the opportunity to spend time on our passions and reap its rewards when we were growing up. I think growing up we probably felt passionate about things, but it was almost as though those times were predominantly experienced in silence, where you had to keep quiet about it, keep it to yourself and we knew we couldn't keep experiencing the passion we felt because it would inevitably be cut short and disturbed. It makes sense that such conditioning led me to being overly urgent to experience results from my passionate ideas when they came about. Does all this ring true for you? I had never answered why my my past short lived urgent passionate moments transpired the way they did but I believe everything that I just explained is true in regards to me.

I'm glad your post triggered me thinking about it. Like it reminded me of an event in my life which I had not solved yet. Thanks.

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I would sorta get this immense burst of energy when I thought about some idea that could be done and that would yield progressive results. But this would be followed very quickly by what felt like a deflation in my thoughts and passion towards that goal when I saw that realistically, I couldn't make the change that I was envisioning quickly or any time soon. The end result was me feeling fatigued and demoted.

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Yes, that is exactly what happens to me too. When I think about creative projects in general that are bigger and require much more planning and time, I get way too impatient with completing them because I get easily frustrated when I don't get consistant, fast results. As a result, I have doubted a lot of my interests, coming to see them as "phases", which makes me feel unstable in a way, very unsure of myself. At times I get to points where I'm not sure what I should do but I need to do something, like I have all of this energy that I have no idea how to direct sometimes.

This also results in me becoming very confused when I try to pinpoint exactly what I want to pursue when it comes to a career and doubting everything that I want. Right now, I am at conflict with my interests because I feel like I want to do everything. I want to study in Uni so I can become a teacher, I want to apply for a wedding photography for a traineeship and get into that field in some way. I want to spend a lot of my time exploring fashion and working with materials, and I also want to write a children's book.

It feels very panicky, like if I don't try to do all of these things at once, I'll never do any of them. Or I'll get stuck doing one thing (like teaching) and none of the others. This is what I have been struggling with since I left high school, and am struggling with up until this point, having a load of trouble in sticking to just one thing. Now I am unsure about how to go about pursuing any of these interests and which ones I should do first, it feels so frustrating, like a big jumbled mess.

Did you ever deal with this? And if so, how did you resolve it?

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if indeed they are similar in nature, occur the way they do because for large portions of our lives our passions and spirit were suppressed and controlled by the environments we were raised in. But these passions were never killed, instead appeared in bursts here and there, manifesting in different, sometimes distorted ways, such as what we have described.

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I find this very true for myself also. For me, throughout all of my childhood and teen years, I don't feel like I got the chance to express any of my interests and pursue them in a free manner, it was always restricted and supressed by my parents and what they wanted me to focus on and become good at.

So yes, all of what you said rings true for me too, though I didn't consciously consider why I am the way I am to this degree. I mean of course I recognize the issue that I have but for some reason, I have never linked it to what my parents did while raising me and was never able to understand why I move between my interests now, in a very sporadic manner.
Up until now, I had only seen it as it being about school and how limited the subjects were, but now I see how I was definitely suppressed and controlled by my parents in these manners as well. It definitely makes sense. I'm really glad I mentioned that thing at the end of my other post, I think i did that because I got really frustrated when I read your post and then had to calm myself down. Your observation has really helped me to understand this issue to a greater degree. Dawn FTW.