Creativity is a Thing of the Past
Smells Like: creativity, teaching, teaching styles
Last summer I came across a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson titled Do Schools Kill Creativity in which Sir Ken makes the case for reintroducing creativity into our lessons. Watching his video lecture made me feel that magic would soon happen in my classroom. Robinson’s argument is simple: the most effective workers of tomorrow will be the innovators, the creators, those who march to the beat of a different drummer.
Sadly aware that my profession does little now to encourage the kind of creativity Sir Ken was talking about, I faced a challenge—and I’ve now spent the better part of the last 6 months trying to find ways to encourage creativity in my own students.
Toward this end I have been a complete failure.
Creativity is a thing of the past, Ken—something from another age, an anachronism, a dinosaur in Central Park.
Teachers are rarely if ever encouraged to be creative: Spend a few months in a public school teacher’s shoes and you’re going to discover a job bereft of creativity. It’s all about the tests now. Nothing else.
Sorry to burst your bubble, Ken.
By Tom Fasano on December 14, 2009 – 9:32 am
Posted in Thoughts on Teaching | No Comments »
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