Ken Robinson is right in saying that as we get older in the school system the less emphasis is placed on creativity and the arts. Throughout my entire academic career my education has been pretty structured. There was always Math, Science, Language Arts, and History. In elementary school there was a daily class focusing on some type of creative activity, usually music or art. In middle school there was only an art class of which took place for only one semester and you had to sign up to be in it the year before. Then in high school a person was lucky if they could get into a creative class such as art, and still that only counted as an elective, not a requirement at all.
But what I realized as I sat down to write this blog is that there really is a lack of creativity the further you get in the school systems. Starting a blog was hard for me because it was a different way of writing. I am still not sure if I have it right. Especially true in my English classes, I have been trained to write a specific way, very structured and orderly and having no personality to the papers. If you've written one research paper you have written them all. One thing that has always bothered me about my English classes (more so in high school than college) is that the teacher's never assigned any creative assignments. I feel like I was only ever trained to write literary analysis for the rest of my life and now when I do get a creative writing assignment or something of that sort, I am at a loss.
Also, when schools are on a tight budget or they need to get rid of a certain program, usually the first thing they get rid of is the art or music program. Just another testament to the straight-laced classes taking precedence over their creative counterparts.
I also really liked the part in Elizabeth Gilbert's speech about a person having a genius and not being one. I think it goes to show that anybody can get inspired and be creative. I think sometimes people just give up on their own creative endeavors because they believe they will fail or are not creative in the first place. It allows people to have their own stroke of creative genius and I think more people should allow their genius to inspire and help them create.
It indeed takes a great courage to keep on doing creative works because there's nothing defined and restricted, thus there is no correct answers, you don'y know whether you've done it right,which is not familiar with all the traditional concepts.
ReplyDeleteI also think that creative works don't necessarily mean art or music or dancing corses, every subject can trigger our creativity, just think in our own way, let others judge.
anyway, it's easy to talk, but hard to act like this....