Creativity in Education

What is the biggest flaw in the current education system? I firmly believe that it is the lack of creativity in education. Without creativity, schools are dull and lack innovative students. It’s like teaching a group of zombies; Do they care? Are they even thinking critically? Are they trying to apply knowledge to try forming their own hypothesis? Probably not, at least from my experience.I guess that isn’t very reliable.

I share the same sentiments as Ken Robinson who firmly believes that schools kill creativity. Robinson compares children who are imaginative and innovative to adults who are trained to be narrow-minded and formulaic. Children are much more spontaneous. They don’t fear being wrong and frankly they don’t even care about it because they’re too busy trying to enjoy themselves. As they grow older, they realize that if they follow certain thinking patterns and behaviors, they will fit in and avoid being wrong. I have no idea why being wrong is so taboo in society. By getting something wrong, people are able to learn to adapt, change their methods, and eventually come to a solution. Is that not learning? This is a topic Robinson makes a good point about. He claims that schools stigmatize being wrong, which causes students to fear it. Schools do all they can to help students avoid the wrong answers. This is essentially educating people out of creativity, which I believe to be an important point. Look at the current education system. What subjects are emphasized? STEM (science, technology, engineering, math). These are all industrial subjects that focus solely on academics and drop the arts. Unsurprisingly, the programs that are first in line to receive budget cuts are the arts. It’s a shame that creativity is undervalued.

Can you recall how it felt to be watching a presentation containing nothing but information and a picture every so often? Extremely boring. In all my life, the amount of interesting presentations I’ve seen can probably be counted on my fingers. From an audience’s point of view, this is horrible. It’s incredibly difficult to keep someone’s attention with a boring presentation. Of course it’s possible to claim that beautiful visuals and animation can be distracting, however at least the audience is looking at the screen. This doesn’t mean that every professor has to minor in graphic design, though it would be nice. Here are a few helpful presentation tools discussed in Untangling the Web By Stephen Dembo and Adam Bellow:

SlideShare:

Slideshare essentially lets you present without having to be there. People are able to publically upload presentations onto the web and allow others to have access. The fact that Slideshare is online means that sharing is extremely easy, meaning anyone who is familiar with social networking can use sites like Facebook to reach out to a larger audience. These features make it an extremely convenient tool for a classroom environment.

Prezi:

One of my favorite presentation tools. It truly pulls away from the boring traditions of dull slide-by-slide presentation. Prezi simply presents all the information on a single space. It is much easier to tie each topic to the main theme this way. The creative aspect is definitely what makes Prezi so appealing. It is possible to create appealing animations that relate to the theme while keeping the audience engaged and interested. For example, “projects related to global issues might zoom around a map of the world.” Prezi is not only appealing, but also user friendly, interactive, and can do most of what your traditional slide presentation can do (share links, embed videos, etc.).