english class - killing creativity
Elizabeth Kamara and
english class - killing creativity
Elizabeth Kamara and
“The purpose of education is to develop agency within a child. Purposeful work and achieving mastery are tools to getting there. They aren’t the results of learning and imagination, it’s the other way around—learning is simply the consequence of doing. To understand this is to understand the ecology that fosters genius and talent.”
Following the Industrial Revolution, a mass education system was introduced to meet the needs of industrial production. Unfortunately, though, the alienating nature of this widespread education came at the expense of intellectual unity, synthesis and, therefore, understanding. The curriculum was designed to produce factory labourers who could read
... See more“the alienating nature of this widespread education came at the expense of intellectual unity, synthesis and, therefore, understanding.”
... See moreNineteenth-century educational reformers wanted schools as efficient and impersonal as America’s impressive manufacturing facilities, so they established a system that treats children like industrial workers. Under the watchful eye of an overseer, students toil silently until a bell signals their opportunity to eat and briefly socialize. Unlike
“The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) was developed in 1966 and renormed five times: in 1974, 1984, 1990, 1998, and 2008. The total sample for all six normative samples included 272,599 kindergarten through 12th grade students and adults. Analysis of the normative data showed that creative thinking scores remained static or decreased, starting at sixth grade. Results also indicated that since 1990, even as IQ scores have risen, creative thinking scores have significantly decreased. The decrease for kindergartners through third graders was the most significant.”
through curiosity can reveal people to themselves. But formal education largely remains a vocational enterprise in which, Sir Ken argues, we are being steered away from the things we love “on the grounds that you would never get a job doing that.” Love has been rationalized out of the system of education, but it is central to the deeply personal
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