To continue my sharing on school and creativity, I'd like to share with you one of the most inspiring speech I've ever heard in years. Sir Ken Robinson, in the 2006 TED conference, gave the speech titled Does School Kill Creativity?
He justified my belief and teaching philosophy -
Creativity in school is as important as literacy.
I won't do a summary of the speech as I encourage every teacher and parent to watch the speech and be inspired.
Sir Ken Robinson is also a British author; if you would like to read more about him, please visit the Sir Ken Robinson Website.
All teachers should seriously think about their position on creativity in school. It doesn't only relate to the arts but it should the one of the core objectives of school curricula. Sometimes, we are intimidated about creativity in classroom because it is about something unplanned and uncertain. Teachers are afraid that we cannot handle this kind of situation so some of us avoid it - we try to teach as the lesson plans say and assume that children are learning. Therefore, teachers need to be creative and open-minded ourselves in order to face spontaneous responses and situations.
I came across an interesting research article called Teachers' Biases Towards Creative Children. The study has invited 144 teachers and 133 college graduates to respond to an rate 4 students profiles (1 high-creative boy, 1 high-creative girl, 1 low-creative boy and 1 low-creative girl.). The results show that teachers tend to show negative perception towards creative students; they are thought to be more disruptive. Some conclusion on gender differences was drawn, too. This is a good reminder for all of us - when we have a very active (or disruptive) child in class, are we the teachers who, like the one shared in the speech above, suggest the parents to send the child to dancing lesson so that they can flourish kinesthetically, or are we the teachers who can't wait to convince parents to put him/her on medication?
Reference:
Scott, C.L. (1999). Teachers' Biases Towards Creative Children. Creativity Research Journal. 12(4), 321-328.
