Does Education Kill Creativity?

From the minute an individual is born, they show creativity in their daily life. Whether this is through their personality or through their interests, children will create their own sense of identity. Often, creativity is thought of as simply ‘being good at art’ or ‘writing stories’ however if an individual is passionate enough about a topic, they will be creative.

 Ken Robinson explores this topic in great detail. He believes that education does kill creativity due to the fact that it doesn't build on our skills and talents and you could leave school not knowing what you are good at. He believes that there are many people in the world who are very intelligent and creative and could change the world however they think they can’t because schools don’t value it as highly as it seems like they should. “Creativity in school is as important as literacy.” (Ken Robinson 2006) This is a bold statement and differs greatly from other opinions. Children born with the nature to try even if they do not know if they are right. Robinson believes that education is so rigid that children are made to feel embarrassed if they are wrong, however according to Robinson, if an individual is not prepared to be wrong, then they will never be creative and never create anything original. It seems that school takes the motivation to be creative out of a person rather than promoting creativity with children.

 Picasso believed that “All children are born artists” and this statement suggests that what Ken Robinson is saying is correct, that instead of building upon creativity, children are being educated out of their own creativity. If you were to look at the outcomes of education, it would conclude that the aim of education is to make individuals university professors or that alike. No school in the world would teach the arts such as dance as vigorously and as in depth as the core subjects.

Maths, English and Science are known as the core subject which are compulsory and they are the main subject that people look at when they get results from exams and also the main results jobs and universities will look at. Art and Drama are the more creative subjects and are looked at as not as important even though there are many jobs in the world where having good creativity will pay off greatly.

I believe that schools are doing more at the moment to try and involve creativity in the curriculum. For example, forest schools are letting children go out in the environment and explore which includes building dens, working with tools and lighting fires. Another example is that schools are now looking at methods such as film education and mantle of the expert which I talk about in the other blogs which are both creative ways of learning. Most schools however including the one I went to don’t take creativity into account as much as they should with the emphasis still being on Maths, English and Science. A study was carried out and over half the people asked in America, UK, Japan, France and Germany thought that education did kill people’s creativity.