Creativity

06/15/2021

The Government has been hacking back creativity like a logger with a chainsaw. Yet, the world needs its artists, poets and musicians to add colour and humanity in an otherwise formulaic world.

In subjects such as English, creativity is increasingly being devalued in favour of incessant analysis of rigid rules. This is not only deeply uninteresting but it misses the extraordinary capability that children have for innovation.

Picasso once said that "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." It's this process of unlearning that is truly unforgivable.

Creativity is simply not seen as a priority, deemed as not useful for industry. This makes the rather illogical assumption that every child will one day be white-collar workers, and ignores that this country has produced some of the greatest musicians, artists and authors in the world.

For education to be successful, we need to embrace the qualities that make us different from the mechanised and robotised workforce that will one day make us redundant. Creativity is the first of my 10 chosen qualities; I'll be sharing the next nine over the next few weeks.

An insightful and entertaining TED Talk by educationalist Sir Ken Robinson making the case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

Do you agree? Should creativity be valued more in schools?