Creativity

Thomas Edison once said, "I've made more mistakes than anyone who ever lived, but I wouldn't have done half as much if I hadn't made those mistakes."



Truly creative people are not afraid of making mistakes, they know that in order to come up with an original idea, one may have to go through a process of trial and error. It seems to me, however, that in many schools, children are taught more and more not to take risks and make mistakes, but rather that there is a right and wrong answer and they need to get the answer right. This may be a result of all of the testing to which we are subjecting our children, but I think there may be more to it. In many schools there is a clear message that people who are good at math and language arts will be truly successful while those who are good at music and art will have a nice hobby as they grow up. Why is this so? Wouldn't it be better to ask open ended questions that have no right or wrong answer and explore all the possibilities of a topic? Couldn't you express your knowledge of a topic through the arts? Becoming educated should not mean that we can no longer think creatively, it should mean that we expand our creative horizons. That is one of the principles that, I think, makes CCDS such a special place. We can express our ideas in interesting and different ways, we can explore all sides of a question, we can celebrate diverse ideas and ways of thinking.



Please spend a few minutes listening to Ken Robinson's ideas on creativity in this You Tube video "Do Schools Today Kill Creativity?" at www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY and let me know what you think.