Does modern education kill a child’s creativity?
By: Payal Tyagi
Tags: Education Reform, Education, Skills Development

The famous educationalist Ken Robinson claimed in one of the most-watched TED Talks, “ schools kill creativity.” As per him, the reason is — while studying in schools, students don’t grow into creativity, they grow out of it. In one of his talks with Sadhguru, Mr Robinson cited a real-life example of The Beatle band boys whose talents were never recognised by their music teachers in school. On the contrary, Mr Tim Leunig, an economist, argued in his TED, talk that “ schools impart creativity in children by cultivating knowledge.” He cited an example of the steam engine invention by Thomas Newcomen, which possibly happened due to subject knowledge.

Well, the question is not about who is right and who is not among the two inspirational TED speakers; what we need to understand is the actual definition of creativity. Let’s start answering it with busting a myth — creative thinking or creativity is related to artistic work. The fact — creative thinking has a relation with innovation, which can be anywhere from invention to art form.

Hence, schools or modern education are not killing creativity directly, but in the following ways:

In today’s time, most of the school boards focus on a curriculum that entails a handful load of learning theoretical subjects, which doesn’t help in comprehending the real concepts and the logic behind. For example, in Mathematics, most of the teachers tell the steps in an equation, rather than explaining their significance. Even brilliant students like Stephen Hawking have blamed the progressive methods of his school for failure to learn. Initially, Hawking wasn’t a bright student academically and used to model aeroplanes, manufacture fireworks with his friends. He even built a computer using clock parts with the help of his Mathematics teacher. With time, Hawking began to manifest considerable aptitude for scientific subjects. His Physics tutor once said, “it was only necessary for him to know that something can be done, and he could do it without following other people’s activities.” Now, don’t you think that Hawking’s scientific invention is a byproduct of creative thinking? But the difference is that not every child get that kind of mentor and motivation.

There is another on-going argument about schools not emphasising on 21-st century skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, lucid communication, and the art of learning, which is true. For example, most of the students hate history because the teaching method is emphasised on learning chronology rather than the facts. Students can perform critical thinking if they are aware of the happenings.

The problem lies in the fact that states, only 1% of students in the class can learn these skills on their own, but the rest of them need a premise through which they can acquire. Hence, either the schools should render it by devising a skill-based curriculum or the ed-techs can take responsibility on their shoulders to aid the schools in achieving this objective.

The bottom line

The focus of education should be on teaching a balanced education that emphasises on humanities, practical training along with Maths and Science. In other words, schools need to impart interdisciplinary knowledge that can help students in developing functional independence.

Written by Payal Tyagi