Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Creativity...educated out of students?




The TED talk I looked at asked the question whether or not we’re killing creativity with how we educate our children today. This is something that I’ve always kind of been concerned about myself. As a person who was always moving and talking and doing something in my younger years to the point where my Grandmother constantly whispered “Whitney, SC (Self-control)” all day long, my Grandmother worked at my elementary school as a paraprofessional so she made sure I was in line literally all day long. She feared I was going to be labeled as ADD or ADHD)I feel for kids today. I sometimes wonder what I might have become if I was left to my own devices. Similarly, I do the same thing to my nephew and daughter today. I’m constantly trying to get them to conform to what is expected. Sit down here, stand there, etc. And they’re only 7 and 21 months old, respectively. It starts very young and then it continues in the school setting. It makes me want to set my classroom up differently from what I’ve experienced. But I’m thinking it’ll be tricky to keep the structure and still foster the creativity. But hopefully I’ll be able to learn some techniques to do that in this class and throughout my education at Roberts.