The Current Education System Is Stiffling Creativity

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

“If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.” Sir Ken Robinson.

A little bit of history on the education system

Before the education system as we know it today come about, education (in regards to literacy, mathematics, geography and the sciences) was considered a craft to be learned only by the well to do and high born. Lesser individuals learned a trade from their fathers and the girls of the family were taught how to cook and look after the family and to become a future wife. This was true for most cultures throughout history, the education system as a complusary attendance rule has only really come into existence in the past 150 or so years.

In times of old our children were taught skills that were important for everyday living; money handling, animal husbandry, farming, forestry, water planning, carpentry, shipping, baking, sewing, crop growing and harvest, fishing, hunting, painting, singing, poetry and rhyme, learning a musical instrument and for those who had parents that could also write and read, if they were lucky, they would be taught those skills too. The education system back then was the parents responsibility and choice, if they wanted their children to do well then it was up to them to provide the appropriate education system for them or find someone else who would.

Before education system, now education system….is there a difference?

The changes in the education system have been gradual over the years, emphasis has been put largely on not failing and for a large portion of the worlds children in this education system, the pressure to perform overshadows what is being taught. Children view school as a place of competition and if the work done is not of a certain level, the child usually gets left behind. School is a place of stigma, labels, assumptions and more than anything else, a glorified baby sitter.

Class numbers and lack of funds, not to mention the reams of red tape tying up the teachers hands mean that only what is dictated should be taught, is taught. Creativity in teachers and students alike is usually frowned upon and discouraged and then we have the parents expectations…..that in itself is a whole different story……When it comes down to brass tacks, what is left is uneducated children and trillions in wasted money. The old education system simply does not work anymore.

How do we get rid of an outdated education system?

The answer is simple, not very easily. There are all sorts of remedies offered that have yet to be actioned and to say the job is a big one is an immense understatement but everyone can start by taking responsibility for their own children and their educations instead of leaving it up to a broken education system. Below Ken Robinson has some views he has shared, it is an interesting listen and very entertaining, I am also interested in your views so please leave a comment.