When I was in primary school, I wanted to be a tap dancer. Every day, I looked forward to wearing my tap shoes and dance for as long as I could. But one day, my teacher told my mum I just wasn’t doing well at Maths and English – SATs were coming up. The result: I was taken out of dance, and I was sent to tuition instead.
I believe that we are all born creative! Children are the best proof of this. You can see natural curiosity – a key part of creativity in nearly everything they do. Picasso once said that “All children are born artists. The challenge is for us all to remain an artist as we grow up.” Why do many of us lose our creativity? The answer often is school.
I believe there are two main reasons for this.
Firstly, we are now part of a national education system where mistakes are the worst thing that can happen. Even though, some of the best inventions come from mistakes. For example, a cook accidentally mixed together common kitchen items. When the mixture was compressed it exploded- this is how fireworks were invented. The educational system drains the creativity from the minds of each and every one of us.
How many times did you feel compared to the person sitting next to you or felt judged because you weren’t reaching the same standard as other class members? As a result many highly talented, creative people think they do not have a creative bone in their body — because they were made to feel like failures at an early age or the things they were brilliant at, weren’t valued in school. The report, the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Values, highlighted the significant decrease in the value of creativity within the education system in the UK: "There are major concerns that the educational system is not focusing on the future needs of the cultural and creative industries and the broader needs for innovation and growth in the UK," the commission said. The education system promotes standardisation and a narrow view of intelligence when human talents are diverse and personal!
Secondly, every education system has the same hierarchy of subjects: maths and science at the top, then humanities, and right at the very bottom are the arts. Why? Why aren’t we taught to dance, and become more in touch with how our bodies move? Or paint and tell stories so that we can express ourselves freely without the limitations of school. According to the BBC, there has been a 50% drop in GCSE entries for design and technology, 23% for drama and 25% for other craft-related subjects. Sir Ken Robinson is an international advisor on education, and strongly believes the whole system of education should be rebuilt from scratch for just this reason. He also believes that our education system values academic ability alone and says in his Ted talk that: “People and organisations everywhere can see that current systems of education are failing to meet the challenges we now all face and they’re working furiously to create alternatives.”
Did you know that here were no public systems of education before the 19th Century? All of them came into being to meet the needs of the industrial revolution, which is one of the main reasons why students grow up with the phrase ‘you will never get a job doing that’- and once again the personal belief, confidence and determination is ripped out of the child.
If schools allowed students to put emotions in a painting rather than being told exactly what is good or what is bad, or just put less emphasis on the “core” classes, then more of us will be able to find a unique perspective in our subjects, discover what we are best at and how best to express our creativity . A far too common misconception is that creativity is only required for creative industries; however this is far from the truth. For instance, a creative science teacher is likely to teach in a more diverse and interesting way so that the whole class will be significantly more enthusiastic towards the subject and even those who are considered less academic will be able to learn with less frustration. I believe I lost a part of who I was as a consequence of doing badly at school and was taking out of dance class. If we want a world full of successful, problem solving, creative and happy people, let the children paint, sing, act, build, tell stories and yes, even tap dance!
By Sabrina Court, Ursuline Sixth Form.
