Teaching Creativity — The Wrong Way
Million-Dollar Question: How do you channelize creativity?
My generation (1999–2000) grew up in a unique era.
When I look at my generation, we all grew up in elementary school being introduced to new technology — the Elmo, Smartboard, the cart with mini-laptops… But along with being guinea pigs to new technology, many of my teachers encouraged creativity. They were active in not only teaching us the fundamentals such as maths, literature, and science, but also the arts, dance, and music. It was the same story in middle school and high school. You had the opportunity to learn to be creative if you wanted to.
But that’s where they went wrong.
Recently, I listened to the popular TED Talk by Sir Ken Robinson. In it, he gave an example of how some might view a girl with ADHD while the teacher told her mother to take her to a dance school. She received the proper guidance to channel her creativity to make a living.
In our public school system, teachers tell us to be creative, but students don’t receive guidance on HOW to be creative.
We were not taught how to channel our creativity to create something meaningful. We were introduced to dance, arts, music, etc. but then what?
