The Importance of Creativity | Part 1
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
Sometimes it can feel as though true creativity isn’t valued in this world. Many individuals will have memories of various people in their lives telling them not to pursue their creative passions because they are ‘too risky’, or ‘it will never work out’. And yet, when we look around us, everything we can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch, has been created by someone. The clothes that we wear, the furniture that we use, the houses that we live in, the food that we eat, the books that we read, the music we hear… and on, and on, and on. We can even expand it further to include the very planet that we inhabit and the people that we meet. Creativity and creation is at the heart of it all. So why is it always so disregarded in the education system, the workplace, and seemingly, the world?
The Origin of ‘School’
Let’s start by talking about school, of which all of us will have various different experiences and opinions. In many ways, having the opportunity to go to school is a great privilege, as it allows us to learn about a diverse array of subjects from people who have, to some extent, specialised in that area. We are able to broaden our minds, and learn valuable skills, such as reading, that will allow us to continue our educative journey long into the future. However, although the education system may open up some opportunities, the specifics of those opportunities are somewhat pre-determined. There are certain paths that we are supposed to be directed towards, and other paths that are seen as less desirable, therefore, there are many doors that it fights to close.
Although examples of compulsory school systems can be found dating right back to Ancient Greece, it wasn’t especially common until the mid-late 19th century, which is relatively recent compared to the extent of the entire history of the human race. In fact, it was throughout the 19th century, and the century preceding, that a particular model of schooling was designed to prepare people for work in the factories, to fulfil the needs of industrialism. This model was aptly titled the ‘Factory Model of Schooling’ and is still the dominant model of schooling in the West today. Some of its key features include:
tuition in box-like rooms with children sat in organised rows facing the front -> uniformity
teacher at the front of the classroom, relatively separate from students -> respect for authority
standard testing and learning rates
Unfortunately, the aim was to keep students ‘confined to narrow horizons’, in order to reduce ‘dissent’ towards the values of the state and within society, and create a standard of citizenry that the children were raised to conform to. Training too many people to have big dreams, new ideas, and a sense of individuality would make them more difficult to control, and so it was decided that it was better to keep the students ‘happy in their ignorance’, and prepare them for a certain type of life that fulfils the requirements of the state.
“Many of the educational reformers who influenced the development of compulsory schooling were not looking to stimulate innovation, invention, and the development of ideas to promote social prosperity, but were in search of an effective means of social control and social engineering.”
Stigmatisation of The Arts
It can be deduced that the creative subjects, such as art, music, drama, and dance, did not align with this set of values that the education system was founded upon, which is likely why, in ‘The Hierarchy of Subjects’, the arts have always been the lowest ranking. They have always been seen as something that, although is interesting to do, is not something to build a career out of, and usually other than the teachers that teach the arts, they are often under scrutiny by the rest of the school. There is no doubt that in many schools, funding for the arts is much lower than the other subjects, meaning that opportunities are even more few and far between. Also, various teachers will often talk these subjects down, branding them as a surefire way to lead to unemployment.
Therefore, it isn’t hard to understand why so many highly creative and artistic students may choose not to pursue their passions, and instead opt for something that is seen as much more ‘stable’ and ‘reliable’. After years and years of being told that you will never ‘make any money’ and will live a ‘second-rate’ life, often by people who usually don’t know much about the creative industries anyway, it can make committing to the arts feel terribly daunting. This is quite a tragedy for the individual, who although may achieve a certain ‘security’ within their life, may always hold regrets and resentments over not having had the chance to follow what was in their heart. It is also a dreadful failure of the education system, as it prevents those with creative interests and talents from developing them in ways that could potentially lead to some of the greatest outcomes, solutions, and capabilities, that would benefit society in a number of different ways.
As we have seen, that is not the aim. The aim has always been to encourage us to conform. To set a certain standard that is ingrained into the minds of the community in such a way, that when we try to step out of this template, many will leap to stop us. It is a program; a paradigm. An expectation to accept, at face value, the information we are being fed, begging the question- what is the difference between a prison and a school?
“Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not. Because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued or was actually stigmatized.”
Making Mistakes
The arts are the few lessons within the school system where making mistakes are an important part of the journey, simply because there is an encouragement to innovate and explore new ideas and methods. For example, within music, dance, art, and drama, improvisation is a huge part of the creative practice. Improvisation requires freedom in order to create something up on the spot, and often when we first try, what we initially create isn’t particularly refined or ‘high quality’, but it is part of the journey. It is through honing our ideas, and practicing our craft that we soon achieve the results that we desire. What we cannot forget is that, if we never allow ourselves to make mistakes, we will never start or commit to something long enough to see it through.
Children thrive when they can experiment, innovate, and explore. It gives them a sense of competence and accomplishment, as they are allowed to figure something out for themselves. They also have a huge love of being silly, and have no worry about looking silly, which gives them a large amount of freedom within their work. Regrettably, the school system often loves to tell children when they are wrong, especially in instances where there isn’t really a wrong or a right, and so, from an early age they are being pushed to conform to whatever the school deems appropriate over and above their own individual perception. This likely stems from the factory model, in which students were specifically being trained to take and fulfil orders efficiently and accurately. Mistakes in a factory cost time and money, and so punishments for mistakes had to be absolutely clear.
Overtime, students become more and more self-conscious and fearful over making mistakes, which if unattended to, only gets worse in adulthood. When you fear making a mistake, you are more easy to control, and so, if you combine the fear of mistakes with the passive obedience and conformity to the state, you will find that less people are likely to stand up to oppressive rules and regulations and more people will accept the status quo. If the majority of people have their creative faculties and sense of individuality stifled, they won’t feel able to bet on themselves, and will feel obliged to comply to the existing parameters, whether they want to or not.
We cannot deny that it is through our creativity that we can solve our problems and come up with new solutions. In fact, it is important to remember that creativity isn’t only housed within the arts, but can be applied to all areas of life. Nevertheless, it is through the arts that many children at school start to develop their creative abilities, which is why studying the arts at school are so important, not only for those who wish to take them further, but across the board as well. When we can learn to solve our own problems creatively within a specific area- such as what art supplies to use to get a certain artistic effect- we develop our own processes and methodologies that when expanded out can help us solve all kinds of problems we encounter in life, thus increasing our own autonomy. Unfortunately, as so many people are educated out of their creative capacities, not only are they more likely to struggle in solving their own problems, but they also lose the enthusiasm to develop their creative capacities themselves.
“I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same as being creative, but what we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong you’ll never come up with anything original.”
We forget that our school systems were, of course, originally created by people, and still are to this day. They did not grow organically out of the Earth, perfectly formed and equipped with everything a human being could ever need. The decisions that were made regarding which subjects were more valuable than others, and the appropriate teaching methods have been decided by a select few. And yet, scarcely any of us ever question their choices, and instead accept the system as the status quo, rather than considering if there are any alternatives- hmmm I wonder why? We can already see that the school system isn’t working for so many pupils and therefore, to stick with it will only continue to fail them unnecessarily. What was decided over one hundred years ago does not automatically serve the students of the modern world who aren’t aiming to work in the factory.
In truth, I do wonder whether the system is already coming to its natural end, as more and more people are starting to see through it all. Not only have so many of us been educated to such a degree, but we also have easy access to so much information and research both online and offline. Many children now have the ability to fact check their teachers, and discover their own points of views and opinions outside of school. The question is- how long will it hold before it completely disintegrates?
“The creative adult is the child who survived.”
Thank you for reading! Part 2 coming soon!
Sources:
Do schools kill creativity? by Sir Ken Robinson (TEDTalk 2007)
Public Schools, the Fixation of Belief, and Social Control by Academy of Ideas (2016)
