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Hibah Ameer

Design Student, Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture

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Does formal education as a child hinder a child's creativity?

I am writing on a paper on Education Systems restricting child creativity. On one hand formal education has it s benefits as it trains the human eye to notice things, place things in order. But on the other hand it sets certain limitations to a child's imaginative mind and forces him/her to produce stereotypical imagery of what they call 'art'
What are your opinions?

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    Ray Boarman

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    Oct 4 2012: I think it most definitely is. In my opinion the standardized test is one of the worst things in the school system. I think they teach you nothing. The school system is all about heres how you do it, study it, learn it, regurgitate it. Just recently graduating from college i saw it all the time. Students cramming try to "learn" the information than forgetting half of it a week later. You've got kids focusing on the grade more than the actual information on the test. You give the kids a test with right and wrong answers, your teaching them there is a right way and a wrong way.

    We should fostering creativity, not just the arts, but problem solving and such. Try to show them there can be ways to do the same thing in different ways. You've got the education system producing these carbon copy kids with the same mind set, thinking about the wrong and right, and only a handful thinking out of the box daring to do it differently.
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      Fritzie Reisner 100+

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      Oct 5 2012: I am always surprised that people believe schools encourage kids to believe there is only one way of solving a problem. For such a long time now schools have focused on conveying the message that there are multiple ways of approaching a problem. This has certainly been a big push over the last twenty years.

      I cannot speak to the years before that.

      It is so curious to me that so many people have not noticed this.
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        Ray Boarman

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        Oct 5 2012: Well just having completed the public school system and a state university, i found at no point was i encouraged to use my creativity. I was an art major and had only a handful of those teachers allow/push me to think outside of the box. I was not happy to find even the art teachers restricting. Maybe in your area its different but i have not seen, from personal experience, any type of fostering of creativity.
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          Fritzie Reisner 100+

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          Oct 5 2012: This is sad for an art major and inconsistent with the way teachers in lower education are trained, with the curriculum frameworks school districts typically adopt, and with the sorts of pedagogy to which teachers and administrators nationwide have been consistently exposed over many years.

          The dramatic popularity nationwide, for example, of "Writer's Workshop," which places creative writing at the center of writing curriculum grades 1-8 and the widespread adoption of inquiry-based math and science, are examples of the rejection of rote in favor of curriculum focused on exploration, imagination, and design alongide critical thinking.

          While the standardized tests of my youth were the sort with bubblesheets, which is what most of us probably envision when we hear the words "standardized test," even the standardized tests of today often are a mixture of short answer, and short and long "free-response."

          I agree, though, that the big priorities in most districts now in k12 are critical thinking, communication, and support of ideas rather than the arts.

          As you say, though, nothing has taken hold everywhere.

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