DOES EDUCATION KILL CREATIVITY?

An entertaining but serious and moving talk by Sir Ken Robinson

No, true education doesn't kill creativity, but nurtures it. Besides, we are ordinarily creative. Some of us may be extra-ordinarily creative.

But what officially and usually passes for education most often suppresses the natural creativity that is inherent in human beings, and nurtures conformity and risk-aversion instead. This is why it's difficult to be creative or original in most schools. You are not only not expected to be creative, but are often punished for being so. Remember that schools as we know them now evolved from schools designed to turn out docile and therefore safe and trouble-free workers for the growing capitalist economy.

Although the capitalist economy now increasingly demands a labour force that is trained to harness the inherent creativity of the human mind, our schools are still stuck with psychometric multiple choice testing for assessing the quality of learning. This is almost like using a ruler to measure the temperature of a lake.

The processes of real education are not inherently measurable. But real education can produce results that are.