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Do schools kill creativity?

A very good lecture by Sir Ken Robinson.

"Do schools kill creativity?"

Definitely IMHO. I've worked in a (UK) school and I know the absolute focus on results these days. There is absolutely no room for anything else. Despite the complete lie schools feed us.

Schools are judged on results. If results go down, the school loses pupils as those results are published. The school's income goes down and staff lose their jobs. Eventually the school closes. Inspections don't measure quality of teaching, they measure attainment in exams. Exam results are everything, and schools lie about the figures to an extent that politicians would be embarrassed about.

Even in primary schools, there's pressure to reach attainment levels and show improvement measured by testing of memorised facts. Teaching focuses almost entirely on memory development as opposed to creativity.

Personally, having experienced it first hand, I would never send children into public education and recommend home schooling every time.

I wouldn't say schools actively "lie" to their students, but I agree that the focus is on exams, and exams do not test how well you know the subject, they test how good your memory is.

A maths genius could easily fail a maths exam if they didn't have the equations in front of them. I can relate to this in programming. We are expected at university to remember every single thing about programming, right down to the specific library locations that Java uses, and the exact methods each object has. In a job, we would simply look up the API. Exams are almost useless at determining how good students are.

I was gladly home schooled. I only went to school from 5 years old to my 6th birthday.

I don't like schools. On the other hand though; I know of people who home-school their kids so they can bring their kids up as creationists. I think that's a case when home schooling is NOT so good.

EvF

I think schools are a good idea, especially in the social aspects. I'm against homeschooling because there are usually no professionals involved. What I would advocate is the revamping of schooling so that there is more diversity in learning. What people need are smaller classes and more teachers. Make learning as one-to-one as possible. Get the teacher to really interact with the children, etc.

Then you can move onto GCSE level / A-Level / University where the classes can be larger and less social because the people in them are able to take care of their own learning and socialising. They should also be able to choose which subjects they wish to take. There shouldn't be a requirement for everyone to take Maths as a GCSE, or Physics if they don't want to.

Yeah that sounds great.

But while a lot of schools are crap - those who have parents who know what they are talking about are kind of missing out if they are to be taught in a school, where they learn nothing because they're bored stiff, bullied or both, etc, etc.

I am pro-school when its a good school. And anti-home schooling when the parents aren't capable (or they're teaching creationism for example!). But I'm anti-school obviously in cases when homeschooling is a better alternative.

I'm not totally anti-school or anti-homeschool nor am I totally pro either; either.

EvF

Yes the social aspect is the most important, and something hard to compensate for in home schooling. the more that do it the better that will become, but then the state system should be sorted out to work for us rather than this crazy situation we have now.

Homeschooling is regulated the same as state schools. You still have to follow the national curriculum. Schools now employ Learning support Assistants to take classes. Any old scrubber off the street can be an LSA our head Teacher said. We didn't police check until the teaching union got wind of this and forced the school to do it. Still, there are large teams of LSA's in schools who are completely unqualified acting as crowd control in classrooms. Don't get me wrong, there are systems in place for training and supporting LSA's in career progression, but in my knowledge this isn't adhered to at all by the schools. Each Head Teacher has ultimate power in his or her school to use the budget as he sees fit. Budgets are stretched as it is, training is very low on the priority list for nearly every school in the UK.

Schools do lie to parents (children have no say). As I say I used to work in a school, this was a year ago; and I was a school governor too. I know exactly how much parents and the governors are lied to.

You can have one to one learning. You just behave so badly to get excluded, then your LA provides complimentary education with a 1 to 1 ratio of teachers to kids. It's great.

I have Christian friends who home school and they do teach creationism in the respect that they don't teach evolution. I don't think that's so very bad as nearly all children of Christians I know grow up to be non Christians. You have to let the child think independently.

(March 16, 2009 at 9:08 am)fr0d0 Wrote: I have Christian friends who home school and they do teach creationism in the respect that they don't teach evolution.

How is that "following the national curriculum" then? If they don't teach evolution they are leaving out the fundamentals of biology...

Well yes since September 2007 the NC states that evolution should be taught as fact. My friends are breaking the rules.

(March 17, 2009 at 3:24 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Well yes since September 2007 the NC states that evolution should be taught as fact. My friends are breaking the rules.

Hence why I don't agree with home schooling; it isn't regulated at all.