How Does Creativity Affect Our Lives?

Creativity or the lack of encouraging creativity can be seen declining as you get lower in the class level in Anyons research. She states “Work tasks do not usually request creativity” and “Creativity is not often requested in social studies and Science projects”. In an article entitled “The Impact of Creativity on the Brain” by Judy Willis M.D; M.E.D posted on the website Radtech.com. “Neuroscience and cognitive science research are increasingly providing information that correlates creativity with intelligence; academic, social, and emotional success; and the development of skill sets and the highest information processing (Executive functions)”. This basically states that if creativity is encouraged then the upper intelligence functions of students are developed which includes social and emotional success. Which shows that if you stifle creativity you basically limit the

Children are no longer encouraged to be creative in the test prep environment. Instead, they are being taught to perform well on standardized tests and are labeled as unintelligent if they don’t. Young children are born with creativity and we see that when they are playing and pretending. According to Sir Ken Robinson, in Slon’s (2013) article, “by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity” to be creative. The fundamentals of creation and experimentation are not part of the standardized testing mechanism.

The beauty of creativity is that it is abstract, yet ubiquitous: in art, music or how one decides to compose an essay. However, creativity has recently been declining among the human population. According to an article, named, “The Creativity Crisis,” by Newsweek.com in July 2010, authors, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, state, “the Torrance Test … indicates that the public’s “creativity quotient” has steadily crept downward since 1990” (Prompt 1). Bronson and Merryman report that the test, which evaluates one’s creativity, had been dispensed to myriads of people across the globe, and have concluded that creativity has been slowly diminishing. Kyung Hee Kim, professor at the College of William and Mary, also comments that this is most prevalent and grave among students from kindergarten through sixth grade (Prompt 1). Consequently, society, or in this case, the world fears that current students and future generations will not be nourished with the creativity required to thrive as individuals, affecting the world as a whole. Ultimately, this poses the question whether a creative thinking class, which solely focuses on the education of creativity, should be taught in the school. This school should impose a creative thinking class, due to the fact creativity is a vital element for the future and is the solution to the creative crisis.

When it comes down to a child’s creativity, it is being drained by the pre-generated creative art studios on computers. Before if a child wanted to show how artistic they could be, they would pull out a box of crayons or makers and draw a picture straight from their imagination. Now, we have coloring templates with preset colors that make children color inside the lines. The pseudo creativity has parents fooled into believing

I am not attempting to prove that creativity and independent thinking are not essential for developing youth, in fact they are key to the functionality of every adult. However, school is a preparation for a career in the adult world. The American education system prepares students for what the working world values most, the ability to .Throughout childhood, there will be other opportunities for adolescents to mature in ways that are not addressed in

This idea of teaching to the test is a complete waste of educational time, that is spent preparing students for this extremely important test, that could be time going into learning things that will prepare students for college and life after college. The reason teachers do this is because they are under such pressure from the school districts to have good scores on these tests, due to the increase in funding to schools that do well and the lack in funding to schools that do poorly, that they can only find the time to prepare for these standardized tests instead of “teaching students skills that go beyond the tests”

“A national 2007 study by the Center on Education Policy reported that since 2001, 44% of school districts had reduced the time spent on science, social studies and the arts by an average of 145 minutes per week in order to focus on reading and math. A 2007 survey of 1,250 civics, government, and social studies teachers showed that 75% of those teaching current events less often cited standardized tests as the reason.” (Standardized Tests Pros and Cons) Material that will not be on the test is not being taught which means that students are being limited to what they learned based on the test. This is causing teachers to begin teaching to the test. The term “teach to the test” means that students are not gaining any knowledge but what they will be tested on. In school, students have the right to be taught more than what will just be on the test. School is about growing and learning about the world around, and to help generations to come. Students are just being taught for a test, which makes the tests not a complete accurate measure of what a student can do

If we don’t do well on testing, then we’re going to lose funding, which means we’re going to lose teachers. So teachers are being pressured to teach the children to pass the test.” (Fountain).

If you search almost anywhere on the internet about creativity and public schools you will run into a video by a man named Sir Ken Robinson. He emphasizes that schools kill creativity in every way. On the other hand, President Barack Obama disagrees whole heartedly. Both of these men agree that creativity is important to children and schools but they disagree on whether or not creativity is being implemented in schools. Robinson stated in his lectured at TED 2006, “I believe this passionately, that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out of it” (Ken Robinson. TED2006). He goes to say that

Teachers “teaching to the test” is something I recall from my childhood. The prevalence of standardized tests obviously wasn’t to the degree that it is in today’s education system, but I distinctly remember occasionally being told that the sole reason for learning something was because it was going to be on the test that we had to take at the end of the year; and I remember consciously and actively hating it. I was always the kid who enjoyed school and, to me, learning information or skills that no one could explain the purpose of beyond its importance on the test was just taking time away from other, more beneficial, more interesting topics. Now, as an adult and future teacher, I can see that I was not alone in these thoughts.

This focus on only a few subjects will have detrimental effects on the well roundedness of the education students receive. Teaching to the test also causes teachers to spend less time on more creative parts of the classroom. If there is something that the teacher thinks is important and will help the students grow as people, but it won’t be on the test, the teacher has no incentive to talk about it.

This correlates directly to their ranking and teaching evaluations. Teachers feel pushed to teach a test (Layton 2). In order for teachers and schools to look good, test score of their classes need to excel. The teachers and schools feel that in order for their students to do that they need to learn how to take tests and simply more about the tests. This takes away from actually teaching the subject which is a lose-lose situation.Teachers teach a test instead of material that could go into more depth. Along the same lines, “In forty percent of districts surveyed, test results are not available until the following school year, making them useless for teachers who want to use results to help guide their work in the classroom,” (Layton 7). The tests taken by students have limited use for teachers who are in the classroom and could use them to further the student’s education. Access to these tests could improve the learning capabilities and give the teachers a broader spectrum of what needs to be focused on in the classroom. The teachers are able to see the scores and information carried with the test for the next year, but for the interest of the current students the statistics apply to it would be more appropriate to have access to the information. Teachers cannot effectively improve the learning curve to the individual

Today’s education system has become focused on standardized intelligence testing and what works best for the majority. This system, although created to help the masses, is impersonal and only benefits a specific group of students who learn the best through testing. Those students who think creatively and use imagination are left behind. This is why intelligence tests are not accurate measurement of a child’s knowledge as it does not account for creativity and the child’s individual strengths. Changes need to be made within the school system. Instead of focusing on what is “correct” schools should be encouraging problem-solving through the process of making mistakes and failing. This challenges a student to learn about themselves and the world around them. When everything is already laid out for them it is easy to follow. There is no single way of thinking. By making a student have to think on their own it stimulates creativity and allows them to better connect concepts to real world situations.

A smart man said “Creativity is as important as literacy and we should treat it with the same standing.” (Ken Robinson-“Do schools kill creativity?”). There are multiple studies on how creativity helps improve a student’s mind. Project based learning is a huge creative booster for students. A math teacher from California uses projects to do math instead of using the text book. From doing this, she’s had more students pass her class then from when she was teaching straight from the text books. Instead of having standardized tests, using more creative techniques for students to enjoy the learning they’ve done and for them to show the higher officials what the students are learning. Creativity is the process of turning real world problems into an understanding by extending the minds cognitive processes. In Alabama, kindergartners are studying different ways to be creative.

Creativity is equally as important as literacy, and we need to start treating it that way in schools around the world. According to Ken Robinson’s claim in his, “How Schools Kill Creativity” speech, he believes this to be exceptionally true. All children are creative and talented, however, we have grown up in a world where we believe that it’s wrong to exemplify our creativity. Robinson uses both, pathos, and ethos to help make his claim. He arises emotion in you; he causes you to really think, to trust him, and to question ultimately, how things are being done in the educational system. We as a world have become so consumed with the idea of putting each child into a category of what they’re going to be successful in, regardless of their creativity or passions. You’re either good at math, science, or English; everything is based on your academic ability. What happens then to the people who aren’t academically smart, but are more creative? They are then made to feel that what they have to offer the world simply isn’t good enough, but the truth is, it is good enough. Over time however, we are taught out of our creativity. Schools around the world kill creativity by instilling a sense of fear in the child that what they are doing, and how they feel is wrong, this ultimately discourages them, and they fall victim to the industrialized educational system that we have present day. Robinson believes now more than