On the first day of my AP Physics class, my classmates and I were presented with a challenge: we had to build a spaghetti tower that could support a marshmallow with limited supplies, limited time, and limited knowledge of optimal spaghetti tower structures. The class was divided into groups, with each group competing to build the tallest tower possible. After several spaghetti towers ended in devastating crashes, our teacher told us how those who often do the best with the challenge are kindergarteners rather than adults. He explained that overthinking and excessively planning the structure not only wasted time but also prevented the creativity necessary to construct a tower that would accomplish the goal. Creativity was the key to the challenge, …show more content…
However, this creative spirit is quickly lost as students progress through their years in education, where independent thought is second to memorization and repetition. While vocabulary quizzes are common, this expansive vocabulary is rarely utilized in creative writing but rather regurgitated on the SAT examination. Instead of exploring the ways math could be used in various careers that students might pursue, math classes require memorization of trigonometric angles. In ethics class, instead of presenting one’s own views and providing support for these views, a student is expected to simply repeat what was said in class, whether the student agrees with these opinions or not. However, anyone can simply repeat back previously provided information and duplicate past processes. Education should be about finding creative new solutions to problems in the world today and encouraging individual thought that will change the world in the future. In order to improve the world, it is necessary to think of new solutions to problems. Creativity is necessary to come up with these solutions, and by stifling creative thought in education, educators are also stifling progress in the world. The goal of education is to prepare students for the rest of life, and educators are obligated to encourage creativity in order to achieve this
I have always excelled at math and science. Sophomore year, I had to decide whether I would take regents or honors physics in my junior year. I was already going to take AP biology, and I had planned on signing up for regents physics so that I wouldn't get too overwhelmed by science courses. Everyone warned me that honors physics was a tough class. However, I ended up taking the honors because my friend didn't want to be alone in that course. This is one of the best choices I've made in my life. I loved my honors physics class. Physics allows me to apply my math knowledge into real world situations that I can visualize and even test experimentally. Additionally, it requires me to problem solve and think problems through meticulously, which I love.
Education always plays an important role in enabling people to enter society knowledgably and with good skills. People keep learning from cradle to grave in order to horn their skills of thinking creatively as one of the key factors for success. They are conventionally trained by their school professors even from preschool period. However, the most reasonable time to learn is the high school stage when students' brains are significantly developing ('Thinking skills' 2003). This essay, therefore, will argue the idea that schools should be active in teaching students creative thinking skills because of the good educational background itself and the skills acquired will be
We spend about seven hours at school every day for five days every week for nine months out of the year. It becomes our second home, and it is supposed to teach us they ways of the world and how to survive in it. However, just like everything valuable, it comes at a price, which often is in the form of a student’s health, sanity, and originality. Given that Thoreau, Emerson, and other transcendentalists value individualism and freedom of thought as essential aspects of a human being’s life, they would despise the education system of today, as it forces students to conform and restrain their minds in order to be successful.
Although both Greene (1995) and Freire (1998) subscribed to an existential philosophy of the individual, they differed on how said individual’s potential could be attained. In order to implement change, the need for out of the box thinking is paramount for both Greene (1995) and Freire (1998). For the latter, reflection of one’s activities would cause them to restructure that which they already know, leading them to try novel approaches in accordance with the amount of reflection they do. For the former however, no amount of reflection can enable us to think outside the knowledge that has been constructed for us, unless it involves imagination. Without it, we are doomed to reify the discourse that already exists, be it the general dominant discourse, or the discourse, now standardized, that tells us how to reflect ‘critically.’ Because of this, we need to tap into the creative and imaginative potential that resides within every one of us, allowing ourselves to become more attuned to creativity, to different ways of thinking. Once that is accomplished, we will be better suited, as educators, to foster our students’ creativity, creating a curriculum that embraces divergent thinking. This will then enable the students to realize their unique and unbounded potential, unfettered by the constraints of the dominant discourse (Peay,
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.
In this experiment, the signal generator was set so that the frequency meter showed a reading of 1,803 Hz. The microphone was moved to a distance from the speaker so that the oscilloscope displayed a straight diagonal line. This position was of the microphone was recorded as the initial position, or beginning of a wavelength. The microphone was then moved farther in the same direction until the oscilloscope displays the same horizontal line. This position was recorded as final position, or the end of the wavelength. The distance between the two positions represents one wavelength for this frequency. This was repeated for frequencies of 2,402 Hz, 3,002, Hz, 3,602 Hz, and 4,201 Hz.
In the article “The Writing Assignment That Changes Lives”, the author Anya A Kamenetz is trying to tell us the importance of having mental motivation and how writing down our future goals will help us do better in school. Researcher Jordan Peterson, “believes that writing the answers can be decisive for the students” (p1). He conducted an experiment that “nearly [erased] the gender and ethnic minority achievement gap for 700 students”, when he had them write down their goals (p1).
Education has tarnished the idea of an original thought and has caused us to “grow out of creativity.” An idea that I am now convinced is a possible reality due to the intellectual, thought-provoking argument made by Sir Ken Robinson that schools do restrain creativity. In Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Robinson argues that schools do kill creativity by addressing his audience in a sophisticated yet playful tone that keeps the audience entertained and invested in what is being discussed. Robinson connects with the audience by telling jokes, using simple reasoning, facts, and personal stories that allows the audience to be emotionally moved by the argument. Robinson is able to open up the audience to a reasonable idea with only one reasonable solution, and it just so happens to be his. Obviously, a bit biased, Robinson steers clear of self-promotion by recalling stories of other’s accounts and relating to people as a professor instead of a person.
Furthermore, connections can be made between subjects to develop prior knowledge which pupils have gained with new information that teachers need children to acquire. Similarly, adopting a cross – curricular approach allows the recognition of several opinions and helps teachers ‘to build more knowledgeable, lasting and transferable understandings of the world’ (Barnes, 2015: 261). There are various strategies which can be used to teach thinking and learning effectively. These strategies can assist teachers in planning and delivering lessons which allow creative outcomes to be achieved. Further on in this assignment creative approaches will be shared to suggest how they may be used in the classroom alongside a variety of
We also learn that creativity in the classroom has a positive effect on vocabulary, increases creative problem solving skills, increases the enjoyability of learning, and if used in conjunction with technology can help develop skills in the creative use of technology that will stay with them throughout their lives. (p. 237)
Today, many schools just focus on how to prepare students for college by teaching them the standardized knowledge For example, art is a subject that is selective for students. According to education, art seems like the least important subject because it is useless for many students’ future. Therefore, schools do not force the students that they have to take art as college standard course. At the same time, people also ignore that fact that art can also help students develop their creativity and thinking. Same as history and literature, they both help students think what is right or wrong in society, and teach them make judgment for certain events. Students should study how to think before they learn hand-on experience, because the think process is the basic step for them to look close to the world and better understand
Writing is taken for granted nowadays. Thus, people don't take in consideration how lucky they are to be able to read and write. I can still vividly remember how when I was very young I used to get extremely angry for not being able to read the newspaper that my grandfather used to carry around. For that reason, there is a lot of importance to reading and writing, and I'm glad that throughout this year I was able to grow as a writer.
Task Description:The world communicates by making extensive use of the electromagnetic spectrum. For the average person this is commonly accessed using radio waves. These radio waves may be over the AM or FM radio wave bands or the radio waves that transmit our television signals. Not only are people always within a ‘phone call of each other anywhere in the world they are also able to find out exactly where in the world they are by use of
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.