I seem to be on an education/creativity kick recently. Here's another TED talk about creativity and productivity, quick on the heels of this one, itself following this post about schooling vs. education.
The most interesting thing of this all, I think, is near the end, when he says that an environment of trust is necessary for play, which I can't agree with more. I would link this idea to the fact that as one becomes more and more centered and identified with their consciousness, their attitude often becomes much more playful. Ken Wilber has used the analogy of a dream. When one is in a dream, one's attitude towards the surroundings is often anything but trusting, quite the opposite. When one becomes lucid in a dream (an experience I think most people have had at least a few times) one is given the freedom to play. You know it's a dream, so there's the trust that nothing can go wrong, and it becomes seriously fun. When one realizes enlightenment or has a satori, the world is seen for what it is, and life is free to be fun.
This also speaks to why children with supportive parents can grow up to be emotionally successful people. They trust their parents (and with good reason) and so are able to experiment and play around with who they are and what they can do so that when they are adults it is easier to face any sort of circumstance.
What's the shift when large groups of people across the planet start to experience the universe as being fundamentally benign? We're beginning to see, in fits and starts.
Trust in play. Trust in Creation.
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Close on the on the heels of a post about schooling vs. education, a wonderful and funny talk from Sir Ken Robinson on TED about the same issue.
Advocating an open-ended approach to education that fosters creativity as being just as important as literacy for a world which fundamentally changes every five years or so, Sir Robinson talks about many things I've noticed here in China, specifically, that children aren't afraid of being wrong, that is, they'll have a go at it, whereas by the time kids are adults, they're terrified of giving the wrong answer. Even young children here won't take a stab at something if I haven't already told them the answer, something that frustrates me to no end. I'm not just saying wild stabs in the dark, but also having all the tools to put the answer together but without the answer itself, kids are extremely reluctant to try and figure out what the answer might be, especially in my first few classes with them.
"We are now running national educational systems where mistakes are the worst things you can make, and the result is that we are teaching people out of their creative capacity."
This is a feature of bureaucracism, subject of another recent video on TED, from Barry Schwartz, which hits many of the same notes, but from a moralistic standpoint. When people are not allowed to be individuals making decisions, but are handed lists to teach/ do in a rote manner, society, in the long run, is much worse off. "Three Strikes You're Out," is such an example, but so is much of what Robinson is talking about with "No Child Left Behind." You prevent disasters, perhaps. But you also prevent any real sort of progress and personal energy, which I can attest to firsthand, living and teaching in the birthplace of bureaucracy.
Thanks to Cyriac for the heads-up.
Advocating an open-ended approach to education that fosters creativity as being just as important as literacy for a world which fundamentally changes every five years or so, Sir Robinson talks about many things I've noticed here in China, specifically, that children aren't afraid of being wrong, that is, they'll have a go at it, whereas by the time kids are adults, they're terrified of giving the wrong answer. Even young children here won't take a stab at something if I haven't already told them the answer, something that frustrates me to no end. I'm not just saying wild stabs in the dark, but also having all the tools to put the answer together but without the answer itself, kids are extremely reluctant to try and figure out what the answer might be, especially in my first few classes with them.
"We are now running national educational systems where mistakes are the worst things you can make, and the result is that we are teaching people out of their creative capacity."
This is a feature of bureaucracism, subject of another recent video on TED, from Barry Schwartz, which hits many of the same notes, but from a moralistic standpoint. When people are not allowed to be individuals making decisions, but are handed lists to teach/ do in a rote manner, society, in the long run, is much worse off. "Three Strikes You're Out," is such an example, but so is much of what Robinson is talking about with "No Child Left Behind." You prevent disasters, perhaps. But you also prevent any real sort of progress and personal energy, which I can attest to firsthand, living and teaching in the birthplace of bureaucracy.
Thanks to Cyriac for the heads-up.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Schooling vs. Education
I have written quite a few times about the Chinese education system and the structure of Chinese society, and the double-bind the people seem to be in: there's recognition that something's wrong, that there needs to be a jolt of individuality in the country, but the system's so entrenched that it's basically impossible to succeed without it (of course, the objection could be raised that talk of individualism is lip service. Let's assume, here, that it's not.) Here's probably my best one. Here's another.
Here's a terrible essay written by a high-schooler in relatively poor AnHui province. (Terrible because moving, not written poorly.)
Two days before I read that I was in class with a High-schooler in his second year. He brought in his winter homework for me to check. It was amazing for a few related reasons. Firstly, it was pretty high-level English, though with quite a few vague usage mistakes on the parts of the (obviously) Chinese compilers. And, he got most of it right. had it been a test, he would have scored in the 90s. But the most amazing thing of all is that this kid basically can't say a complete English sentence without mangling it, pausing for an inordinate amount of time, or simply stopping in the middle.
After finishing checking half of his homework, (which took me 80 out of our 100 minute class) I put the book down and asked him if he thought what we were doing was helpful, or a good use of time.
The most astounding thing was that in the book itself, there was a passage about the difference between schooling and education, starting off with "It's common to think of kids going off to school to start their education, but many experts say going to school interrupts a child's education.." and then going into a short comparison of education vs. schooling, a dichotomy I would call Life Experience vs. Formal (Institutional) Education. At the end, it was clear that the authors came down firmly on the side of Education as being helpful for society, and schooling as... well... not so much. There was even a passage that said "High-schoolers know that what they learn in politics class is not relevant to the political issues of the day." (Really???) When I asked my gf about this, she said, "I hated politics class in highschool, because everything is bullshit." Though this was all framed by the initial "In The United States of America..." it was obviously pertinant to the Chinese education system.
Outside, it was the 15th, last, and second most important day of the Spring Festival, what we call the Chinese New Year. Fireworks were going off everywhere. People were eating special food for the celebration. And here it was, 8pm, and this poor kid was trapped in a room basically watching a high-paid English instructor check little red marks in his book. I called to his attention the irony of all of this.
The Chinese Education system is about 80 percent schooling, 20 percent education, I'd say. It's really good for a few things. It's great for learning how to do math problems, or fill-in-the-blank English problems. It's great for creating a cowed populace of robots. (Cynics would likely say that's the point.) It's probably not so great for creating great earth-changing people. Even the Chinese people who are doing big things in China are doing so mostly in a Western style. (Like, say, real estate developers educated in England.)
It will happen, though. It might be happening now. We just haven't seen it yet, I don't think. And someone's got to tell the kids to forget their homework and play during their vacations. Loss to "Intellectual Knowledge" - 5%. Gain in Experience, understanding and comfort in life? 80%.
The above percentages have been thoroughly researched.
Here's a terrible essay written by a high-schooler in relatively poor AnHui province. (Terrible because moving, not written poorly.)
Two days before I read that I was in class with a High-schooler in his second year. He brought in his winter homework for me to check. It was amazing for a few related reasons. Firstly, it was pretty high-level English, though with quite a few vague usage mistakes on the parts of the (obviously) Chinese compilers. And, he got most of it right. had it been a test, he would have scored in the 90s. But the most amazing thing of all is that this kid basically can't say a complete English sentence without mangling it, pausing for an inordinate amount of time, or simply stopping in the middle.
After finishing checking half of his homework, (which took me 80 out of our 100 minute class) I put the book down and asked him if he thought what we were doing was helpful, or a good use of time.
The most astounding thing was that in the book itself, there was a passage about the difference between schooling and education, starting off with "It's common to think of kids going off to school to start their education, but many experts say going to school interrupts a child's education.." and then going into a short comparison of education vs. schooling, a dichotomy I would call Life Experience vs. Formal (Institutional) Education. At the end, it was clear that the authors came down firmly on the side of Education as being helpful for society, and schooling as... well... not so much. There was even a passage that said "High-schoolers know that what they learn in politics class is not relevant to the political issues of the day." (Really???) When I asked my gf about this, she said, "I hated politics class in highschool, because everything is bullshit." Though this was all framed by the initial "In The United States of America..." it was obviously pertinant to the Chinese education system.
Outside, it was the 15th, last, and second most important day of the Spring Festival, what we call the Chinese New Year. Fireworks were going off everywhere. People were eating special food for the celebration. And here it was, 8pm, and this poor kid was trapped in a room basically watching a high-paid English instructor check little red marks in his book. I called to his attention the irony of all of this.
The Chinese Education system is about 80 percent schooling, 20 percent education, I'd say. It's really good for a few things. It's great for learning how to do math problems, or fill-in-the-blank English problems. It's great for creating a cowed populace of robots. (Cynics would likely say that's the point.) It's probably not so great for creating great earth-changing people. Even the Chinese people who are doing big things in China are doing so mostly in a Western style. (Like, say, real estate developers educated in England.)
It will happen, though. It might be happening now. We just haven't seen it yet, I don't think. And someone's got to tell the kids to forget their homework and play during their vacations. Loss to "Intellectual Knowledge" - 5%. Gain in Experience, understanding and comfort in life? 80%.
The above percentages have been thoroughly researched.
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