Creativity in the Classroom

It's taken me a while, but I really wanted to write a little bit about what I learned at the "Opera for Young children workshop I attended in October. I will share the details in another post, but before that post I wanted to set the preface and share a priceless (Plus very entertaining and hilarious) video that we were assigned to watch before the conference.



So my latest topic of passionate discussion is the need for more art and physical activity in school. I think it is totally unreasonable to make kids sit still, learning about Math, Science, English and History for 6 hours every day. Why is P.E. only twice a week? Why not dance everyday? What about the power of music and using it as learning tool? What about art?

Dave always said P.E. was his favorite subject in school. I'm guessing he was not alone. It's natural for children to have energy, and they should be able to use it. I believe we are training children that life is supposed to be boring, hard, and miserable with little spurts of enjoyable moments, such as art, recess, singing, dancing, P.E., etc. I realize some people really love Math, but I don't think it is the majority. Well, kids just grow up to get miserable jobs that they hate and then every once in a while have a vacation where they actually enjoy life. This is dumb. The percentage of time enjoyed should be higher, but I believe we are actually teaching our children this philosophy.

And we wonder why 60 % of America is overweight? It is very obvious to me that school drains the life out of them. Lucy has soooooooo much energy. She is excited to wake up in the morning. She asks me to run around with her all day. Why do children stop doing this? People can be conditioned for anything and I believe we are conditioning children to sit all day long. We punish kids for having energy. We tell them they have problems if they can't sit there and pay attention all day. I wonder why so many adults feel like they have no energy.

We were blessed with a body and I believe it is supposed to be used. If all we needed was a brain, that is all we would have been given. I'm not saying we shouldn't educate our children in Math, English, Science and History. There is lots of value in academic subjects, I just don't think it should be given preference. I think the joy of life is in the arts, in CREATING rather than memorizing. And why not teach them History by acting it out, instead of focusing on memorizing dates they will undoubtedly forget?

Somewhere out there is a dancer, a singer, an artist, a composer, who has no idea because they were never given the chance. They might be sitting there wondering why life is miserable, but it only is because they don't realize there are worthwhile things that they would actually love to do. They were told to stay seated, and raise their hand if they can answer the question. Don't go off topic (be creative), please stand up (use energy).

What would you do if you were more creative and had energy?

What could our children be if they stayed creative and kept their energy to pursue those creations?

I'm not blaming teachers. I believe they are amazing people with good hearts, who have been trained a certain way. The school boards are the ones running the show and saying what matters and what doesn't and that if you're class doesn't get high enough scores you are in trouble. (My personal feeling is that by increasing creative activities, children will actually focus better on the academic subjects and actually perform better on standardized tests.) I guess I can't just put the blame on them, I guess they just have pressure to teach what society values. I just don't know why more people don't value the arts, or if they really do then why are standardized test scores the gold standard?

I am concerned because Lucy only has three years until she will enter the school system. I definitely don't want to home school her because I believe there are great social benefits to going to school, and I don't know if I could do much better than a teacher anyway. Knowing me, Lucy might end up dancing all day long and getting a little behind in the boring areas.

Is EDUCATION just a fancy word for DECREATIFICATION?

I know I sure wish I was as creative as I was in 3rd grade. Ideas used to come a mile per minute. I am trying to retrain myself in the way of creativity, hoping that it is something you can regrow, like building a muscle, rather than a one time shot, like your growth plates closing up and leaving you at 5'7'' forever.

I don't have the solution, do you?

Do you even agree with what me and this video are saying? I realize not everyone loves the arts as much as I do. Am I just talking crazy talk or is this really a problem we are facing?