Do schools kill creativity?

I think what Sir Robinson exposed in the TED conference is very true, I’ve seen it in part of my own education and now on my nephews education, how they’re not stimulated in their creativity, and sometimes they get very bored and demotivated at school, teachers scold them when they move in class (sometimes they get grounded for being “undisciplined”) or things like that, and I remember the words of Mr. Robinson when many times children get medicated in this days for not being quiet, and I’m not agree with that.

Fortunately in my high school years I went to a very avant-garde school that encourage our creativity in all subjects (even math) so we always had to make dramatic plays and creative things as much as possible, also ‘cause this would develop our character (not being afraid of public and make ridiculous).

Something I take from the speech, is the conception of mistakes in this culture (and most cultures I guess) that are “the worst thing we can do”. I think that conception is wrong ‘cause in the failure is the learning and people would learn more if they were more prepare to fail and not feel so frustrated by it. There’s a say “behind a succesful businessman, there’s at least 10 bankrupties”.

In one occasion I was talking to an ex workshop teacher and he told me something he read about human evolution. Human race has evolved because our capacity to make mistakes, and that makes the difference between us and the rest of animals, ‘cause we’ve learned from our mistakes, so that made us evolve.

Interesting theory and corroborates in some level what Sir Ken Robinson said.

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