I couldn’t have found a better blog post than the one I wrote last night, on want to versus have to. Yes, I did sacrifice part of my sleep for it, but it was worth it. And what better proof than Sir Ken Robinson’s talk today. Watch it please, it will enrich your life. And change the way you look at education. Except that you’ll feel like you’re standing in the rain all of a sudden without an umbrella in sight. Refreshing, yes, but you’ll start looking for cover. My hope is that the more people I get to stand in the rain, the more will join me in my quest to looking for solutions for the conundrum below.

I have this nagging question regarding my boys’ education: Am I doing the right thing? Do I even know what I’m doing? And ultimately, the question is not just about my boys’ education but it applies to children in general. I don’t believe in fighting for a spot in that prestigious kindergarten or school everyone is raving about. That’s not where my nag is coming from. My question stems from the fact that I see my boys so preoccupied with things, I see them being so passionate about this and that, and sometimes – quite often, actually – they have to leave that aside because they have to attend school. By the time school is done with for the day, so is their preoccupation with whatever they were doing so passionately. Sometimes the passion stretches over many weeks but it fades away since there is just not enough energy left for both – have and want to do things, I mean. And this has happened repeatedly. And after a while they do not go back to some of those things they were so passionate about. And I cannot help but think that in time they will simply learn to do whatever they have to do instead of doing the stuff they want to do and feel passionate about. It feels wrong.

 

How can we encourage our children’s creativity and by that I do not necessarily mean pulling them out of school or searching for the perfect learning environment – is there such a thing anyway – but somehow make the two, creativity and education, intertwine. How can I make it happen is my nagging question. How can we make this happen? We, as a society, owe this to our children. Because we know more. And because by now we know the price of not taking creativity into consideration when educating children. Come to think of it, education and creativity should not be separated in the first place.  When did that happen? And why do we let it happen? 

 

What are your thoughts?