I recently saw a post on FaceBook that asked what would you do for a living if you had followed your childhood dream. The reason it appeared on my feed was that a friend, who happened to be a former teacher commented, and her reply was a veterinarian. This woman happened to be one of my favorite teachers and made learning math enjoyable; you can imagine her talent! However, this question brought a shot of pain and regret to my heart, as it quickly took me back to those junior high days when the guidance counselor began to press the students to pick a career path. I didn’t hesitate when I got called to the office and asked what line of work I would be doing my research paper; I wanted to be an artist. This had been my dream for as long as I could remember. The counselor promptly put down his pen and advised that I could not be an artist; he indicated that I was “too smart for that” and had to do “something where the money is, like a doctor or lawyer or maybe an engineer.” He told me to think about it and find another option. I remember leaving his office many times over the next few years feeling very disappointed and frustrated.
It wasn’t until some thirty years later that I heard someone articulate the feelings that I could not. In 2007, Sir Ken Robinson gave a TED Talk entitled, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” This is the video that brought about the famous quote by Sir Ken that “Creativity is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status.” The video went viral and many of you have probably seen it, at least in part, but for anyone that hasn’t or would like to watch again (I can’t watch it enough) take a moment to click the link below. It may well be the most inspiring and thought-provoking twenty minutes of your week.
Sir Ken suggests that the arts are undervalued and often stigmatized, and universally tend to be at the bottom of the hierarchy of subjects in school systems, below mathematics and languages, followed by the humanities and that this is likely to be the result of what was once seen as the purpose of public education: to meet the needs of industrialism. That word alone holds a connotation of a past era for me. If educators intend to prepare the present and future workforce with the skills required by many of the world’s top business leaders, it is imperative that we allow students to exercise their creativity and create an environment that encourages risk-taking and innovation without fear of being wrong.