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Cat1981(England)
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 2:21 pm    Post subject: Education and creativity. Reply with quote

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Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize -- much less cultivate -- the talents of many brilliant people. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says.


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Ophiolite
Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 4:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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I wasn't taught to be creative at school, but I was taught to be questioning. For me the roots of creativity lie in questioning. Therefore, for me, I learned to be creative on the basis of skills acquired and taught in school.
A deep understanding of the fundamentals of any subject are, in my view, prerequisites for creative work in that area. School provides these prerequisites. You need the hard slog of learning the basics before you are ready to challenge those basics in a creative manner.
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Cat1981(England)
Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 1:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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I agree and thats exactly the point that Mr Robinson makes in the short film. School provides people with the basics they need for a successfully career and basic skills for everyday life whatever their interests may be, but the education systems are academically top heavy. Language, Maths and Science are at the top of every education system in the world, if your gift in life is music, art, dance or drama wouldn't it be better and more productive for everybody to give that child more time learning the basics of that subject and a little less time on subjects the kid will probably never really need to know.
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Ophiolite
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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You almost seem to be saying that creativity lies primarily in the arts and not the sciences. That is not a position I could agree with.
Moreover, all the observations I have made of the educational system over the last couple of decades - which include having two children pass through the system and spending time as a school governor - are that if anything we spend too much time on the arts and not enough on the sciences.
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dejawolf
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 6:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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as a CG artist, that mainly work on replicating real life models,
i learn a lot of useful stuff from the internet, that i never learned on school.

in norway, we had the problems of being forced to learn "new-norwegian"
and spending weeks learning about people who lived 100 years ago in norway, namely ibsen, who wrote a fucking theater, and some other guy,
who wrote books, and loved nazis.

i dont understand the reason to learn artists about prime numbers?
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Ophiolite
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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dejawolf wrote:
i dont understand the reason to learn artists about prime numbers?
Music is mathematics with a heart.
Computer graphics in games make extensive use of fractals, a mathematical construct.
I could go on.
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Cat1981(England)
Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 5:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Ophiolite wrote:
You almost seem to be saying that creativity lies primarily in the arts and not the sciences. That is not a position I could agree with.
Moreover, all the observations I have made of the educational system over the last couple of decades - which include having two children pass through the system and spending time as a school governor - are that if anything we spend too much time on the arts and not enough on the sciences.

I don't believe that creativity lies with any particular subject, but can be expressed in every subject. I do believe that language and maths are extremely important subjects and should be given priority over every other subject simply because they are the basis for education and life in general. If and when i do have children, i would like to think that they will be exposed to many subjects and given time to really explore and experience them. There is a very short story towards the end of the film in the opening post which i think highlights this very well.
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starlight
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 10:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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higher art to me is when science and creativity is used to the utmost in a positive way. creativity brings independence and flexibility to the mind, so that the heart and mind can find balance on its own and can find fullness.the journey of each individual is to find fullness. this is what each person should strive for. undergoing a journey to master a sport has taught me that. creativity does help polish up bad form in each individual by having the ability to look at the form in many angles. a truly enlighten person has many favorites but can be pleased with just getting one.

Last edited by starlight on Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:28 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Scifor Refugee
Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 11:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Creativity and imagination is great, but the problem is that there’s already a huge amount of stuff that students simply need to learn through boring memorization/rote practice before their creativity and imagination is very useful to them. There’s no point in turning out a creative, imaginative student who can’t write coherently or do basic math. I agree that creativity is very useful for mathematicians and scientists, but a mathematician or scientist has to have a thorough understanding of math or science before they can apply their creativity in a useful or meaningful way.

For an example of what happens when highly creative/imaginative people try to do science without spending a lot of time tediously learning the background material, just look at all the anti-relativity crackpots who read a few non-technical books or web pages that are intended for general audiences and then come up with wildly imaginative theories to fix the “problems” with relativity, even though they clearly don’t actually understand relativity. I mean, most of these guys are sure that relativity is wrong even though they would be totally lost by the end of the first chapter if they tried to read an actual university textbook on relativity. Hell, most of them couldn’t make it through the first chapter of the math textbook that they would need to read in order to understand the first chapter of the relativity textbook. They’re creative and highly imaginative, but their chances of actually advancing science in any way are close to zero.
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Ophiolite
Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Scifor Refugee wrote:
They’re creative and highly imaginative, but their chances of actually advancing science in any way are close to zero.
I think you are crediting them with way too much luck. there chances are zero.
An analogy would be to ask a pre-school child who has learnt that there is an alphabet and is able to recognise the letters A, K and T, to write an essay on winter in the Rockies.
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Tony John C
Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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I took his post completly different then you guys did. I took it as being more plyable and letting the student become more creative, or pursue what he/she is most interested in. Then after they start pursueing, to encourage them and help them achieve what they want to achieve. For some it would be science, for others music, for others sculpting. It doesn't matter. I'm not saying to ignore all the rest of the studies, but they should focus on the one thats important to the student.

I do not agree that creativity has no place in science. Without creativity, there would be no Einstein. Mind you he did fail out of school and worked in a post office. Granted he did read, but he was interested in it. It was his passion.
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Ophiolite
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Tony John C wrote:
Without creativity, there would be no Einstein. Mind you he did fail out of school and worked in a post office. Granted he did read, but he was interested in it. It was his passion.
This is incorrect. Einstein left on high school when his parents moved. He did fail an entrance test for a technology institute (that he later did attend), but went on to graduate from high school in his new home.
He did not work at the post office, but at the patent office, a responsible position requiring a solid technical education.
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spuriousmonkey
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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I read some time ago some popular science piece that Parkinson's disease was more frequent in people who were exposed to less ideas. (caution: I do not know how truthful this representation was, but it sounded reasonable)

I know we live in a society that loves fixing things after they are broken, but maybe it would be actual good for society on many levels to include creativity into the curriculum of life. And education.

I may have good effect during all stages of life and on levels we have not thought about.
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Ophiolite
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 4:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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spuriousmonkey wrote:
I may have good effect during all stages of life and on levels we have not thought about.
I can't imagine it doing any harm. (Perhaps I'm just not thinking creatively enough. Sad )I recommend anything by Edward de Bono on lateral thinking.
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spuriousmonkey
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 4:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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I can certain see the harm of creative thinking for certain political and economic systems and the people that profit from them.

Or maybe I am just guided falsely by ideological constraints.
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