American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing.
And yet we are following the standardised tests that the Americans may well be on their way to ditching it... Creativity and Intelliegence can be identified without tests in the first place. You could just identitfy such people when you see them.
A couple of issues need to be recognised.
First off, can creativity be thought ? Can it be groomed in a city environment where everything must have a standardised order of thought? An overly protective environment that is lack of various natural environments usually doresn't help creativity to thrive either. So what can we do about it?
Experience by self realisation of how the surrounding happenings and items work, in my own experience, appears to be the best stimulation process that one could get as far as creativity is concerned. It's probably one of the optimal ways of instilling original creativity of a higher calibre. We have lots of lessons learnt from nature, which offers the law of how mechanims work. In fact we get man made formulas off from nature.
How can creativity be instilled when the kid is pampered with maids and whose life is chauffeured to and fro in cars; coupled with loads of uncreative teaching methods that could further make their minds stagnant? Methods that seem to run on certain values and ideas only ? Or via a certain mission of a place etc?
I often wonder if we have been grooming students who seem to blindly think they are the greatest just because they've learnt a lot for their age.Or are we really grooming kids who could really think about issues and create them from almost anything in their hands and in any kind of environment? The type who can create knowledge, offer new insights that are simple in form from the complexity of life problems?
Declining creativity isn't a problem unique to the States. It's usually a common problem in afflunent cities around the world. Comfort doesn't seem to really dig much into creativity of the highest kind. And if we do look around at some of the best music, arts, technology etc; often the more original ones tend to come not from the bustling cities where there are lots of material attraction. They tend to come from suburb areas, towns and villages. Places where it is conducive for experimentation and personal reflection, before they are presented in the theatres, museums etc in cities for people to pay and appreciate.
Got to run now!
