I listened to a fantastic TED Talk today from Ken Robinson called "Do Schools Kill Creativity?". The general gist of the talk was that schools are producing an army of experts in English, Science, Mathematics (the mainstream subjects), but had a small focus (if any in some schools) on the arts. That is dancing, painting, music. Anything creative.

Why is it important?

The children entering the education system now will be in the workforce for the next 50 years at least. That means we need to teach them to deal with the problems the world will face for the next 50 years. Unfortunately, we have no idea what problems the world will be facing in 50 years! So, the best thing we can do is teach them to think creatively, outside the box as they say. This will provide the world with an abundance of creative solutions to solve whatever problems we may face.

How can we teach creativity?

Well unfortunately, creativity is not taught. But, the good news is everyone is born creative. It is only through the modern education system (and work environment for that matter!) that creativity is stifled. The best way you can stifle creativity is to make people scared to take risks. And how do you scare people from taking risks? You punish them for their mistakes. If a child takes a leap in class to answer a question and gets it wrong, I know from my experience in school that was a prime opportunity for the child to be ridiculed publicly. That child then learns don't take risks and just like that creativity takes a stab.

So what can we do?

Let kids play! Encourage creativity! Encourage dance, music, art, photography! And never, ever punish a child for taking a risk and getting it wrong. If there's one lesson we can take away from all of this, it is:

Celebrate failure as one step closer to success!

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