The Freedom of Creativity...Or the lack thereof -- Adolescent Psychology Applied to Education

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Subject: The Freedom of Creativity...Or the lack thereof

Author:
Christina V. Watkins

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Date Posted: 17:30:05 01/27/08 Sun

Coloring within the lines was never my thing. As a child, I was always doodling and writing on anything I could touch - even the walls in our house. I loved to express various thoughts that seemed to flow from abstract places beyond the realms of my mind. So naturally, when I came across the creative thinking portion of chapter 3, it sparked my interest.

The book points out some interesting ideas on how to help adolescents become more creative, but who are we kidding? The school system does more to suppress creativity than it does to encourage it.

Creativity is an expression of ones self. It comes from our innermost feelings which translates into an extension of you. A teacher cannot grade "creativity" nor teach it. For example, I having no formal training of the violin could perhaps reproduce some lines of music if I were taught properly. But does simply being able to reproduce someone else's creativity in turn make me creative as well? Or would it be creative of me to take those fundamentals I learned and produce my own music?

I was a creative child, who suffered in school. I could never understand (and still don't) why I was forced to sit in a classroom for hours, listening to lectures, taking notes, taking tests, and doing projects. On tests, there are always going to be right answers and wrong answers, on essays there will always be a general guide to the type of answer you're looking for, and in writing - at least at the high school level - your sentences must always be parallel. Can a child really be creative in such a structured environment?

I believe my creativity only flourished because my parents encouraged it. Please share your ideas with me.

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: The Freedom of Creativity...Or the lack thereof	A.J. Stich	19:27:46 02/02/08 Sat

Re: The Freedom of Creativity...Or the lack thereof	Jaclyn Suffel	15:27:19 02/03/08 Sun