So What? A reflection on growth directions

I've taken in a lot of new information and ideas this week, but nothing quite resonated with me as much as Ken Robinson's Ted Talk on changing education paradigms.  In class I saw  his talk that was edited down with very helpful illustrations, but once I got back home I went in search of the full video, and found this speech posing the question: "Does education kill creativity?"

Coincidentally I am taking a psychology course this semester as well, and there was a tiny tidbit that connected in a very disturbing way.  In learning about behavioral psychology we were assigned a video about Twin Studies that briefly mentioned the fact that we are growing ever closer to a future where parents can choose what genes to eliminate from their child, including the gene that creates a predisposition for bipolar personality disorder. I'll explain how the two are connected, but first a little on what I learned about the foundation of our academic system.

In Ken Robinson's speech he argues that as we grow older we are taught to live inside our heads, and slightly to one side. We have an educational system that doesn't treat creativity with the same status as literacy, although it is just as crucial.  Our education system is built on teaching people how to think vertically vs. laterally. This type of thinking works great for math and certain sciences, but completely ignoring lateral thinking leaves people unable to try different things, see different outcomes, and ultimately being afraid to fail.  Historically our school system is built with the premise that the very worst thing you can do is to make a mistake.

Public education systems were conceived in the intellectual culture of the enlightenment and the economic circumstances of the industrial revolution in the middle of the 19th century.
At this time, in the enlightenment period, certain types of deductive reasoning and knowledge were equated with intelligence. This established the traditional basis of what subjects we consider "Academic" (Such as literature, math, sciences, etc.)

As we get closer to present day we see these same values in place - importance placed on "Academic" Subjects and creativity and the arts being mostly ignored and left behind. When you hear about public school budgets being cut, those are usually the first to go.

The big issue is that, while this system does work really well for a few, it leaves many different types of people believing that their skills are not important, and that they are not good enough. We see certain traits of hyperactivity, or the inability to think without moving around, and we end up medicating our children.  We're holding children to standards set in an entirely different world - one that wasn't so constantly bright, interactive and stimulating. They are bombarded with billboards, tv ads, music, and laser focused media, and then we wonder why they can't focus on educational curriculum that were conceived 100 years ago, and that aren't engaging their personality types on any level.

It is not a radical or new idea that creativity and the arts are extraordinarily important in today's world, but regardless of the research, evidence and ideas being there, change can be really hard.  But it is important, right now, more than ever.  I mentioned earlier the video that described the not-so-distant future that will enable parents to selectively remove genes from their unborn child's DNA. The one example given was the gene that predisposes a person to bipolar personality disorder. This doesn't mean that if you eliminate the gene you eliminate the disorder, but it greatly reduces the risk of your child developing it. It seems like a clear cut win for science - until you learn that there is a link between the bipolar disorder and creativity. Suddenly you recognize the trade off. You eliminate the risk of the disorder, but at what cost?

For me, the scary take away is that we are at risk right now of losing creativity in our society. We're not educating people on the importance of the arts and creativeness, we aren't demonstrating personal and cultural value to those things in our school system, and consequently we are imparting the overall message that those things may be fun, but really aren't that important.

Now our students will grow up to be parents and have kids of their own - in the not-so-distant future where they may be given the option to reduce the risk of a personality disorder in exchange for giving up a trait that, unfortunately, they grew up being taught wasn't all that important. A trait that was medicated out of them, and a trait that they were told would "never land them a good job."

It's not that far fetched to say that creativity is at risk of becoming endangered. The world has many great artists that are revered and will be forever remembered, from ancient past to present day.  How many artists already have been victims of our current education  hierarchy?  How many will be victims of gene selection as an indirect result of the message we send about the importance of creativity?

The answer to those very important questions depends on one other - what are we going to do about it?