Tuesday 3 December 2013

Creativity in Education - Heather Dyer

I've been reading Edward do Bono's Thinking Course in order to get some exercises for a class I'm teaching on Developing Creativity. A quote in the introduction floored me. He says, "schools waste two thirds of the talent in society and universities sterilise the other third." 

A little while later I came across another quote by Ken Robinson, in his TED talk Changing Paradigms (www.ted.com). He says, "most people leave education with no idea what their real abilities are."

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What a horrifying thought! After eighteen years of education! I asked my students (most of whom are retired or at least middle-aged) whether they felt they knew what their abilities were when they left school. None of them did.  I certainly didn't. It’s only now that I’m beginning to see my strengths - and I'm in my forties. When I left school, I only knew my weaknesses. Is this what education is supposed to do?

All due respect to those hardworking teachers, but I know what my education didn’t do for me: it didn’t prepare me for life, or show me how to be happy. It also didn’t teach me how to fix a dripping tap without flooding my flat, or drive a car, or save a friend from choking. It didn’t teach me how to invest in the stock market (or anything else), grow my own food, or manage my emotions. It makes me wonder what I was doing all that time. No wonder I ended up graduating in the sciences and then spending twenty years trying to carve out a niche in the arts without any training.

Perhaps, as one of my students said, 'it's life that teaches us who we are'. Well…yes. But in that case, should we be spending eighteen years of our most formative years sitting in classrooms rather than experiencing 'life'? Did we really need all those days, weeks, years shut in one room in order to learn to read and write and do some basic arithmetic? I certainly can't remember more than a few random facts of what else I learned.
What about educating ourselves by following our bliss rather than having the information that other people think we need to know pushed into us? What about being encouraged to be creative in order to find out who we really are - which is surely the starting point for anyone?

But never in those eighteen years do I recall anyone ever asking me: Who are you? What makes you tick? What can you contribute?

The first time anyone helped me find myself was when I took a month-long government-run course for out-of-work ‘artists’ when I was living in Canada. I didn’t even consider myself an artist at the time – but the course was free and I was paying my rent with my credit card and didn't have a clue what I was good at. I had just graduated with a degree in the sciences and couldn't even get work as a temp...

The acronym for the course was SEARCH, and I forget what it stood for. But on this course they asked us who we were. They helped us put together our own mission statements. They helped us create resumes composed of our genuine skills, not just our employment histories. They told us that our only hope in life was to be who we really were. I was thirty-three.
For the first time since I was seven years old, I remembered that I was really a writer, and then found out how and where I could apply those skills. Two weeks after leaving that four-week course (and without any qualifications in writing; just certainty) I had a job that paid double what I’d ever earned before. Six weeks after that I had another job which paid double again. Two months later I had my first picture book published.

Do you know who you are? Who helped you to find out?




Heather Dyer - children's author and Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow

10 comments:

Sue Bursztynski said...

Heather, if you really think that those years at school teach kids nothing but reading and a bit of arithmetic, I am very sad for you.

John Dougherty said...

Well, certainly we're moving back towards a paradigm where reading, writing and arithmetic are presented as very nearly the only things that matter.

But, Sue, I think you're missing the wider point of Heather's piece, which is that by and large school doesn't prepare us for life, or help us to find out who we are or what we're really good at. That was my experience, too, and I think it's the experience of many of us. For many people, school is where we "find out" what we can't do, and learn not to bother trying.

I'm probably coming across as more cynical and one-sided on this than is actually the case, but I do think we need a national (and international) conversation on the purpose of schooling. Sadly, and ironically, what we get instead is politicians practicing the playground debating techniques of 5-year olds.

Sue Purkiss said...

I like the sound of that course you did...

Emma Barnes said...

Hmm. Have to admit, as a parent I don't want schools to teach my child how to drive or invest in the stock market or fix taps or even grow vegetables. I'd rather they taught children how to read and write. Education for everyone has been hard won, and I must admit I get more upset about the large number of people who are still not literate after their schooling, than I do about the ones who don't know how to grow a carrot. Or the ones who get good qualifications but haven't found their true vocation yet.

But I'm guessing I'm being a bit obtuse here and what you are advocating is a more creative, child-centred approach? I wonder what the best way is to attain that?

Penny Dolan said...

I agree about literacy and maths, Emma, but feel schools need to offer a balance of practical activities, from painting & art - my grand-kids don't seem to do any at all in class! - through to hands on skills, if they are to take care of the kids for so many hours of their young lives.

Some children learn through doing. I recall going to a school that ran a "Forest School" and the teachers were quite clear that often the roles of learners was reversed once they were out doing real world things, and different skills were being used. But I can recall a year one of my then-children had a teacher than seemed to teach little (in either area)and that is more than annoying. Maybe we neeed space for essays, not comments about this huge topic, imo? Good wishes to your course, Heather.

julia jones said...

I can;t help wondering whether the instruction to Be Creative isn't as much part of the problem as the solution. If I go to a school and say come on everyone we're going to write ourselves an adventure story and we can do just as we like as long as it's fun, then it usually is. I think if I was a child and someone came along and said now dear we're all going to be Creative today I might just find myself pleading to do a nice straightforward sheet of long division.

Heather Dyer said...

Thanks for the comments, folks. And yes, of-course I am being rather 'down' on education here - we're lucky to be educated at all. And of-course we do need to learn to read and write - but we need a lot more besides! I feel that my time in school (even though I was an overachiever and usually top of the class) could have been used more productively. Eighteen years is a very long time. Why shouldn't we know how to manage our finances, drive, grow vegetables, cook, etc. etc. etc. by the time we're released into the world?

Heather Dyer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jeanpwebster said...

Glad to hear that you are still teaching, Heather. You inspired me on the Bristol Uni Writing for Children course.

Heather Dyer said...

Thanks Jean - lovely to hear from you! Yes, still teaching but up in Aberystwyth now...

Hope your writing is going well.