Thinky-Thought: The Reconstruction of Creativity

[Thinky-Thoughts are a perpetual beta thing. They invite comment and further discussion.]

So I wrote a thinky-thought about an article that talked about how school kills creativity impulses in children. bladespark took an issue with the conclusion, that we're very close to a death of creativity, with an empirical counterexample - creativity is in a much better place now than it has been before. Throw a stone anywhere, basically, and you'll find a lot of creative output.

It's an excellent point.

...but I feel like the two can co-exist, even though they're intertwined. And they can both be correct. So let's talk about some of the examples provided (and some other ones that I can think up), too.

1. Just because we can measure things better doesn't mean the rates are changing. Which makes sense because we're in the middle of being able to understand a lot of other things a lot better - things like the autism spectrum didn't have names even a little while ago, within my lifetime. The mysteries of the universe and the mind are starting to unlock as we find new ways of seeing them. So if we're starting to discover that the way we do schooling crushes creativity, we shouldn't worry that things are falling apart.
2. Beyond that, check out the sheer volume of STUFF! One corner of the Internet has millions (and MILLIONS) of users who clip right along in the hundreds of thousands of creative things per day. People can live their lives doing creative work easier than they could before. And that's just one corner of the Internet. So, (in a bit flippant way), cheer up, emo kid! We're doing great!


The counter to that is trying to prove a negative. Much like the President, we can measure how things are good, how things are bad, but we really can't measure how bad things could have been or how good things would be if were weren't doing these things. You could argue the idea that the Internet being international means you can't claim all those people as products of the American school system, and the like, but even if you went all proportional and finessed the numbers to be more statistically accurate, you still find yourself staring down a large swath of creativity every day.

More fruitfully, you could say that the explosion of creativity is because the bar is set so low these days - a person with technology and an Internet connection can share themselves with the world. Going that route, though, gets you into the discussion of whether creativity requires a minimum of success before you can count it. That's old-world thinking, though - Sturgeon's Law applies, sure, but if the bar is that you to have commercialized your work and/or make a living off of it, then a large swath of that very real creative explosion is erased. Going that route helps the position that schools are killing creativity by redirecting the insufficiently determined into some other profession or route. It's not a complete argument, though, because...
3. Kids are more resilient than you think. I know this from experience. And that's where I think we can have two arguments running concurrently that cross over but don't disturb each other too much. Schools that crush creativity can be counteracted by extracurriculars that encourage it. The bottom of the social heap in society can be the idol of people that actually appreciate them and have a similar aesthetic.

Which brings us back to having to push for "what could be" if we weren't trying so very damn hard to crush that creative spark by insisting on Right and Wrong as the only two options in school. And if our work allowed us the freedom of creativity (within bounds) to do our work, instead of dictating to us what is Right and Wrong. And if our politics stopped trying to tell us that they were Right and the other side Wrong. We've built up a lot of things that depend on us accepting Right and Wrong as the only ways. So, we both end up being right - I'm pessimistic about our schools ever changing back to something that will teach us about thinking and problem-solving in creative ways, and encouraging creative expression, but bladespark is right that it's only part of the total picture - plenty of kids and adults are able to find an outlet for their creative expression anyway. After all, I'm one of them, as a never-going-to-be-famous blogger.

Vignettes: Old-World research methods.

I've made it through two books of the Hunger Games trilogy. I now udnerstand a lot more why the third book was a very anticipated thing, and that this series is going to have staying power. I'll get to book three this week, and I now know just how badly botched the movie is in showing the true horror of the books. I really do think that it's a decision of shooting for the PG-13 rating that destroys the whole thing. The second book will be even more difficult to translate into a movie, especially if they want it to be on the same rating marker.

Elsewhere, I got a nice little flier in the mail talking about a Profiles in Courage scholarship to celebrate the anniversary of the publicatino of the book. I'm reading along the requriements, some of which are, in my opinion, limiting the field of possibilities rather severely (find a politician that has exemplified the virtues talked about in the book) others that were just there, and one that made me briefly contemplate whether or not I could use it as an acceptable substitute for disc golf. It says that the student needs to cite at least five sources, one of which has to be a print source, to ensure research diversity.

ARGHELBLARGH Argelfaster, Argelfaster, Argelfaster!

Forserious, people, print resources? Most of our print resources are available through electronic resource databases, because it's cheaper to buy the package that gets continually updated rather than having to spend money every so often for material that will eventually be obsolete just by the passage of time and the making of news. We keep a few print resources, perhaps because they come as package deals, or because they're material that a public library should have as print resources. Most of your political information, including things like voting records, sponsorship of bills, and the Record of their remarks and political views, are going to be on-line these days.

Yes, it's possible to cheat-cite electronic as print, as if you had the actual thing in front of you. The point is, though, in the library profession, we get irritated by teachers that insist that their students do research in print resources, unless they're widely-available resources on common topics that would have print resources. The new Common Core standards are less about fetch quests and more about reading and interpreting, which requires wider availability of sources. Requiring a print source, past the point of "this is what this does", as a jumping-off point for futher research, or because the resource you want them to use is only available in print (like, say, a biography) is not going anywhere.

*sigh* It's one thing when teachers do it, it's another thing entirely when scholarship contests are buying into this.

So... that happened.