Although these words may not have actually come from Albert Einstein himself (since the internet seems to be flooded with alleged Einstein quotes), the overall message is very similar to that of Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk.
In the TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson says that he believes that in education, creativity should be treated the same as literacy and given an equal amount of importance. However, as many of us know from our own experiences in school (which was not that long ago in the grand scheme of things), this is not the case. We know that there is generally more emphasis put on math and language arts than the other subject areas and that subjects such as art, music and physical education are often seen as the least important.
Not only are these subject areas given a greater deal of attention, students are often told what to do and how to do it when it comes to assigned work. For example, I can remember being told to write a poem about a given topic in language arts. Writing poetry was something that I ALWAYS hated doing because I found it difficult to say what I wanted to say and also make it rhyme with the previous line or sentence. Although I am aware that not all poetry has to rhyme, most of the poems we were told to write included rhyming as one of the criteria. Maybe if I had been given the option to choose what subject I would like to write a poem about, or choose how I would like to write about a given subject, my final product would be better. This is just one example of how I believe my own creativity may have been "killed" in school.
Another experience that came to mind when watching this video was something that happened to my boyfriend while he was taking a math course here on campus. He was struggling with some of the content in the course and decided to get a tutor. His tutor began teaching him different methods for working out the problems and told him "tricks" (for lack of a better word) for making finding the solutions easier. After a few tutoring sessions, he felt as though he had already made a great deal of progress with the content. However, when he got his next test back, the prof had put a HUGE line through the first page (that also ripped through the second and third pages) with a red pen and left a note saying "this is not what I taught you in class". Although he had found the correct answers to the problems, the prof would not accept any other method than his own as being correct.
Just as Sir Ken Robinson said in the video, all children are talented in some way. In particular, the part of the video where he talks about Shakespeare as a child explains this idea perfectly. In my opinion, there are too many standards that teachers expect children to conform to. A child who sits in their desk, quietly completing the work that was assigned by the teacher is often seen as the ideal student. However, we know that not all children learn in the same way - there are many different learning styles. Just as the picture above suggests, we cannot judge every child and expect them to all be successful in the same task. It is for this reason that I believe it is very important to cater to the different learning styles and promote creativity within the classroom.
In a subject that is often seen as having right and wrong answers, I think it is important for us as future teachers to allow students to be creative within the subject of mathematics. Although this task seems very difficult right now (to me, anyways), I trust that how to do this will become clearer throughout the semester as we continue to learn about math in today's classes. As Sir Ken Robinson states in the video, the world is ever changing and we have no idea what the world will be like in ten, even five years. We have no right to deem mathematics and language arts as more important than the other subject areas, including the arts that are often seen as less important. Math, which is often considered "boring" by students, and it is up to us as future educators to teach it in creative ways that will be engaging to the students.
That's all for now! :)
- Cheryl
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