The Real Value of Creativity in Education

i have been writing

since before i could physically hold a

pencil in my hands

i would sit on my parents bed and tell

my dad what to write and he would type

it up for me

i then got promoted to crayons and then

pencils

and then my computer which is thankfully

what i use today

and i’ve always had these weird crafty

phases

like a cardboard phase a duct tape phase

a hot glue phase and super glue face a

costume phase and even a tying phase

where i would tie as many things

together as tight as possible

and hope for the best when the knot had

to come undone but i think a common

misconception of creativity

is that creativity equals craftiness

or that to be creative you have to be

good with your hands

today i want to pull us away from this

stereotype and talk about the real

importance of creativity

and why it needs to be a priority in

education systems across the nation

so let’s dive into the science real

quick there is a biological difference

between

creative brains and non-creative brains

but over dozens of studies

this difference is really hard to pin

down

i’m sure we’ve all heard that creativity

is based in the right sides of our

brains and the left sides

are dedicated to logic and reasoning but

this suggests that creativity

and logic are opposite things i believed

they were designed

to co-exist consider this quote by

bradley wojtek

who has a phd in neuroscience imagine

asking

where is video located in my computer

well

that doesn’t make any sense your monitor

is required

to see the video your graphics card is

required to render the video

your software is required to

excuse me to generate the code for the

video

but the video isn’t located anywhere in

the computer

in terms of creativity creativity does

not inhabit one part of our brains

instead it lives and breathes constantly

so then who are the people who are most

creative i’m sure we can all think of a

few political activists or celebrities

pretty quickly

let’s think of maybe malala who used her

talents to change

education systems in countless countries

martin luther king jr

whose words change the minds of an

entire nation

elon musk whose inquiries will be the

future

and what did all of these people have in

common they were all

ridiculously famous but also

their creativity wasn’t crafty they

probably

didn’t sit on their bedroom floors and

hot glue designs

into the bottom of their mother’s

porcelain plates

instead they used their creativity in a

different way

it allowed them to think differently it

allowed them a new approach

to things they were passionate about you

might not think that

creativity comes from these attributes

but these attributes come from

creativity

it is scientifically proven that

creativity improves your mental growth

your dedication

your mindset and even your mood it

allows for new and spontaneous ideas

it allows real world thinkers to tackle

real world subjects

superpowers like these could save the

world not just

in a superman catch his car flying

through the air kind of way

but in a linked hand in hand brilliant

minds can save the world

kind of way and where will these

brilliant minds come from

who will harness creativity like captain

marvel harness the tesseract

us kids and teens

which is by training and teaching

students to be more creative

in the classroom is vital for growth

i’m sure we could all remember the days

when our teachers would teach us

not with numbers on a whiteboard but

with food

and soil and real examples i learned my

fractions by watching my teacher cut up

a brownie

i learned what commas were when my

teacher said one sentence

in five different ways with commas in

five different places

i never knew how much could be in the

soil until my class went outside and we

dug in the dirt

from a young age we were taught in very

engaging ways and if a lesson wasn’t

engaging

enough it was a lot harder to learn from

it but eventually

students learned to take information

from the teachers

plain words instead of those engaging

examples and we became devolved beings

the decrease in creativity can be shown

in this study

done by george land when he tested

sixteen hundred children

on divergent and creative thinking

children ages four to five years old

tested an average of 98 percent

out of a hundred now the same children

took this same test and in five years

their scores were down

to 30. interesting

and when the children turned 15 they

sucked they took the same test again

and their scores averaged 12. now the

same test

has been given to over 280 000 adults

and their scores average was two

from 98 percent

to two i think a lot of this

is just how we age and mature we learn

to prioritize being right

over being different but i also think a

part of this

is schools not because they drain it out

of us

but because teaching us to be more

creative in the classroom

is no longer a priority but how

how can we possibly teach something that

is so intangible

and abstract well today i’m going to

give you one example

that can hopefully lay the foundation of

many other possibilities

in the classroom let’s say a room

maybe this room is 30 feet wide 20 feet

long

and another 15 feet high there are some

couches in the back corner

a bookshelf a desk and a globe sitting

on top

and what if we bring this room to math

class

in math we learn to plug and chug we

learn by the numbers

and sometimes we don’t even know what

we’re doing

but what if we used a real world

application to finally understand

what’s going on my teacher does a

phenomenal job of this

we use those real world applications to

make the math tangible

students could be asked to find the

volume of the room

including or excluding the furniture

precalculus students

could find the angular displacement of

the globe if it were to roll across the

desk

calc students could find the velocity of

the globe it were to fall off the desk

in the exact moment in time in which it

would hit the ground

geometry students could find the

dimensions of the bookshelf

the desk the chair given just a few

dimensions

using theorems and proofs and suddenly

the math does become tangible

and what about an english class

sometimes in english we’re given a page

number

and maybe even a subject but what if we

used

this room as a rubric in english

one student could write about a

professor who maybe works in this room

and has a horrible fear of globes

but to overcome her fears she puts a

globe right

on the corner of her desk one day

without her touching it the glow moves

a mystery has begun in civics students

could be asked how this class could best

serve the community if it were given

over to the government

would it serve the community best to

rent it out

maybe to store and hide government

secrets to give it over to the homeless

and what about in history how would this

room look

if it were a greek courtroom and what’s

the size comparison between this room

and a room of a peasant living under the

control of assyria

what about queen victoria in the

victorian era

and what about science how much helium

would it take to lift this

room up is it even possible

and if we were to fill this room with a

bunch of people and

spin it around and impose g-forces on

them

or their heart rates accelerate or

decelerate

and if you were to take the people out

and fill it with gas again and freeze it

how much and how long would it take for

the gas to sublimate

would it even sublimate i’m not here to

criticize any part of the education

system

but instead to encourage a greater

emphasis on creativity in the classroom

as i said before this room can be the

foundation of

endless possibilities minds can change

perspectives can alter and the next

generation

of young thinkers will be ready to

engage the world and know how to improve

it

malala will be joined by new innovative

thinkers

ready for change martin luther king jr

will be a hero of a new era of advocates

elon musk will be joined by

mathematicians

engineers and scientists ready to build

a future

creativity isn’t crafty i still want

to hide in the corner of my bedroom and

write fantastical stories

i still want to make a dress out of duct

tape but the real value of my creativity

doesn’t come from my craftiness instead

it comes from my ability to make real

change

because creativity gives me empathy and

world-mindedness

leadership and social skills a drive to

seek the unknown

all things i can’t get from a roll of

duct tape

instead creativity is a tool anyone can

use and everyone can learn

so let’s work together to bring our

creativity scores back

to 100 thank you

hmm