Creativity is a Global Crisis

Do you know about eSNIPS?  eSnips is the ONE place where you can share ALL your passions; your thoughts, photos, files, stuff you find on the web... and you control who you share it with and how. Get 5GB of free storage. Today, I was scooting around looking for content and came across the professional development page.

This was posted...

Being a teacher means being a self learner. It means constantly thinking and reflecting upon the needs of your students. Constantly phrasing that quiet question to yourself; "How can I be a better teacher?"  It is for not just years down the road but also for your class tomorrow. If education is the "progressive realization of one's ignorance", professional development is the spirit that would make one be able to live with that.

I am down with that! So I kept exploring. Then I found exactly what I came after--  The cool thing with this site is everyone loads related material or digital learning objects to a related folder. So in addition to Tony's video I found many other related resources that were uploaded.

Here are the notes I took as I watched the following video (below) by Tony Buzan an author, lecturer, and inventor of mind mapping . They are part his words and my embellishments and thoughts. Enjoy.

Creativity is a Global Crisis

• World is getting less and less creative on average. Education today is structured so that it destroys creativity and crushes dreams.
• In China, Mexico, Japan and US it is normal for creativity scores to decline throughout a child's education.
• However, normal is not natural!   
• We are teaching uncreativity in our schools. We teach children to have that natural gifting to decline.
• We teach kids what to learn.. not how to learn. We teach curriculum rather than how to learn.
• Scientific Journal feels that brilliance can be unleashed through nurturing creative thinking in children.
• Intellectual capital is fueled by creativity. There is a new creative age dawning and we must address it/. 60% of all jobs and professions within the next 10 years will be based on creative thinking.
• Child are born with intellectual potential- brain is soil with endless seeds. When child is stimulated creatively then brain cells engage and grow. When they are not stimulated cells disengage. Nurturing creativity allows synapse to form more connections. When we routinize, when we linearize, when we dull a child we actually physically disengage their brains.
• It is not one or the other:curriculum or creativity. Creativity is the thread that should be woven in each area of the curriculum.
• Every great creative thinker is incredibly disciplined. They are brilliantly focused and ordered. Amazingly imaginative. The ability to be original and make connections building on the thoughts and ideas of others. True innovation comes from making connections and create from there.
• We have to nurture - nature. The natural creative gifting that children arrive in our classrooms with-- we need to make sure we do not spoil it.

Back to basics is returning to way we all learn naturally through wonderment, questions, and explorations- not through memorization and regurgitation of facts.

Photo Credit: Yvette Thomas, 17 - http://www.gellyroll.com/teen/deep/tt99/dt2_win/creativity-lg.jpg