Our education system is destroying creativity - opening speeches

First proposing speech

“I failed in some subjects in exam, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft “ Bill Gates, this sentence could summarize the entire debate. (Continues below the fold…)

By NB

First opposing speech

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Today, our societies are becoming more and more competitive.  It is a fact.  State borders are opening, the economy is becoming more and more efficient, and laggard countries are rapidly bridging the development gap.  Competition is now global and as a consequence our children will be faced with enormous challenges.  They will be burdened by ever-greater demands on their intelligence and capacity to act quickly.  Sure, education has an important role to play. (Continues below the fold…)

By HC

First proposing speech

“I failed in some subjects in exam, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft “ Bill Gates, this sentence could summarize the entire debate.

Everyone has certain creativity. The challenge is to make them stand out. However this is only possible thanks to a suitable environment which can lead to the development of different kind of creativity.

The school does not provide it; the children from the beginning of their education are brought to stay with the same class and the same teachers for years. A key element to stimulate creativity is to put kids as soon as possible with various and different environments, so they can learn how creativity can appear in the different fields like arts, design, sports and even sciences.

Prioritization of Contents in all educational systems over the world always gives priority to scientific Contents especially mathematics and physics, before the social and human sciences. Parents usually encourage their kids to be aimed to be doctors or engineers, this can lead to the destruction of any sense of creativity kids might have in other fields.

We just have to give a look for example on the salary scale applied by French companies. Engineers get really high salary comparing to artists for example. How can we encourage our children to be creative if from the beginning of their childhood we tell them that they must be good at school to have a good job and be a doctor or an engineer? You must be an excellent student. Here is the main problem; an excellent student is a person which inhibited his creativity.

Our children are encouraged to adopt a rigid system which becomes more and more selective. They often give up all that was out of the strict school setting. It is sufficient to quote the French preparatory classes where students waive any kind of social life, sportive life, even their family life, these are key elements to provide a good framework to any creative work.

Some people would say that the solution would be to provide more courses to children with more specialization so they can do whatever they want. But, first it would be too expensive to implement such a solution in the French educational system. Second it does not solve the problem, because the problem is the way we teach today, with the quotation system that categorize children according to their level thanks to the exam but which can’t reveal any potential creativity of children because of its nature. Children should think exactly the way the teacher do, so they get good grades. This process is completely incompatible with any creative work. If you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with something original and what schools penalize. We stigmatize mistakes and kids are frightened to be wrong.

NB

First opposing speech

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Today, our societies are becoming more and more competitive.  It is a fact.  State borders are opening, the economy is becoming more and more efficient, and laggard countries are rapidly bridging the development gap.  Competition is now global and as a consequence our children will be faced with enormous challenges.  They will be burdened by ever-greater demands on their intelligence and capacity to act quickly.  Sure, education has an important role to play.

Our schooling system is currently under attack, but the situation is not new.  In the 1970s, it was criticized for being too authoritative.  The institution of education, as a means of astute coercion, was considered by the likes of Ivan Illich, author of Deschooling Society, as a bedrock of false consciousness.  However, and by a curious reversal, current mistrust comes not from the subversive activity of left-wing scholars, but from the system itself.  Instead of being viewed as alienating the people, current education is viewed as not contributing enough to its fitness in the economic landscape.  Creativity, like leadership, has been hailed from the 1990s onward as an all-encompassing remedy.  Some goes on to say that education is, in fact, destroying creativity.  But let’s not jump too quickly on the bandwagon.  It seems to us that this popular conception lies on very shaky grounds indeed, and we would like to answer those charges – creatively, if possible.  To this end we demonstrate that, far from destroying it, education in fact enables creativity.

But first of all, let’s give a definition of creativity that we hope is above controversy.  Creativity can be defined as the qualitative impetus (hence hardly measurable) behind any given act of creation of something new that has some kind of subjective value.  Therefore, any creative act is, by essence, a purposive one.  It has to be relevant.  It has of course to imaginatively devise a “thing” (an idea, a sculpture, and so on), but firmly and with an aim in mind, be it pleasing the senses, engaging our thinking or gaining some economic leverage.  Note that this definition isn’t restricted to utilitarian endeavors: even in arts can it find some currency.

With this in mind, let’s turn to another issue: whether creativity requires technique.  Unfortunately, it seems that, even today, even after cognitive sciences have made their foray into the collective mind, there is a need to debunk the romantic myth of the inspired poet.

“She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies.”  No doubt that the creation of this so well-paced sentence required the skills of an outstanding wordsmith!  Can we really hold that Lord Byron woke up one day and, because some god has willingly distilled the serum of “creativity” during his sleep, wrote almost in one stroke one of the most acclaimed poems of all times?  Paul Valéry, a French poet as well and author of the well-received La Jeune Parque, was quick to object.  The writing process is painful and extremely demanding.  It requires lots of knowledge, and an awful dedication to one’s craft.  Cognitive sciences also concur: creativity is a particular kind of expertise and, as any expertise, is domain-dependent.  In other words, one cannot be said to be creative in an absolute manner: there needs to be a field of excellence.  Common sense leads down the same path: I might be the best painter in the world without being able to, say, devise a new way to go to the moon.

Thus, since knowledge is a requirement for creativity, education isn’t going to destroy it, because there could not be any creativity at start!  Indeed, a child is not creative.  They are of course free-wheeling, feeling not quite bound by any convention.  But this is all play and babbling.  I cannot even understand how some people can think that the destroying of this fidgeting around by an education system that tries to teach seriousness and commitment to one’s task, is the source of writer’s block, among other things.

In conclusion, I think that we are too quick to plague the school for all our cultural diseases – and creativity is, in my opinion, a cultural problem.  There is one proof that our schooling system has indeed been successful: we are speaking of its lack of creativity fostering.  Since we are trying to devise new ways of democratizing creativity, it means that the goal of literacy and quantitative skills for all is fulfilled to a reasonable amount.  Now that the ground is sufficiently plowed, we can with confidence address the imperative of creativity in schools.

As I have said in the beginning, our education system, far from destroying creativity, is its very prerequisite.  Please take this in consideration when voting.  Thank you for your attention. 

HC