Our education system is destroying creativity - rebuttal speeches

Proposers’ rebuttal speech

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening .We are writing today about creativity .In fact , we are more and more facing difficulties in finding  innovative minds,maybe because people are discouraged to think outside the box throughout their lives. (Continues below the fold…)

by SM

Opposers’ rebuttal speech

Ladies and gentlemen, we have all been (or are going) through the same education system. But what exactly is the most important that comes to your mind when you recall your old days in high school? Is it remorse for having wasted your talent and creativity? Or is it gratefulness towards your math teacher for showing you different ways to solve a differential equation?  I have been asking this question to many people and I have yet to encounter someone who gives the first answer! (Continues below the fold...)

by CN

Proposers’ rebuttal speech

Ladies and gentlemen , good evening .We are writing today about creativity .In fact, we are more and more facing difficulties in finding  innovative minds,maybe because people are discouraged to think outside the box throughout their lives.

"It all starts with our education system" argued Sir Ken Robinson in his popular TED Talk. Indeed , we still are teaching in school with the thought that mathematics  are more important than arts , that physics is the solution and theater is just an entertainment and the results is six physics class per week and only one class of music or art .What I mean is that our education system is drawing the student's direction making him confined to it  without having the choice to think and thus to develop any skills which are not required in school .In consequence we are creating new generation of workers without their own point of view or without will to change anything. Creativity needs more than that !

In addition , we  are living with the  idea  that mistakes are bad . Sometimes in class , I am scared to say something wrong : both  teacher and student may laugh on me. Well it is totally wrong to think so because mistakes may be the best way to be creative . Ken Robinson clarifies that for him if one is “not prepared to be wrong” then one can “never come up with anything original". Let 's take an example .In 1856 , Perkin ,an 18 years old student , tries to synthesize the quinine by the process of the oxidation of aniline. He obtains one blackish powder which intrigues him and does not throw it. This powder dissolves in the alcohol to give a surprising mauve color. is the mauvéine, a new dye for the silk and the cotton which resists the wash and the sun which finds a success lightening with the queen court of England. Hence,by stigmatizing mistakes we are clearly educating pepole out of thier reative capacities.

Actually , we all are born with a creative side . Normally we just have to develop it . As a matter of fact , creativity is not just a skill but it is also something to learn and especially to practice. Effectively , there are rules to mature one's innovative side .Besides , art , music , theater, we can find other educational methods that are important to call your creativity.

We had a brief insight about these methods this year during the "ADPL" .The problem is that we were not enough  aware to take profit from these classes because we think that it is a loss of time. Unfortunately, it is not ! But this prejudice is just a consequence  of an industrial education , our education system.

To conclude ,this house strongly believe that our current education system is destroying creativity. we are lead into an industrial education Forbidding us to think by ourselves and thus to create .Don't you believe that we should more encourage the students to cultivate their creative mind ? So please take this motion and vote for us.

SM

Opposers’ rebuttal speech

Ladies and gentlemen, we have all been (or are going) through the same education system. But what exactly is the most important that comes to your mind when you recall your old days in high school? Is it remorse for having wasted your talent and creativity? Or is it gratefulness towards your math teacher for showing you different ways to solve a differential equation?  I have been asking this question to many people and I have yet to encounter someone who gives the first answer!

It is all the more surprising, therefore, to hear our friends from the proposing side go on about how our education system is “killing” creativity.

Before going on in depth into the debate, there is one peculiar thing about the motion that needs to be clarified. And that is we need to know exactly of which education system are we are referring to? Are we talking about our current education system as it is right now? (Implying there was one point in time when things used to go a lot better). Or is it our education system full stop, as it has always been? The latter is a lot more daring and I seriously doubt that the proposing team would go with such a bold statement, which would be a lost cause. Indeed arguing that the education system has been destroying creativity since always would not be plausible enough. For generations our society has been producing highly creative people of all kind. Here is a list of the most creative people in business according to Fast Company. 

We can all agree on the fact that these people are really creative. The thing is they all went through the education system but still remained bright and creative! One the other hand, if we assume that it is the current education system which problematic, we will be implying that there was some point in time when schools started destroying creativity. But then we will be basically saying that the quality of our system has been decreasing throughout the years (at least regarding creativity). Meaning there is less place for creativity in the current system than it used to be. This is clearly not true because throughout the years there has been more and more activities related to creativity in our schools. To illustrate this point, let me give you an example from my personal experience. Two months ago, we had the pleasure to welcome an alumnus from our school on a lecture. And the topic discussed that day was creativity. He couldn’t stop telling how lucky we are to have the opportunity to address such topics in class. Two decades ago, went he graduated, there no classes like that.

No matter how I look into this assumption, I just can’t go along with it; our education system is not destroying creativity, not now nor ever. Another question we should be asking is: can creativity be destroyed? I highly doubt it. Our friend HC has provided us with a good definition of creativity.  Creativity can also be defined as the process of producing something that is both original and worthwhile.   As far as I am concerned, I believe that creativity is one of the most primitive and outspread human features.  Moreover our raw creativity needs the right framework to blossom. And that framework is, as pointed out by HC given by our education system. I have countless examples of intelligent and highly skilled people who never achieved anything great because they never had the opportunity to put their creativity into work.

It is a shame the proposing team hasn’t given us yet their thoughts about creativity. I hope the next proposers will do so; I am really looking forward to it. Thank you dear readers and vote for us!

CN