|
I think we can all agree that children possess an extraordinary capacity for innovation. We have all had the chance to watch a group of children play together (without smartphones) and create games or invent cities and worlds that often defy the imagination. Without question, all children have amazing talents that are on full display during their early years of development, often before formal schooling begins. However, as the years go by and these children grow into adolescence, our education system in the United States often ignores these talents and trains students to think in prescribed and routinized manners that push their innate curiosity aside, allowing them to atrophy and sometimes disappear for good.
When I first watched Ken Robinson’s TED TALK, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” in 2006, I was struck with his assertion that many people lose their native creative abilities by the time they reach adulthood due to a simple but profound mental construct: they fear making mistakes or getting something wrong. From Robinson’s perspective, this fear and worry are instilled by an education system that places the creative arts at the bottom of the hierarchy of subjects to be mastered. In Robinson’s words, “why isn’t dance taught to children every day like math?” Robinson asserts that “all children have enormous talents, but that the current education system often wastes them.” As we design our JHCS Middle School, the arts and creativity will be infused and celebrated on a daily basis in all classes!
| 
