Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.

watch the video

I am feeling more and more that the universe is sending me a message about change. There are so many different ways to educate a child, it is almost unlimited in a homeschool situation, yet I find it so hard to tear myself away from the model provided by traditional schools.

We have all seen how well that isn't working. It offers up one method of educating a large group of children. I only have one child. This method, for the most part, is directed toward the in the bottom third of the class. My child does not need the kind of repetition that most workbooks and textbooks are required to have to teach these students. The traditional school method not only focuses on academics but takes so much time doing so that a child who's talents lie outside that realm are often labeled failures and have no time to pursue their area of talent. Z is talented and has a passion for many things outside of the three R's.

In a traditional school children are, by necessity, corralled into one building all day. Yet there is so much more to be learned than can ever be learned inside one building. Under this method children are taught, almost exclusively, by similarly trained staff teaching from indentical material and most children are only allowed to learn what can be learned while sitting at a desk. Why do we homeschoolers continue to limit ourselves by mirroring these ultra-limiting methods?

Tomorrow I am supposed to start homeschooling back up (we have been on a three week vacation with Pere home everyday). Afer watching that video above I feel like I need a major shift in my attitude, especially in the area of risk-taking. Like most homeschooling parents I spent most of my school career in a traditional school (excepting 2 years in Montessori and 3 in a progressive school) and I have certainly come to think of being wrong as failing in some way, instead of just one aspect of the creative process.

I feel like I need more time to study my daughter and see all her unique greatness and talents and then provide her with the resources that best support them, rather than trying to fit her into a model that she has almost nothing in common with and works (or doesn't) within outdated, and narrow definition of what it means to be educated.