Today is day 21 of the Slice of Life March, the writing challenge sponsored and run by Stacey and Ruth of "Two Writing Teachers".
I read an excellent article Wednesday morning entitled
"Nourish, don't discourage, children's creativity" by Don Morgenson, a professor of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University.
He states:
"...while our children's intelligence scores were rising, creativity scores have dropped."
While this drop in creativity may be attributed to too much TV and video games and passive play, Mr. Morgenson states that many people "focus their concerns on our public schools which,... are simply not fostering creativity in our children."
I can believe this. Schools are now focused on achieving higher levels on provincial/state tests. Many teachers teach to the test and so much time is spent on language and math that the arts are sacrificed.
Children need art and music and drama.They need to engage in creative thinking activities regularly.
How sad that the very things that give joy, are denied children in school.
I must be a very old-fashioned teacher, as I make sure we do art every week. If I can teach a concept in math or science or social studies and I can bring in art, music or drama, I will.
Case in point was our robots - this was how we celebrated the unit on 3D geometry and introduced the unit on measurement. Monday, they wrote about their robots in a cooperative group story and then presented their robots, complete with names and story.
We spent 2 afternoons on this, but achieved so much. The children will not remember that we did worksheets on 3D or measurement - they will remember the joy of creating and cooperating.
