Creativity in School

I agree with what Sir Ken Robinson had said in his video at the TED conference that we had watched in class today.  I believe that there is not enough push towards using the students imagination/creative-side in class while learning.  It is all geared to the academics and intelligence. It stifles the child and like he said, children soon to be less creative because they are afraid to make mistakes, which leads to the mindset that making a mistake is wrong.  Well no, it's not completely wrong.  There is still learning from our mistakes; we take in what we did wrong and will learn from it.  Mistakes should not be the bane of our existence because, essentially, we can take something out of it. 


I thought it was interesting when Robinson brought up that there are more students graduating now then there ever was in history, which in turn is leading to this academic inflation.  That is SO true.  I know even when my folks were younger and finding jobs, they didn't need the academics.  My dad use to work in the a garage in Byemoor, AB (small rural town 1 hr south of Stettler) where he worked on vehicles and some farm equipment.  Neither my dad nor my grandpa (who owned the garage), had their tickets but they still worked on the vehicles.  They learned by doing.  Now in today's day and age, you need that ticket saying you are a mechanic to work in a garage like that.  Just knowing how things work and fixing vehicles doesn't cut it any more.  You need the education.  It just seems like now you have to have a diploma, journeyman, Ph. D., etc to do anything.  I find that a bit frustrating sometimes.  It kind of shows that the only way to have the best life as possible is to have the above examples.  The arts is indeed, the lower part of the hierarchy of education and it looked down upon.  If someone is a musician, others look down at them and say the musician will never make anything of themselves.  It's pretty sad though to think that.  Yes, it's a hard industry to get into, but when they break through, it is worth all the blood, sweat, and tears they had gone through.  The artists are the people who make us appreciate what we have to enjoy in life (paintings, musics, books, etc.), so they should be looked upon just like professionals too.

Kohlberg & Heinz's Dilemma

Kohlberg's Level and Stages of Moral Development
1.  Preconventional: no appeal to moral frame work and not internalized.
  a) Punishment
  b) Hedonism 

2. Conventional: expectations/rules
  a) "Nice Boy/Girl"
  b) Law and Order

3. Postconventional: advanced internalized moral most people do not reach
  a) Social Contracts
  b) Universal ethical

Back to Heinz's Dilemma back on October 8th and putting myself in his shoes and putting me in one of these categories would be Conventional, because I would not steal that medicine for my fiancé no matter how sick he was.  The reason would be that it is wrong for me to steal and that I am the type to be looked upon as the nice girl; I do not do many things wrong.  I am a good role model, I guess.  If in the dilemma there was a 100% guarantee that the medicine would work, then I think I would have a moral dilemma myself.  I think I would possibly steal it, but with feeling horrible for doing so, if it would cure my fiancé.  I won't put my reputation on the line to steal if it wasn't going to help.  I am not putting myself on the line.  Not to sound cold-hearted, but everyone has to die sooner or later, and maybe my fiancé's number is up.  I am not a religious person; I'm agnostic.  But I do think that we are here for a reason and when we die it's our time to go; we had finished what we were put here to do.