ARTICLE SUMMARY: While education is a must, especially in this day and age, we need to be aware how educational systems can damage your creative thinking.
School systems were designed with the good intention of educating and preparing students for life, but have inadvertently stifled creativity in several ways.
In David Loewn’s “How Schooling Systems Put A Stranglehold On Your Creativity (And What To Do About It)” he does a deep dive into how this happened and what to do about it, he looks at the
- Emphasis on conformity
- Narrow definition of success
- Recovering from the Squishing and Squashing of Creativity
Creativity can be stifled from fear of failure steming school’s emphasis on right and wrong answers. This fear of failure has been built up over your entire school life and hard to shake. This kind of fear inhibits experimentation and innovation.
You can recover from the fear of judgment, erosion of intrinsic motivation, stigmatization of failure, marginalization of the arts and creativity, and undervaluing of divergent thinking.
To counteract the stifling effects of the educational system on creativity it’s important to take the initiative and actively seek out opportunities for creative expression and unconventional learning. Embrace failure as part of the creative process, prioritize self-directed learning, and advocate for a more holistic approach to education that values and nurtures creativity alongside academic excellence.
This is a great article and well worth the read.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
