Industrial schooling stifles creativity

"Industrial schooling kills creativity." This lapidary phrase is attributed to one of the world's foremost experts on education, Sir Ken Robinson, author of thebestsellers " The Element. Discovering Your Passion Changes Everything" and "Creative Schools. The revolution that is transforming education". At Terra we completely agree with this statement. And through this story by Helen Buckley we explain why.

"Once upon a time there was a little boy who was in creative drawing class. The teacher informed them that it was time to paint and the boy was very happy. He picked up his coloring case and began to draw the first lines of what was to be a blue and pink winged car. His imagination seemed to know no bounds. "Wait a minute!" said the teacher. The boy suddenly put down the colors on his desk. "I haven't said what we're going to paint yet. Today we are going to draw flowers," she added. Next the boy began to draw a rocket-shaped, rainbow-colored flower. But the teacher interrupted him again, saying, "Wait a minute! I still haven't said what kind of flower we're going to paint."

The boy put the colors down on his desk and watched as the teacher drew a red flower with a green stem on the board. The boy took another blank sheet of paper and began to copy the flower painted by the teacher: red and with a green stem... The years went by and the boy learned in each class to wait, obey and imitate, doing things following the method that his different teachers taught them. Without being aware of it, each of these adults was doing with their students what their teachers had once done with them.

Eventually, the boy and his family moved to another city, and the boy went to a new school. And during his first day of school, the teacher asked her students what they wanted to do, to which they replied that they wanted to draw. "Great!" the teacher exclaimed. While the rest of the kids were using their creativity to draw whatever they could think of, the new boy stood still, waiting for the teacher to tell him what to draw and how to draw it. But she didn't say anything; she just walked around the classroom, observing her students' creations with curiosity and admiration.

Suddenly, she noticed that the new student was still not touching his coloring case. "How come you don't draw anything?" she asked him. And the boy, surprised, replied, "I'm waiting for you to tell me what I have to draw." To which the teacher said, "Whatever you want." The boy was dumbfounded. He had not expected such freedom to be possible in a school. Nevertheless, he remained still. "What's the matter, are you all right?" the teacher asked. "Yes, I just can't think of anything." The teacher, puzzled, tried to motivate him by saying. "Let's see, what do you like the most?" The boy, uncomfortable, said, "I don't know, really." And the latter, with great delicacy, insisted: "Draw whatever makes you happy and amuses you. What do you say? What do you feel like drawing?"

And the boy, incredulous, answered: "I don't know... A flower?" And the teacher, full of enthusiasm, answered: "What a good idea! Let's see, how do you imagine that flower in your head? You can draw it in any shape you want and in any color or colors you prefer!" And the boy, with a special sparkle in his eyes, asked, "Any shape and color I want?" And the teacher, nodding, said tenderly, "Of course!" Then the boy took a couple of colors and began to paint a red flower with a green stem."