I'm currently struggling with a daughter who is academic and artistic but hates school because creative subjects are shoved out of the schedule to meaningless exams, tests and repetitive class work. If she gets creative within a maths lesson she is marked down for not using the prescribed method!
She's only eleven and she already thinks that school is a waste of time despite achieving great results.
There is a lot wrong with the education system in the UK.
Stanford University EPGY is a good online program for gifted children, even as young as your daughter. The math program is good; there is even a music program. http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/ The advantage of the Stanford courses is that they are designed for teaching advanced topics to youngsters.
In California high schoolers and even gifted elementary school children can take courses at the junior colleges. There are special courses for elementary age children, but those in high school take regular level college level courses. Maybe such programs exist in the UK.
A good outside program can provide the motivation to put up with the rest of the crap. Then all you have to do is convince the authorities to exempt her from advanced arithmetic because she is taking calculus.
s If she gets creative within a maths lesson she is marked down for not using the prescribed method!
I don't know. The above statement makes me think the problem isn't the schools but the world that comes after. Our schools may be based on "an industrial era" but the reality is so are most jobs. Accountants have to follow strict rules, as do lawyers, doctors, etc...
Given that, and the fact that I still see a problem in how your daughter is treated, I think the answer is not in changing our current schools as much as it is in profiling kids and tailoring a new enviornment for those it doesn't work for. We need a way to determine whose strengths are creative and whose are methodical and then design an education program for the creative while leaving the current one in place for the methodical.
I disagree with you whole-heartedly. Certainly everyone has the capacity for some level of creativity, but I think the type that we're talking about here is the same sort of gift that artists have.
Similarly to how some people are simply born with a genetic predisposition towards athletics, some people are born with the same sort of genetic predisposition towards mathematics.
The idea that everyone has got the same abilities is exactly the problem that we're talking about here. Some people ARE born with an advantage (or have one nurtured into them), and those people need to be allowed to excel, not held back because of those around them.
"Some people ARE born with an advantage (or have one nurtured into them)"
Doesn't that contradict the rest of your statement?
I agree with what you're saying, but I think all people can excel, most just don't have the drive/desire to (or they used to, but lost it). It seems we label people as "gifted" when they are simply interested in learning...
Doesn't that contradict the rest of your statement?
Yes, it does. I shouldn't have written that. I did because I was hoping to quell any "nature vs. nurture" debates.
My argument assumes nature, then goes on to argue that those born with an advantage shouldn't be forced to suppress it due to some sort of self-defeating attempt to make children succeed.
My point (sorry, I'm rambling) is that I don't want to debate nature vs. nurture, I want to debate the idea that kids that aren't excelling in a field should be encouraged to regardless of their natural talents.
Since you write so authoritatively, have you read any books on the topic?
There are a lot of them. You could be informing yourself. But instead, you are just making it up as you go.
Creativity is a universal human trait. And it's one that has been extensively studied - and, with the exception of extremely edge case individuals (e.g. Isaac Newton), your theory above has been disproven.
I'm not sure if I should be thankful that things haven't gotten much worse or depressed that things haven't gotten much better... Given the impressive advances of the last decades in many fields, I'll go for depression.
The point is that I'd be content if government served the general case of population well. Super-bright kids are a special case there will be less harm to society should they be under-developed.
I know that's horribly utilitarian of me but I'm just being pragmatic.
Schools receive their incentives for (1) high standardized test scores, and (2) promotion/graduation rates. There are no incentives for producing creative, literate, and critically thinking people. Until that changes, schools will continue to break our kid's minds and corrupt their way in the world.
As far as I'm concerned the schools are just putting all their eggs in the basket of kids who can do well in the system vs the abstractly intelligent ones who do well when they are so inspired/inclined.
For all the gifted and unique snow-flakes out there, the sooner they learn to cope with a system (and a world) which doesn't cater to their extraordinary talents, the better off they'll be.
I dropped out of school at 16 (in the UK), and I did a deal with the school whereby I'd take just 5 exams (maths, english, history, double science). I got C's in them, not enough to get into a good college.
I tried a computer course, failed after year 1, and took Media Studies for 2 years and passed.
A few years passed, and then I completed my first ever computer course (eg, having never passed any computer course) which was a 3-year degree.
It is possible to do higher learning further into adulthood, and easier!
[Edit] What has this to do with creativity? Well, not a lot. But I've written stories all my life. I also think excessive use of alcohol kills creativity, and these days, a degree is half about getting drunk and socialising.
My only advice is: Keep writing, even if it means missing out socially. Also try and keep things interesting. I signed up to help a computing legend with his software before my degree, and that was no end of fun. I was volunteering at an ACM conference when I was barely into my 2nd year of University, thanks to this work. He also guest lectured at my University, which was really strange.
I think this is inevitable when governments have anything to do with schools. Even though we're seeing a lot of these "education today sucks!" articles, I realize very few of the authors (and very few people here at HN) would agree.
She's only eleven and she already thinks that school is a waste of time despite achieving great results.
There is a lot wrong with the education system in the UK.