creativity « jerrychacon.com

For those of you that know my family, you likely know that our oldest daughter Malena will, this coming Fall, begin a Waldorf program for Kindergarten. We are very excited.

There are many reasons why Waldorf seems to be a good fit for us and Malena. One of those reasons is that Paula and I do not consider ourselves overly creative. Paula and I are both very structured people (in our own way). Malena, in contrast, is an extremely sensitive, empathetic, and creative person. Consequently, we wanted to find a setting that could foster and nurture those qualities and we hope Waldorf is that setting.

And all of that is a long introduction to a topic for which I am unable to fully articulate my as-yet-not-fully-formed views — and that is the topic of our public, and to a lesser extent, mainstream-private, school systems. For a long time now, I have a had a nagging unease brewing in the back of my mind regarding our choices for the school(s) which will educate our children. When I watched Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk from 2006, it clicked…”yeah, that’s it…that’s what I have been concerned about.”

So, without further adieu (there has been too much “adieu” in this post already), I present you with another outstanding TED Talk and ask you…What do you think? Do schools really kill creativity?