I agree that something should be done to improve education, but am not convinced by this proposal.
We want creative adults. The solution is not simply to "nurture expression" in children. Most of the creative output of world history came from adults who were schooled rigorously in the techniques of their field.
Having creative adult mathematicians relies on developing skills and intuitions through rigorous training. You cannot "nurture" a child to do this.
Unsurprisingly, then, having brilliantly creative composers, painters, politicians and business professionals also requires difficult training first.
Our current educational system seems to over-emphasize the motions of developing analytical skills (without necessarily the rigor of showing that your analysis is right) and offers no opportunities to develop spatial skills. I don't mean the touchy-feely "modes of learning," I mean seriously being able to look in front of you and accurately discern the spatial relationships of the objects you see.
So my suggestion would be:
- Arts education beginning with basic drawing courses and branching out into other media. Studying art history to see how artists expressed themselves through styles of iconography, realism, expressionism, etc.
But seriously, there are schools that do roughly what we are both talking about, and the key idea at all of them is to avoid this idea of a messianic administrator to lead them. At really good schools, administrators are just teachers of teachers (like Plato) and the teachers have the full power to do what they need.
I think you're reading something 'go softly' into my comment that is not intentionally present.
I'm all for rigorous and/or difficult training, there's nowhere near enough of that. Nurture does not imply wishy washy formless ness.
This is not about left vs right, liberal vs conservative. That needs looking beyond now, I think many are ready to move on from that now.
Creativity is not just drawing pictures. Creativity is physics, maths engineering, language. It's the spark of self expression and contribution, rather than dead reproduction.
We want creative adults. The solution is not simply to "nurture expression" in children. Most of the creative output of world history came from adults who were schooled rigorously in the techniques of their field.
Having creative adult mathematicians relies on developing skills and intuitions through rigorous training. You cannot "nurture" a child to do this.
Unsurprisingly, then, having brilliantly creative composers, painters, politicians and business professionals also requires difficult training first.
Our current educational system seems to over-emphasize the motions of developing analytical skills (without necessarily the rigor of showing that your analysis is right) and offers no opportunities to develop spatial skills. I don't mean the touchy-feely "modes of learning," I mean seriously being able to look in front of you and accurately discern the spatial relationships of the objects you see.
So my suggestion would be:
- Arts education beginning with basic drawing courses and branching out into other media. Studying art history to see how artists expressed themselves through styles of iconography, realism, expressionism, etc.
But seriously, there are schools that do roughly what we are both talking about, and the key idea at all of them is to avoid this idea of a messianic administrator to lead them. At really good schools, administrators are just teachers of teachers (like Plato) and the teachers have the full power to do what they need.