Thoughts: Do Governments Kill Creativity?
Monday, January 11th, 2021
As a spin-off thought from the most famous TEDTalk “Do Schools Kills Creativity?” by the late Sir Ken Robinson, I wondered whether other factors could be pushing creativity backwards…in particular youth creativity.
So how about government? Given how some governments have sacrificed education due to pandemic fears and others have solidly maintained educational standards (UN Policy Brief: Education during COVID-19 and beyond), how much does government actually value education? Is educating youth with creativity skills even on their roadmap? I question this regularly every time I think about lemonade stands in California.
The immediate connection is that many schools are government institutions and follow government policies and are budgeted by government. I don’t know whether any government policy specifically encourages creativity in education, or if there is a budget line for creativity, but it appears that those students who succeed because of their creativity do so despite government and education, and not because of.
What do you think? Does your government genuinely encourage youth creativity or does it effectively squash it?