Why Creative Writing is important for children | Ding!

I visited a particular school to give a talk on creativity to the teachers. An English teacher remarked afterwards that she ?had tried creative writing?, but had given up on it and returned to what she was ?doing before?. I didn?t have the opportunity to explore with her this odd statement. I don?t have the data to know if such seemingly bizarre views are widespread or not.

What did she think ?creative writing? was?

Perhaps she thought it was something?outside?English teaching. Is it possible that some educators focus on the mechanics of a subject, in this case how to read and write, rules of grammar, use of verbs, adverbs, adjectives, pronouns and nouns and sentence comprehension without the context of a use for the mechanics?

I?ve seen it in my education, in the sciences, where formulae were taught in isolation from the experiments that founded them and the people in history who thought up those experiments in the first place. It was as if science education had to strip away the ?unclean? of the human stories of discovery to leave the holy perfection of mathematical proofs, physical laws and formula. I found this boring throughout mathematics, physics, chemistry and even biology.

The missing ingredient in each case was human creativity. The importance of it had been stripped out, the story of it had been stripped out and the value of it had been shunned and ridiculed: if you studied science you were not creative. Creativity was something nampy pamby artists did.

Is ?creativity? in the national curriculum? You could argue for and against. It certainly isn?t an easy question to answer because creativity has become such a difficult thing to define. It?s not a subject. It can?t easily be tested and measured. It?s come to be something that must float around the curriculum like a feeling, something that should be encouraged, but with few guidelines as to how. But it shouldn?t be pandered to because it doesn?t get grades.

I get the feeling it?s been sidelined when it should be the focus. Subjects should be:?Creativity Physics,?Creative Chemistry,?Creativity and Biology?and?.?Creative Reading and Writing.

We shouldn?t even have English lessons except for those that can?t speak English and those that explore English Literature specifically.

We need to teach the mechanics, yes: how to hold a pen, how to read, how words work just as in science we need to show how to hold a test tube, how to light a bunsen burner and how to use mathematics as a tool.

But we should not confuse use of a tool with understanding. All tool training does is produce technicians. It?s great that you know how to hold a test tube but it doesn?t make you a scientist, and without being a scientist, which is the marriage of experiment and imagination, you are just above useless.

So, you know how to spell? You can answer questions on grammar? You can repeat someone else?s literary criticism of a text? You?re a technician. You can fix my text as a garage mechanic can fix my car. The garage mechanic can?t design a car. They can?t improve a car. They can?t build one from scratch. They can only ever work on someone else?s.

This is why we need Creative Writing. So that our children don?t only work on other people?s texts, they create and build their own. They don?t read a text looking for the prescribed analysis, the expected reaction in the test tube in the lab ? they are out there in the field, experimenting with new texts, questioning old texts and long held beliefs if only for the reason that they can.

We need to teach our children to be out there adding to the pantheon of human creation and endeavor, not dissecting dead men?s words on a slab.

And that?s why Creative Writing is important.

Here?s info on a Creative Writing Programme for schools:?www.outofyourhead.co.uk

Book Ayd to speak about Creativity and finding Inspiration for Innovation?at your conference, or in your business.

For more interesting info?see:?www.aydinstone.com

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Source: http://aydinstone.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/creative-writing-is-important/

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