Does School Destroy Our Creativity?

Photo taken from Education.

First of all I would like to wish all the teachers Happy Teachers Day!!

I really appreciate and grateful to these great group of individuals whom had devoted their life to educate us to be a better person in the future. Despite of our mischievousness and ignorance, they never failed to educate and bring out our potentials through knowledge, skills and values.

But there lies a problem that has significant effect to all those who had gone through the educational system. The question is…

Does school destroy our creativity? 

I still remember when I was in the kindergarten, education was fun. I love to go to school. I love to explore and I have a loads of things that intrigued me. In the kindergarten that I’ve went, the teachers were great, though they were strict they promote critical thinking and also do encourage us to do mistakes in our learning process. It does build up my interest in all the subjects that I learn. The best part is we’re constantly rewarded if we do well in class.

I believe most of you have this kind of similar experience too. That is why when we were kids, we will take a chance. If we don’t know how to do something, we will have a go on it. We are not frightened to do mistakes. We are not frightened to be wrong because there’s no punishment unless we are naughty.

As I entered primary school everything turned out to be completely different. Obviously the educational system was way different compared to what I have experienced in kindergarten. This time, teachers discourage us to do mistakes. Every single mistake will result in punishment. Under this educational system, we are trained to be like a parrot. “MEMORIZE THIS!” instructed by the teachers. We’re thought to memorize, but not to understand. Don’t ask why, just memorize! If wrong, spank you!

I and many others do understand and appreciate the good intention of our teachers, but this is not an effective way to educate the students.

Here is an interesting video that I would like to share with you. Sir Ken Robinson, an internationally recognized leader in the development of innovation and human resources, has an interesting point of view on how destructive is our current education system.

This video is 20 minutes long and was recorded at TED Talks in 2006. I’m sure you’ll love his humour and great thoughts.

Here’s another video of his lecture at UCLA. This video takes about 1 and a half hour, but believe me it worth you the time.

If you like and enjoy this post please share it around in Facebook or tweet it so that the message could reach a much wider audience.

Connect with Me on Facebook

Finally, Eli Shares has officially launch its own page on Facebook.
Eli Shares Page would be a great channel for me to connect with you, the readers and bloggers, to build an online community where we can socialize, interact with each other and maximize our relationship.

You can easily ‘Like’ Eli Shares by:

1. Visiting Eli Shares Page
2. Clicking the Like button on the side bar

Some quick updates:

I have removed the cBox widget from the blog because in my opinion, after a couple of years having it embedded in my blog, I discover that:

• cBox doesn’t function as an effective method to connect with readers.
• It had caused delay in page load time.
• People tend to comment in the cbox rather than in the post itself.
• It has hidden pop-up advertisement.
• Worst, YOU CAN’T CONNECT WITH OTHERS (Bloggers)

Alternatively, if you would like to leave me a message, you can just drop me a Holla in the Facebook page or you can also email me.

Another widget I have removed is the Top Commentators Widget. The main purpose of me having that widget is to promote comment, in the same time helping the commenter/bloggers to promote their blog.

But after I’ve switched to Intense Debate, I notice that the Top Commentators Widget doesn’t record the comment count in Intense Debate, therefore I have decided to scrap it down.

Are You a Multi-Tasking Monster? Practice Mindfulness and Slay the Monster

 

 
I am a multi-tasking monster!

I’m not bragging neither being proud of being a multi-task monster. It’s a horrible feat that I possess. Even when I’m writing this post, I have the urge to do other “unfinished” tasks. I’m thinking on writing my assignment essay paper, preparing slides for my class presentation, writing email, writing a blog post for my other blog, to read blog posts and watch videos that I have abandoned, and check my Facebook account.

Procrastination and multi-tasking is a mechanism that kicks-in while you’re unaware of it until it’s too late, especially when you’re not focused enough. – Elisha Batuncang

Doing too many things at a time doesn’t do any good, you will loose focus, kill your creativity, get yourself overwhelmed with tasks because your brain too will soon run out of memory and this will sap your energy. Productivity = negative.

Currently…

I have 3 of my web browsers on and each of them have extraordinary amount of tabs open.

34 Chrome tabs open
27 Firefox tabs open
15 Opera tabs open

4 Words documents are open. 2 of them are my essay assignment and the other 2 are the instructions. I have wrote a bit and abandon it to write a blog post, not this post, which I get myself loss in Wikipedia and strayed to watch videos in youtube.

And believe me, I just got myself strayed… Again…

Multi-tasking has really wasted my energy and my precious time. My attention span and concentration is thinning down. Before I could finish one of my task I start another new task.

My Mission

Today is the first day of the month, often to be the best day to implement something – a task, goal, etc., and for my case, I need to change my habit and start practice mindfulness.

Mindful means one thing at a time.
If you want to get more things done, be mindful.
If you want to have more time, be mindful.

I’m getting excited now and this would be a very challenging month for me. All these while I’m so used to be doing a lot of things in a time, switching from task to task.

To train and reprogram myself to do one thing at a time would be challenging but it is a rewarding habit for me to acquire. It will sharpen my focus and improve my attention span.

If you have any tips to share with me on being mindful, please don’t hesitate to share with me. I really appreciate your help and advice.