I really do wonder how we can encourage adventure, aspiration and possibility, particularly with our children - and then scare them out of doing anything! The logical conclusion of this stifling risk averse mentality is that everything gets reduced, and in the long term I worry that this will kill imagination. The starting point for adventurous creativity is most often met with a "no but" response, rarely with a "yes and". Most things that have ever been attempted, invented or realised in this world have been labeled crazy or impossible, how would we respond to the Wright Brothers now? Don't get me wrong - I'm not opposed to sensible assessment of the risks of any situation, but as an artist and theatre maker I feel the energy drain that follows the sharing of a great new idea. Yes, no time for the dreamer, straight into the realist and critic ( Disney Strategy). This is what this culture promotes, choking wonderful creative ideas before they are born with all the reasons why it can't be done. I have recently proposed an idea for an exciting new project, I wanted to share the images, the stories and the journey, the first response I got was to fill out a risk assessment. This conversation is a killer to creativity. To all Health and Safety professionals I make a plea, allow the idea to be born and breath a little before shooting it down in flames. Encourage kids to think big, rich and wonderful things, to invent and create, make space for this before you ban them from doing cartwheels in the playground!
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Hi Carole
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful thought piece! I am taking this off on a tangent but I hope for good purpose. In a previous job, I was chief exec of an organisation that prevents serious injury and death to children (my time as what my son calls 'safety queen')Number one health and safety risk to children was and still is cars on residential streets. Yet children and I think us older children actually love the freedom to run, skip, walk, chat do whatever on the streets. To make that happen, it is not just the health and safety professionals that have to get a bit more creative about the use of streets, parents, drivers, moreorlss everybody has to do their bit. For me it is the same with imagination and creativity, we all have to value it and engage.
So I would go one step further, we all have a responsibility and lets have cartwheels in the street as well as the playground...
Agreed, Carole - I was talking about this over Christmas with my mum, who's a secondary school Deputy Head in a tough, so-called "deprived" area.
ReplyDeleteMy line on this is that people, tech-generation kids especially, are being more imaginative and creative than ever - but in a very first-step, immediate, disposable and (perhaps most significantly) invisible way.
By this I mean that rather than create well-developed, ongoing fantasies or stories, the whirlwind of communication (often in various channels simultaneously - chatting to mates whilst texting, for eg) means that creativity is used in one-liners with no lifespan. Ideas are conjured up from the torrent of stimulae we're faced with, but then thrown away. It's lost in forgotten text messages, online conversations, social encounters.
If people could be encouraged to record these things, what stories they could tell...
Kids' language and concepts change at an incredible pace, these days, yet the ones I've worked with often think they're "stupid" and don't notice the creativity they show in informal situations - hence the "invisibilty" - because it's only measured in formal situations, such as the classroom.
I'm genuinely intrigued by your upcoming LTGDC project, Carole - what brings kids face-to-face with their talents, and how do they then manage to take this back to the (often overly formal, inappropriate) Nat Curriculum assessment methods? It's great to see schools getting fresh expertise in, great job though they generally do: it can only aid their relevance as educators about the real world.