[MD] 42

[ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR]

[Dan]
I have a a few questions. Does academic schooling tend to breed out creativity in students?

[Arlo]
This is (as I see it) actually two separate questions. (1) Does the current model of education in practice in most schools breed out creativity in students? and (2) Does academic schooling 'ipso facto' breed out creativity in students?

That is, is 'schooling' itself the issue, or is it the 'way we school'? IMHO, the answer to the first is most assuredly "yes", and study after study shows this to be case. This is starting to change, mostly because post-industrial economies require original/creative thinking whereas industrial economies (on which our current educational model still follows) not only de-emphasized creativity and critical thinking but deliberately and actively moved to squelch them. 

My answer to the second is "no", schooling (or learning, or instruction, or education) is not anti-creativity. Bourdieu has suggested that all forms of 'enculturation' were a form of symbolic violence. But, of course, enculturation was also necessary for agency. The extreme idea of a lone person who matures in isolation on a desert island may not have any forms of symbolic violence exerted against her/him, but will have very little agency to act in the world. 

You give a child a toy car, you've just coerced them (enculturated them) into seeing the world a certain way. 

The key to this (again, IMHO) is the shift Pirsig made (as an instructor). He didn't abolish the teaching of rhetorical 'structure' (outlines, authoritative references, footnotes, etc.) but taught these structures as ways of increasing learner agency in their writing. In this light, what we need is not to abolish the teaching of structure, but to contain that in a larger system where these structures can be evaluated as to how good they serve an intended purpose. 

[Dan]
Arlo's talk of accessing the student's development and moving it along seems to indicate there are pre-designated parameters at work. Are these parameters based upon the individual students or are they cookie-cutter style textbook learning exercises designed to mimic rather than open new vistas?

[Arlo]
Of course there are 'pre-designated' parameters, education presupposes that at point A there is something a person can not do, you have the educational intervention, and then at point B they can do it. The instructor should know what is necessary to make this transition and help the student take the steps they need to bridge this gap. A skilled guitar instructor will see what you can do, where you struggle, and keep your activities oriented to keep challenging you, build upon what you know, and offer strategies for overcoming deficiencies. 

Of course I'm not suggesting a "cookie-cutter style", that is exactly the opposite of why Vygotsky described the ZPD. I've actually used Pirsig's example of the student writing about the brick as an example of a ZPD intervention. Pirsig (the 'expert') was able to determine where the student (the 'novice') was, and suggest specific opportunities for her to grow (between stagnating and failing). He was able to help her find that specific point where she had the prior knowledge but could extend her knowledge into doing something  she previously could not do. 

[Dan]
Can creativity be taught? Or is the foundation of learning rooted in a kind of monkey-see monkey-do?

[Arlo]
This question presupposes creativity is either innate or learned. I tend to see it interwoven between these two 'poles'. Maybe something like the capacity for creativity is innate, but the ability to create is learned. And, I'd argue that this ability to create (agency) is inherently tied to the appropriation of structure (whether learned formally or informally, structured education or trial-and-error learning).