I'm sure many of you have seen this TED talk. As far as I know, it still is the most watched TED talk of all time. If you haven't seen it, it is definitely worth the watch. However, I'm linking the video to highlight an idea, rather than advocate for the message contained in the video itself.
In preparing for my synthesis journal this week, the texts reminded me that the plight of creative expression by women existed in a social context that utterly stifled women's opportunities for creative release. It wasn't just a system where the role of the woman was defined differently, but rather an entire system was in place that limited the ability of women to even compose creative works in private.
This particular talk suggests that such a framework is becoming increasingly evident in our modern school system. Not on the same level, as I make note of in my reading synthesis, but perhaps on a more subtly subversive level. I've cautioned myself from making direct connections between the two, but this week's readings invoked a uniquely personal feeling of the stifling of creative expression.
While I obviously struggle directly relating some of the texts highlighting the plight of the black woman in history, viewing the readings through a context in which I can relate too helped me understand the readings in a new light. Did anyone else make similar connections, or find themselves relating well or poorly to the texts?
Bradley,
ReplyDeleteI found your post and question to be very intriguing. I did relate to this weeks readings in many different ways. Like you mentioned, the readings showed how a cultural system can stifle an individual's creative growth. I would challenge this by saying that a cultural system can stifle a person's growth, not just their creative growth. Though I have not experience the direct or indirect prejudice cast upon all groups of people, I can still see the effects.There is a reason why most of our Congress is white, middle-class, heterosexual, cis-gendered males. There is a reason why there are few male secretaries. There is, again, a reason why certain populations dominate certain sects of society. However, the problem does not come from debating whether or not these issues exist (they clearly do), but instead it stems from what we can do to fix these problems. Sir Robinson argues that a change in education needs to happen. However, he also notes that the last change in education came from a revolution (the Industrial Revolution to be precise). So the question becomes: what to we need to revolutionize in our society to ensure that all people have equal access to the resources needed to create personal growth?
Bradley, I can definitely see where you are coming from when you say that our school system as it is creates an environment that may be dangerously close to stifling creative development. With such emphasis put on STEM education, both by government and society as a whole, it seems the arts and humanities are being discredited as roles that do not contribute to the nation in the same way that a STEM education would. I think that in order to promote both creative and personal growth (for I think they do go hand in hand) there needs to be a change in the mindset and structure of our society. In ancient Greece, city states were given credit for their philosophers, in Italy for their art; in the past decades it seems we have moved toward a race for technology and engineering, forgetting the importance of the other aspects of learning and the contribution they make to the growth of our society. On a personal note, I have a close friend who is one of the most creative people I know, she is absolutely great at art and spends much of her free time creating it. Her engineering and science skills are clearly not as strong, and her enjoyment of the subject is not nearly what it is when she is painting or creating, but her parents essentially forced her to enter into a STEM field as they believed it was the best way for her to support herself later in life. I'm sure she is not the exception in this case, but just serves as one example as how creativity is still stifled in today's society. I do not know what exactly needs to happen for our generation to understand the importance of creativity and self expression, but I do think that on an individual level, each time the topic is brought up, we come one step closer to relaying the importance of it to our peers.
ReplyDeleteBradley, "What do we need to revolutionize," -- excellent question. One thing that springs to mind, (after tracing back many ideas through many rounds of the question, 'well, what does that idea rely on?') is the question of what is real. What is "real?" We tend to think of ourselves as isolated beings, because you can poke a physical being with a thermometer and put it on a scale. But what about a relationship? According to the worldview wherein what is "real" corresponds to what is demonstrable by science, a necessarily subjective phenomenon like a personal relationship would have little reality, if any at all.
ReplyDeleteYet, relationships are among the most fundamental of human needs. They determine your very identity. There is a meditation in Buddhism wherein you try to imagine yourself without place, floating in space, then imagine who you would be without your house or where you live, without your friends, your parents, the various people in your life one by one, until you realize there is no you aside from all of that. You are, literally, a web of relationships. That is where your actual reality lies. I recommend trying it, if you haven't; it's trippy.
It strikes me that a more relational perception of reality, and a more relational story about what is real, would do a lot to foster human rights.
-- and creativity. I say this because a relational stance necessarily fosters inclusivity, and pushes people away from rigid hierarchies. In the hierarchy described in this TED talk, creative expression has been pushed to to the bottom of -- or entirely out of -- the school system, at the bottom of the hierarchy of what can earn you a living.
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