School for the Arts

It's been over a year since I last posted a blog on here. Yesterday, I spent my time rehabilitating this blog as you can see I made some improvements on it. Finally I now have a definite objective of the blogs I would like to be posting here. Took me a year to figure things out. 

So, I decided yesterday to jump start my blog again today. I was excited to write about so many things. This time I'll just have to start with one blog, then maybe next time another and next time another one. And hey! blogging isn't such a bad idea for a keepsake.

This morning my husband was browsing his facebook page and he was able to click and view this interesting talk by Sir Ken Robinson on Ted Channel. The video was titled "Do schools kill creativity?" I posted the video below so you'll know what I'm talking about.

 

While listening to him talk, suddenly it dawned on me. While I am a person who so values academic education, (like everybody else) but looking back in my younger years,  I actually hated going to school! Except when I get into my English class for the reason that I like prose, as I love reading short stories and poetry.

As I we continue listening to Sir. Robinson's talk, I finally came to realize the importance of what wasn't considered important in the education realm of the previous decade. That is "creativity."

The next thing that came into my mind was my high school. I graduated in Iloilo National High School for my secondary education. As you know, INHS as we call it in acronym, has different programs within the school. They have a Special Science Class, the School of the Future Program where the very intelligent students are being grouped and classed altogether (they are only a few in numbers), and the "just regular classes" - the program I belong in. These are the programs that we can say, belongs to the academic level. The ones that Sir Robinson is talking about. Schooling with high ranking subjects like science, languages and mathematics while considered important, they cater to industrialism. 

Iloilo National High School

Besides the academic programs mentioned, INHS was also able to provide a school program that most of us back then would think as, "is of less importance." I'm talking about the School for the Arts. 

The curriculum of the students enrolled in this program is focused more towards the various fields of arts, theater, creative writing, dance and music. Sounds enjoyable if you love arts and dancing but is being less valued by the majority because of the thought, that education geared towards industrialism is more important than the ones that is geared towards nurturing a student's creativity.

In this day and age, there are more opportunities for what was once lame. I remember when I was young and when my parents from work would caught me and my brother playing computer games for hours. We'd get reprimanded that we are doing useless stuff, they'd turn off the video game and make us do household chores. The other day I was watching the Today Show and there on tv was a kid named Nick D'Aloisio being interviewed for selling an app he created to yahoo for $30M dollars. I can only imagine the time this kid spent in from of the computer. He just became an entrepreneur and is not even required to pay taxes yet!

Nick D'Aloisio

My point in writing this blog is this... there are different kinds of smart. Now that I'm a mom, and a wife I'll have to work hard in nurturing the creative capacities of my children and support them. I'll have to be aware on what my kids are good at. I'll still send them to school, and let them have the extra curricular activities as they please, as much as our family budget can afford. I'll have to let them make a mistakes of their own. Hopefully I won't smother them too much, so they will grow up to be accomplished human beings.