Do Schools Kill Creativity ? 10 Ideas to transform the education system from uniformity to personalized education

The school day is long for kids. Kids have limitless energy and being cooped up inside all day, mainly doing monotonous tasks, kills creativity, interest and enthusiasm. Most days are 8hrs, cut it to 6 and a half or seven. Kids are using their brains for the majority of the day, and it's exhausting for them since brain power takes a lot of energy out of you. When you take into account lunch, recess/breaks, a shorter day, even if it's just an hour shorter, gives the kids more time after school and less energy spent. This could also help teachers having more time to use as they wish.

Get students involved with simple tasks and contributing by having schedules by grade or class to clean rooms, sanitize, helping with trash, cleaning up the school premises etc. It helps give them a sense of pride, duty and obligation. I believe there are schools in other countries that do this.

Being exposed to the natural sunlight is good. I know winter it can be very cold, kids shouldn't be forced to go outside if they don't want to, but it maybe during extreme cold and heat days, the time can be cut down. I read somewhere that even in countries where it's very cold, recess and outdoor time still happens because it's healthy to be outside, active, and the health benefits of the cold. I remember private school I went to forced us to go outside no matter how cold it was.

Everyone learns and processes differently. When kids are sitting around listening to teachers, some learn well that way, many do not. Maybe there is a time frame for teachers to identify how each student learns and is able to group them and provide tools and instruction to suit them. I know this would be a stretch and difficult to facilitate but group learning as it has been done for decades is only so effective to a collective few. I come from a time where they group us in letters..... we had the A group, the B group the C group then the D group and it's not too hard to tell what those groups signified. Even in 3rd grade I knew I was in the "dumb" group as all the students called it. It effects students more than anyone knows at the time.

I am not saying Pass or Fail is bad, or all grading is bad. Sometimes you need definitive results. Some subjects could have different ways to grade if adoption of different teaching philosophies apply and kids are getting more effective instruction based on their ability to process and learn. This would stimulate more creativity, more contributions from the majority of students. This way, the quiet, shy kid who normally sits there nervous about getting called on, or is disconnected from the content because it doesn't fit their personality or learning style, if this is identified, then maybe that student, along with the others like them, are in small groups and get instruction in a different way and can be graded as such. Instead of grading scales in some areas, comprehension of the material can be weighed differently. Giving students a sense of understanding and accomplishment in different ways.

Offering students the chance to do something extra that applies to the topics or subjects at hand, may prompt some to do something extra. This would work for the go getters, and even those that aren't putting all the effort into the class an option to at least do something on their own to help get a better grade.

Maybe prior to the year starting, or during the first week, students are offered a few different learning styles available for a subject. This can be customized by the teacher or school, district, or state wide. A thorough explanation of each version should be created so the students along with their parents perhaps could go over the options and select the best fit.

Not everyone is in the position for this one. Maybe there can be some state or federal incentives and assistance for this. Tools made available for people that want this option.

For Middle School and High School students, life skills, career skills, social media skills, writing, finance, technology...the topics can be discussed and chosen by students and/or parents prior to the school year beginning. Learning how to budget, learning how to invest, learning how to run a small business, learning how to make critical decisions, how to manage people, how to fix computers...endless topics can be taught.

Technology is expensive so to be able to provide the latest and greatest tech for all schools is complicated and difficult. Who pays, the state, feds, parents, taxes? That part is what keeps innovations, changes from happening. However, Technology is being updated faster than ever, and will continue to do so. Kids get their hands on it pretty much at age 1 these days. AI will be commonplace before we know it, autonomous vehicles will be the norm before we know it. Kids need to learn as much about tech, how it works, how to utilize it, how to monetize it, how to fix it, how to understand it as they can in school.