I thought about this among my Facebook friends before replying here. I agree with the premise that children need plenty of time in their youth that isn't overly structured by adults. That's one of the reasons that my family homeschools rather than sending our children to our fine local public school system (which draws in students from all over the state through open enrollment). By test, and by verification through conversation with other adults who know our children, our children have no problem learning the essential information that children need to learn in childhood for independent adult life. But they learn more efficiently, because of the flexibility of homeschooling, and they thus have more time to pursue personal interests and creative activities. (The creative activities include short story writing for all our children, programming in a variety of languages for our oldest, and visual art for all the younger children.)
We do have our children in some external programs that structure some of their time. We particularly like our local youth soccer association because its coaching philosophy strongly emphasizes letting the young players make their own decisions on the field and not coaching from the sidelines. I never knew that there was such a thing as "creativity" in soccer until I watched dozens of games over several years and saw how each of our children expresses a different personality on the soccer field, all while coordinating effort with teammates. Soccer truly is a beautiful game when played by players who have played together for a decade and who know one another.
AFTER EDIT: I beg to differ with the comment quoted below,
There are great rockers from places nobody would remotely associate with great music (Bob Dylan and Prince are both from Minnesota, for instance).
from another top-level comment in this thread. I associate Minnesota with great music, because I live here. (Dylan and Prince are all right, but I'm not sure I'd even agree that they are the peak of what Minnesota has to offer in music. And Minnesota is by no means the most boring state in the United States, as my mother who moved here from elsewhere is glad to let people know.)
It's not that Minnesota is boring. It's that a lot of people think it is.
Have you ever lived in California? I'm from Colorado. A lot of people I know in California think of the rest of the US aside from New York as boring. There is a reason behind the phrase "flyover state."
It's not that it's boring. It's that a lot of people don't know any better simply because they come from the coasts.
We do have our children in some external programs that structure some of their time. We particularly like our local youth soccer association because its coaching philosophy strongly emphasizes letting the young players make their own decisions on the field and not coaching from the sidelines. I never knew that there was such a thing as "creativity" in soccer until I watched dozens of games over several years and saw how each of our children expresses a different personality on the soccer field, all while coordinating effort with teammates. Soccer truly is a beautiful game when played by players who have played together for a decade and who know one another.
AFTER EDIT: I beg to differ with the comment quoted below,
There are great rockers from places nobody would remotely associate with great music (Bob Dylan and Prince are both from Minnesota, for instance).
from another top-level comment in this thread. I associate Minnesota with great music, because I live here. (Dylan and Prince are all right, but I'm not sure I'd even agree that they are the peak of what Minnesota has to offer in music. And Minnesota is by no means the most boring state in the United States, as my mother who moved here from elsewhere is glad to let people know.)