Sir+Ken+Robinson

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I absolutely agree with him that we systematically kill creativity in our children. We are so desperate to raise our test scores and create the appearance that we achieving in order to compete with other countries, we kill creativity. We don’t know how to measure creativity so we resort to things we can measure which aren’t creative and don’t require creativity. I also appreciated him defining his view of creativity as being similar to divergent thinking.

I appreciate the arts and I am actually somewhat bitter that no one ever “taught” me those types of activities. His interpretation of our system’s hierarchy is dead on. Arts were always extra-curricular (or electives) and the people that participated in it were already good at it. I feel like I could have been good at it but my family wasn’t the type of family to teach me or to pay for someone else to teach me. I barely learned the basics in school; I have very little knowledge of how to read music.

His description as to why/how education was formed was very interesting. The system itself is quite hierarchical. Although it seemed to have made sense at the time, his opinion is that it creates chaos. At this point it is hard to consider something else; someone that does would be considered radical. I am not opposed to something else, I just don’t know if I could come up with it. (I am not creative enough; how ironic?) I think if we came up with something else then we wouldn’t have to medicate our kids so much!!

He also mentioned that our kids see no purpose in school. I agree and I feel guilty because there are many days that my students in Precalculus ask me what the purpose is of what they are learning. I have no answer for them except, “ You will need it in Calculus.” In fact, I have no idea how they will use it in Calculus because I am just not practiced in it enough. I don’t blame them for being “ADD” in my class. With all the testing I have going on in Algebra 2 (because of NCLB) I can’t devote more time to Precalculus. For this exact reason (and many others), we do need to transform education.

I also loved that he pointed out that drugs shut down senses and that is not what we need in school. He said we need to invigorate and reactivate those senses. I appreciate this because drugs (illegal and prescribed) change people temporarily. Illegal drugs kill motivation for anything other than more drugs and prescribed drugs become to system that controls the person. They dull passion or replace it with short lasted energy, which isn’t focused in one direction for good. It is just too keep them awake if they depressed. They try to combat this with vocational training, or as JCPS likes to call it, magnet schools (they try to convince that they are different, but if they are, they are close enough that the criticism still applies). I have never been a fan of this idea and I think he was able to articulate it better than I ever could. I always knew there was value in just being a well-rounded person. By focusing on vocation, you lose the arts and even other areas that can stimulate a person to have purpose (like philosophy classes). I have also always hated the idea of people being educated by age; I didn’t know it until I heard him say it. I always wondered why there was such a negative stigma with someone ‘failing’ a class and having to repeat it. It is okay if it takes someone longer to learn something than another person. Why does everyone have to be in the same spot at the same time?!?!?

Overall I agree with him completely and am grateful that his is more articulate than I am. We need to change our paradigm of schooling; however, there is nothing more difficult in the world than to change a paradigm. Americans don’t do well with it so I wonder what it will take for people to be convinced that it is crucial. Then, not only convinced, but convinced enough to begin to take action.