Ken Robinson is one clever man. His lecture was fantastic.
Robinson’s main point: children – we – get educated out of creativity.
Robinson defines creativity as “the process of having original ideas which have value”.
Kids start out creative, willing to take a chance, to have a go even if they don’t know. Not frightened to be wrong.
As kids grow up, they are conditioned to fear mistakes. They become frightened of being wrong. Education systems instil the thought into children that ‘mistakes are the worst thing you can make’. Companies and education systems stigmatise mistakes.
However, as Robinson so aptly phrases it, “if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original”.
Thus, kids’ creativity is “squander[ed]… pretty ruthlessly” by education systems. They are nurtured to grow out of their creative capacities.
This actually reminded me of a couple of Albert Einstein quotes that I saw somewhere and have never forgotten. I shall now share them with you… I suppose… (oh, shush, this isn’t lame).
- “Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school”.
- “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
- “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
They are brilliant thoughts.
I love how Robinson goes on to ask why dance isn’t taught to children the way maths is. Why isn’t dance taught like this? I would have loved to have had that as a subject. Seriously. I feel like I have missed out. I completely agree with Robinson. Dance is important. “We all have bodies”.
But, as children grow up, they are progressively educated from the “waist up”. They’re being trained to be professors. Trained to live in their heads, and to look upon their body only as a “form of transport for their heads”. Robinson likens the effect of the education system on kids’ minds to that of strip-mining the earth for commodities.
He explains how industrialism has influenced our education system – which is now predicated upon the idea of ‘academic ability’. It is now all about university entrance. And this generates a gulf between students. Students of high academic prowess, and students of lesser academic skill. But these students of lesser academic skill are not necessarily less intelligent, despite what they are being branded as by the system.
Robinson emphasises that this is a destructive way to go. These days, degrees aren’t worth anything. Our view of intelligence needs to be re-evaluated and re-defined. He identifies what we know about intelligence thus far: it is diverse, dynamic, distinct.
Gillian’s story is awesome. I’m gonna remember it for a long time. Especially Robinson’s observation that somebody else would have put her on medication and “told her to calm down”.
Ultimately, children of the present need to be educated so that they can face the future. Even if we don’t know what that is at the moment. Creativity is now as important in education as literacy – it should be treated with the same status.
THAT IS ALL.
……………….. Frank sent this.