Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
Summary
In this lecture, Ken Robinson says that our education systems are destroying children’s creativities. Thus, he insists that developing creativity in education is as equally important as teaching reading and writing. As our education systems let children think that making a mistake is the worst thing, they have foiled children’s fresh and creative thoughts. Every education system in the world has the same hierarchy subjects, and focuses on the development of children’s one side brain. In other words, our education systems focus on an academic ability. This comes from two reasons. One is our education gives priority to the subjects that people need the most to get a job because it is generated by the demand of industrial society. Another reason is the thought that intelligence is a learning ability dominates us because the universities planed the system based on them. Thus, many people who have great ability and creativity think they don’t have it because they are even criticized about it. According to Robinson, we experience degree inflation today. For this, we know that every structure of education system is changing. We also know three things about intelligence. It is various, dynamic, and special. Robinson shows how people have found and grown their own talent with an example of Gillian Lynne, who is a choreographer of “Cats” and “The Phantom of the Opera.” In conclusion, our task is to provide whole-education for children in order to able to face this future and to help them create a wonderful future.
Words: 250
Response
I totally agree with Ken Robinson. These days, schools have degenerated as tools for the university entrance exam, and students have also become machines for study. People usually evaluate children with their standards, and have treated them as if they have some problem if children depart from the standard pattern. Even though schools have to be the places where children experience many different things and find something that they really like, they are just creating similar type of humans who don’t have their uniqueness. While the world is changing continuously, school education has remained stationary for a long time. Then, how can we solve this problem? Ken Robinson is saying that schools have to teach creativity to students, but I don’t have any idea about how we can do that. However, one thing that is certain is the fact that I believe that it should be started from home, exactly parents. That’s because any measure will not work well if parents don’t understand their children and don’t accept the uniqueness of their children. Thus, I think that this is the problem that we all should put our heads together to solve.
Words: 191
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
http://englishiwork.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/learningmachine_lg1.gif?w=180&h=144
4 comments:
I think it is very sad that children lose their creativities. I agree with you HyeaJin. I think we have to start with parents. Mostly, parents plan about their children before they were born. Therefore, when children show their creativity, which does not follow parents’ patterns, the parents will rebuke their kids. Furthermore, this makes kids scare and don’t want to show their creativity. For example, a kid who like drawing very much, draw on living room’s wall. Then their parents come and mad with them this will make the children think that drawing is not good. Therefore, I think sometimes parents must let kids do what they want to do and if they do something wrong, parents should talk gently with them first. In addition, parents should not have high expectation with the kids. It is better to let they be what they are born to be.(words: 148)
Nice topic HyeaJin! I agree with you. Humanity lost many talents, because our educational system wasn’t capable to recognize them. Moreover, sometimes the educational system, means us (we made it), smashed very intelligent kids and cut them any wish to dream. When I read your comment I am reminded of the experience of Warren Buffett at Harvard Business School. He was rejected because he was too young, he was only 17 years of age. But how many Warren Buffett and how many anonyms graduates from Harvard does the humanity have?! And now, he is invited at Harvard to give speeches and teach students how to make business. Unfortunately, this is not a singular case. Many other talented students were rejected for various reasons and were hit by the subjectivity of some officials. Most of them gave up and forgot about their dream for economic reasons. They started to work and they got confortable with the idea that “I didn’t have a chance to do that”. Sometimes, when I’m watching TV, I’m really disappointed, because my impression is that we promote stupid kids just because they are fanny, not for a real talent. I didn’t see too many TV shows to present children with a real talent for painting, mathematics or physics. But, I saw thousands of TV shows which present very young girls and dressed very briefly. It’s sad, but this is the reality! (Words:200)
Good lecture, HyeaJin. I agree with you. It is very frustrating that the education system has some disadvantages which lead students to lose the creativity and intelligence. I remembered that I always failed in exams about the Ancient Chinese Literature when I was in middle school. I still think it is a stupid exam, because we don’t use it anywhere, neither in business nor socialization. I was a big fan of biology at that time; unfortunately, this course in grade 9 to 11 was not important at all. After the semester is finished every year, I nearly spent all my vacation days on reading biology books and watching the Discovery Channel. Secondly, no one likes to be a learning machine. Performing poor in school doesn’t mean he or she is not smart; by contrast, many successful people in the world they quit school, but they have proved themselves are good at other fields. In my opinion, education is not the only measurement of a person’s intelligence. We can create amazing valuable things from nature, something we are interested in, and also when we are motivated in.
Though I agree with creative thinking is important to children, and class focusing on academic abilities prevent them from developing such abilities, I believe academic abilities is also important for children Since academic subjects allow children to think more creatively. Children can learn new things from academic subjects and develop their thinking based on this. However, the point is when instructors teach new academic subjects, they should let children to learn new academic subject through creative thinking such as letting them choose way to find answers or discussing or getting help from peer. In addition, you were worried about the education system that makes people lose their characteristic and unique abilities. I think it is almost impossible to fix this education system since many students learn in large class these days and teachers cannot pay a lot of attention to each student. Therefore, I think parents’ role is important and they can help them to find their unique abilities and develop it.
(Words= 162)
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