I was just browsing through the categories on TED, I clicked in dance and looked around at the 11 videos they have so far. This video caught my interest because of two reasons. The first reason is that I always thought that our education is messed up and it separates and sets people by only a few qualities when there are so much more ways a person's talent and intelligence can be measured. The second reason is the number of times it has been emailed, which is 53016. An incredible number compared to the other videos which has only been emailed a few hundred and a few thousand times.
Sir Ken Robinson is an author, speaker and international advisor on education in the arts. He challenges the ways we are educating people today. He advocates a radical rethink of the school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.
Ken Robinson says that we are educating the children these days as if we know exactly what's going to happen in the future. We improve the skills and abilities we think would be useful for the future. But the truth is, we don't know how the things will play out in the future! We aren't even sure how things will change in 10 years; we can predict of course, but no one really knows. So, nowadays, we are educating children and preparing them for something we don't even know. We are only preparing them for the way we think the world will turn out to be.
"Creativity is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status." - Sir Ken Robinson
He then goes on and gave us two examples in which the kids aren't afraid to make mistakes and be "wrong" as we call it. They are prepared and willing to take a chance and just try things out.
The first example he gave was about a little 6 year old girl in art class. The teacher asks the girl what she is drawing. The little girl answers she's drawing God. The teacher then says that no one knows what God looks like. The little girl says that once she's finished, they will.
The second example is during a play of Jesus is born, the three kings come in. The first king said "I brought gold." The second king said "I brought silver." The last king said "Frank sent this."
He then goes on to explain that being wrong isn't the same a being creative. But
"If you are not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original." - Sir Ken Robinson
As we can see from the examples above and many others in life, we are able to see that it is true that kids aren't so afraid of being wrong and making mistakes. But while we are growing up, we are taught that making mistakes is the worst thing you can do. Therefore, as adults, we are frightened of being wrong. Everything we learned in class, work, and life taught us that if we want to become successful, we should make as little mistakes as possible.
"I believe we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it, or rather we get educated out of it." - Sir Ken Robinson
He quoted Picaso: "All children are born artists. The problem is to remain artist as we grow up." I think what he and Picaso said makes perfect sense. When we are born, we have no limits with our creativity; we don't have ideas and theories to base our thinking and concepts on, we don't have barriers to restrict us. But as we grow older and thrown in the public education system, we come to learn that dance and drama isn't as valued as science and math. In order to fit in not get looked down on, many of us study and do the things we don't like.
Every public school system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects, everywhere you go. At the top you see mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom you have the arts. Even arts itself has a hierarchy. Music and art are higher up than dance and drama.
He explains that this type of system came into being to meet the needs of industrialism. In this age and time, there are just somethings much more useful to find a job. Most importantly, degrees. This system is all based on the supposedly "intellectual" world of Universities. This is why Ken Robinson said that the winners of this system; the people who does everything right are university professors. As we expected when we heard those two words: academic abilities come and dominated our view of intelligence. This system therefore produces many talented, brilliant, and creative people who think they are not, just because they don't fit into this system.
We think degrees are important now, don't we all? It's many people's goal for going to school. In the next 30 years however, according to UNESCO, more people worldwide will be graduating through education since the beginning of history. It basically just means degrees won't mean so much anymore in the future.
Intelligence isn't just academics, it's diverse, dynamic, and distinct. Gillian Lynne, the choreographer of Cats and The Phantom of Opera, could never sit still in class. Back then, no one knew about ADHD, you simply couldn't have that cause it didn't exist for them. The school doctor called Gillian and her mother in and started to tell Gillian's mother about how Gillian couldn't focus in class, and how she's always moving around and can't sit still. Then the doctor told Gillian to stay in here and wait while he went out to talk to her mom. The doctor turned on the radio before he and Gillian's mom went out. When they were outside, he told her to watch Gillian. Once the doctor and her mom went out and shut the door, she started dancing. The doctor told her mom "Gillian isn't sick, she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school." Her mom did. Later on, when people asked Gillian how'd she got to be a dancer, she told him her first impression of the dance school she went to.
"We walked into this room and it was full of people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think." - Gillian Lynne
She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet school, she became a soloist, she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet school to found her own company, the Gillian Lynne dance company. Met Andrew Lloyd Webber. She's be responsible for some of the most successful musicals productions in history, she's given pleasure to millions, she's a multimillionaire. Somebody else might have gave her some medication and told her to calm down.
He believes our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. He thinks that we need to rethink the fundamental principles on which we are educating the kids today. The only way to do so is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are, and seeing the kids for the hope they are.
"Our take is to educate our whole being so they can face this future. We many not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it." - Sir Ken Robinson
Here's the video: Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity
Intelligence isn't just academics, it's diverse, dynamic, and distinct. Gillian Lynne, the choreographer of Cats and The Phantom of Opera, could never sit still in class. Back then, no one knew about ADHD, you simply couldn't have that cause it didn't exist for them. The school doctor called Gillian and her mother in and started to tell Gillian's mother about how Gillian couldn't focus in class, and how she's always moving around and can't sit still. Then the doctor told Gillian to stay in here and wait while he went out to talk to her mom. The doctor turned on the radio before he and Gillian's mom went out. When they were outside, he told her to watch Gillian. Once the doctor and her mom went out and shut the door, she started dancing. The doctor told her mom "Gillian isn't sick, she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school." Her mom did. Later on, when people asked Gillian how'd she got to be a dancer, she told him her first impression of the dance school she went to.
"We walked into this room and it was full of people like me. People who couldn't sit still. People who had to move to think." - Gillian Lynne
She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet school, she became a soloist, she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet school to found her own company, the Gillian Lynne dance company. Met Andrew Lloyd Webber. She's be responsible for some of the most successful musicals productions in history, she's given pleasure to millions, she's a multimillionaire. Somebody else might have gave her some medication and told her to calm down.
He believes our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. He thinks that we need to rethink the fundamental principles on which we are educating the kids today. The only way to do so is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are, and seeing the kids for the hope they are.
"Our take is to educate our whole being so they can face this future. We many not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it." - Sir Ken Robinson
Here's the video: Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity
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