"Do Schools Kill Creativity?"

Yesterday I watched a video at www.ted.com entitled "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" presented by Ken Robinson. Mr. Robinson stated that, "Creativity should be treated with the same status as intuity." He spoke about intelligence being : Diverse, Dynamic, and Distinct. He believes that schools aren't considering these three distinctions when establishing their goals and expectations for their students, and as he puts it, "we focus on our heads, not our bodies." He goes on to speak about the importance of art, music, and dance in an adolescents life. He believes that we should be focusing on the whole being and making something of that. When we focus just on the end result or, for example, our career, we aren't embracing everything we have to offer. Instead we are limiting our successes to a specific area of focus.

 

I definitely agree with Mr. Robinson. Intelligence is more than a perfect score on the SAT or a 4.0 GPA. It is being educated in a diverse array of subjects, being dynamic in the choices you make, and being distinct in who you are and who you wish to become. We can't mold adolescents into the "ideal student" and expect them to go on and succeed in life the way we view succession. Succeeding is different for everyone and we, as a society, should embrace that.

Mr. Robinson really put into perspective for me the impact that our schools have on us as individuals. We have come to value our education so much that it is the driving force behind everything. I don't necessarily believe that this is a bad thing, but I do believe that education allows for diversity, and it is up to our school systems to acknowledge that. We should be given the opportunity to succeed the way we have been created to succeed, whether this is through academics, art, music, dance, or drama. We still need to value our education, but we need to do so in its entirety not just in its ability to classify us all ass proficient according to state standards.

"If you're not willing to take a chance to be wrong, you will never create anything original." -Ken Robinson