Week 3 Discussion 2 Stop Stealing Dreams: Seth Godin at TEDxYouth@BFS
What connections do you see to the ideas that suggested about Sir Ken school killing creativity?
Sir Ken Robinson suggested that school totally destroys creativity and student’s behavior. Sir Ken felt the 21st century deprived students from being creative (TED 2006). Creativity was at the bottom of students list Sir Ken suggested. Sir Ken suggests that school was supporting the core subjects and did not feel creativity was important to student’s daily lives (TED 2006). Math, English, science and history are four cores taught in public school which only produced memorized facts (TED 2006). Schools are not concern with the future growth of student. School is more concern how students score on the standardized test.
Seth Godin suggests children need to be prepared to meet challenges and opportunities that are growing at a rapid pace to be prepared to meet the needs of the industry (TES Talks). Technology has changed the way we see the world (TED Talks). Computers, cell phones, televisions, e-mail and video games have a large impact on our learning environment (TED Talks). Godin used a zero value to memorizing things which suggested we should spend less time teaching people to memorize things and more time teaching them to be successful in the world (TED Talks). Godin used dots and boxes to compare when memorizing to show the outcome (TED Talks). Godin compared education to brand names and schools to
Sir Ken Robinson's main point of his TED Talk is that school systems, worldwide, segregate the arts to a lower level of learning. This segregation of the arts in schools drains students of creativity.
I am not attempting to prove that creativity and independent thinking are not essential for developing youth, in fact they are key to the functionality of every adult. However, school is a preparation for a career in the adult world. The American education system prepares students for what the working world values most, the ability to .Throughout childhood, there will be other opportunities for adolescents to mature in ways that are not addressed in
School, everyone summons different thoughts and connotations whenever they hear that word. Although people range in their opinions of school, many can agree that schools all have the same goal: to educate their students. This is proving to be false; John Taylor Gatto provides evidence of this in his essay, “Against School.” Within this text he explains how schools are not educating students to be the best they can be, instead teachers are teaching them to become role players in today’s society and to be desensitized from their natural creativity. Gatto, a three time New York Teacher of the Year, has had his fair share of teaching. Gatto provides evidence to the audience that they have been wrong all along about the way a school functions. His ideals prove that the schooling systems in today’s society are not what they seem; schools are thought to develop and help a student unlock their full potential but through the evidence that Gatto provides us he shows that the education system does anything but that. He shows us this by appealing to the audience’s logos and pathos or their logical and emotional natures.
Education has tarnished the idea of an original thought and has caused us to “grow out of creativity.” An idea that I am now convinced is a possible reality due to the intellectual, thought-provoking argument made by Sir Ken Robinson that schools do restrain creativity. In Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Robinson argues that schools do kill creativity by addressing his audience in a sophisticated yet playful tone that keeps the audience entertained and invested in what is being discussed. Robinson connects with the audience by telling jokes, using simple reasoning, facts, and personal stories that allows the audience to be emotionally moved by the argument. Robinson is able to open up the audience to a reasonable idea with only one reasonable solution, and it just so happens to be his. Obviously, a bit biased, Robinson steers clear of self-promotion by recalling stories of other’s accounts and relating to people as a professor instead of a person.
Creativity is equally as important as literacy, and we need to start treating it that way in schools around the world. According to Ken Robinson’s claim in his, “How Schools Kill Creativity” speech, he believes this to be exceptionally true. All children are creative and talented, however, we have grown up in a world where we believe that it’s wrong to exemplify our creativity. Robinson uses both, pathos, and ethos to help make his claim. He arises emotion in you; he causes you to really think, to trust him, and to question ultimately, how things are being done in the educational system. We as a world have become so consumed with the idea of putting each child into a category of what they’re going to be successful in, regardless of their creativity or passions. You’re either good at math, science, or English; everything is based on your academic ability. What happens then to the people who aren’t academically smart, but are more creative? They are then made to feel that what they have to offer the world simply isn’t good enough, but the truth is, it is good enough. Over time however, we are taught out of our creativity. Schools around the world kill creativity by instilling a sense of fear in the child that what they are doing, and how they feel is wrong, this ultimately discourages them, and they fall victim to the industrialized educational system that we have present day. Robinson believes now more than
Albert Einstein once said, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” This quote describes the responsibilities and standards of teaching children. I believe that teachers should be held to high standards for being the foundation of a student’s education and well-being. For my future students, my responsibilities as a future educator include supplementing the growth of a variety of students’ knowledge and creativity, abiding as a role model for students and colleagues, and understanding the issues in the foundations of education.
Today’s education system has become focused on standardized intelligence testing and what works best for the majority. This system, although created to help the masses, is impersonal and only benefits a specific group of students who learn the best through testing. Those students who think creatively and use imagination are left behind. This is why intelligence tests are not accurate measurement of a child’s knowledge as it does not account for creativity and the child’s individual strengths. Changes need to be made within the school system. Instead of focusing on what is “correct” schools should be encouraging problem-solving through the process of making mistakes and failing. This challenges a student to learn about themselves and the world around them. When everything is already laid out for them it is easy to follow. There is no single way of thinking. By making a student have to think on their own it stimulates creativity and allows them to better connect concepts to real world situations.
However, this creative spirit is quickly lost as students progress through their years in education, where independent thought is second to memorization and repetition. While vocabulary quizzes are common, this expansive vocabulary is rarely utilized in creative writing but rather regurgitated on the SAT examination. Instead of exploring the ways math could be used in various careers that students might pursue, math classes require memorization of trigonometric angles. In ethics class, instead of presenting one’s own views and providing support for these views, a student is expected to simply repeat what was said in class, whether the student agrees with these opinions or not. However, anyone can simply repeat back previously provided information and duplicate past processes. Education should be about finding creative new solutions to problems in the world today and encouraging individual thought that will change the world in the future. In order to improve the world, it is necessary to think of new solutions to problems. Creativity is necessary to come up with these solutions, and by stifling creative thought in education, educators are also stifling progress in the world. The goal of education is to prepare students for the rest of life, and educators are obligated to encourage creativity in order to achieve this
Do Schools Kill Creativity? TED is a non-profit organization that serves to present ideas that are worth spreading through strong rhetoric and persuasive appeals. In his eminent Ted Talk, Sir Ken Robinson discusses how public education systems today disregard creativity as an important component within the academic growth of students. Robinson focuses on the importance of creativity by creating a variety of arguments, which persuades the audience to take action upon this heavily ignored issue. His use of pathos, ethos, and logos makes an entertaining case for creating an education system that nurtures rather than undermines creativity. Throughout his speech, Robinson emphasizes pathos by his use of humor and discussion of personal
Education always plays an important role in enabling people to enter society knowledgably and with good skills. People keep learning from cradle to grave in order to horn their skills of thinking creatively as one of the key factors for success. They are conventionally trained by their school professors even from preschool period. However, the most reasonable time to learn is the high school stage when students' brains are significantly developing ('Thinking skills' 2003). This essay, therefore, will argue the idea that schools should be active in teaching students creative thinking skills because of the good educational background itself and the skills acquired will be
Children are no longer encouraged to be creative in the test prep environment. Instead, they are being taught to perform well on standardized tests and are labeled as unintelligent if they don’t. Young children are born with creativity and we see that when they are playing and pretending. According to Sir Ken Robinson, in Slon’s (2013) article, “by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity” to be creative. The fundamentals of creation and experimentation are not part of the standardized testing mechanism.
Today, there is a great problem in American schools. The ever increasing dropout rates are showing that teachers are not able to stimulate and interest their students. Children and teens are losing their ability to think creatively and on higher level because of the lack of arts education in public schools. If all children had this privilege, they would have higher test scores, would more likely go to college, and less likely to commit crimes. Students who graduate from high school are drones of a test-centered, strict curriculum based on if the student can pick the right multiple choice answer. Graduates who have graduated recently find it extremely difficult to compete in the higher education world due to their inability to think
If you search almost anywhere on the internet about creativity and public schools you will run into a video by a man named Sir Ken Robinson. He emphasizes that schools kill creativity in every way. On the other hand, President Barack Obama disagrees whole heartedly. Both of these men agree that creativity is important to children and schools but they disagree on whether or not creativity is being implemented in schools. Robinson stated in his lectured at TED 2006, “I believe this passionately, that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out of it” (Ken Robinson. TED2006). He goes to say that
Graff says that putting students in classes in the contemporary system is wasting and limiting students’ potential and creativity (198). Complaining that intellects do not meet the success standard set by schools, Graff proves that schools limit the intellect students can achieve in their academic career (198-199).
Related to a changed school environment is the key trend of shifting the student’s role from a consumer to a creator. Predicting a mid-term impact of three to five years this trend involves enhancing student creativity, and