Week 8 Review

Robinson, Ken. (2006, Feb). Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

In the TEDTalk Do schools kill creativity?, Sir Ken Robinson humorously explains the flaws of our current educational system. Sir Robinson expands the theory that the hierarchy of subjects taught in schools worldwide limit the creatively brilliant people. Sir Robinson, former English professor and advocate of creative learning, with the use of personal anecdotes and comedic technique challenges the structure of the educational system.

Being a former educator, Sir Robinson has a good grasp of the educational system. He brings attention to the fact that no matter where in the world, there is a hierarchy of ‘important’ subjects which is in the order of science and mathematics, languages, humanities and then the arts. This order is put in order of job procurement probability. Logically speaking, there is more job security for a computer programmer than a musician. The educational system is set up around this hierarchy and students that are not interested in the higher up subjects are constrained by the system. This logic leads to one of Sir Robinson’s message point; even though this system is for the benefit for the majority of the people, should the artists of the world be constrained?

This TEDTalk did not necessarily have anything to do with my veterinary career path. However, another option that I am thinking about is becoming a researcher along with teaching at a collegiate level. An issue that we students have now is the overload of memorization of facts and figures, without the liberty of creatively thinking and answer questions. This year alone, every test I've taken has been multiple choice. So either I knew the answer or I did not. And even then I had to know the answer in the professor's way of speech. So basically, in order to do well in classes students have to regurgitate the professor’s thinking to do well rather than having the freedom to explain the answers in their own way. This is another message point that Sir Robinson speaks about and I feel strongly about as well.

Sir Robinson’s talk was very compelling. His use of humor won not only me but the entire audience. His ability to talk on stage seemed very relaxed and natural which made him along with what he was saying agreeable. But now that I actually actively thinking about what he was saying rather than just listening, I realized he is a really good speaker. His credentials (degrees in drama and theater, english professor and professional speaker) are what allowed his TEDTalk to successful and not the content of the argument. Sir Robinson told many humorous and inspiring stories, but his lack of scientific argument or even solutions to the problems makes me as the viewer feel the talk was a little short of successful.

As my personal reflection, I think Sir Robinson brought up some prevalent issues of the educational system that we as a nation, along with the world need to address. Not everyone’s mind works the same and although the system is set up to help the majority, it is punishing the minority. And thus it limits becoming different and creative. Although, earlier I was critical of Robinson’s talk, I agreed with everything he said. But I also think to make his talk stronger, he should have proposed solutions to this issue.

This talk was relevant to one of my career options: teaching. I would like to teach science classes but I can already see that being a problem when trying to nurture creativity. For science, there is usually a right and wrong answer; there are universal facts that can’t be changed, but I think the whole learning process can be changed to accommodate creativity. For example there are always group projects. My biology professor makes us learn and memorize facts and methods, but then gives us real life scenarios to solve based on them. There is not always one way to solve problems so this lets our creative minds run. This allows us to know the material but also creatively problem solve which is exactly what we will be doing when we enter the task force. So methods like these will help in nurturing creativity in the science field.

Sir Ken Robinson provides many compelling arguments of the limitation of the educational system. He humorously and inspirationally  includes real people stories which sheds light to the immediate need for change in the system. The talk is already strong but with the proposal of solutions to the problem, it could be even stronger. Nonetheless, I completely agreed with Robinson’s message points and I agree there needs to be some changes made in the near future.