Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?
This is worth the twenty minutes to watch and listen.
Thank you!
Sir Robinson has put into words some very neccessary concepts for education in the future.
A number of thoughts occur on listening to this.
There are not going to be enough jobs such as I and others do in manufacturing in the future because of automation. A saw mill or steel mill that used to employ hundreds, employes less than a hundred, and many of those jobs are maintenance.
So, what do we do with the excess people? Tell them they are useless and relegate them to slums? Or employ their talents to create a much richer society than we have today.
At present, as Sir Robinson states, our educational system is geared for the manufacturing environment. Like farming, this is an endevour that is taking less and less manpower while producing more and more. At the same time, much of what it produces is sterile.
Compare what we are doing today with the art and music to that of the reniasscance. With what we have we should be doing far more, yet the talents that produce that kind of creativity are not considered valuable in our primary school systems. In fact, you see them cutting music and art, while keeping extracurricular sports like football.
We just had a lesson in creativity unfettered in the Occupy Sandy people. Using a recent technology, these kids did more with less and faster than the government agencies at whatever level. This is the 'outside of the box' thinking that we should be encouraging.
How do we do this? I leave that up to you 'people' oriented people. But the best teacher I ever had was definately on the right path. I came to school, a two room school house with 17 pupils and one teacher, 1st to 8th, one day with a pocket full of rocks. She asked me what on earth I had in my pockets. So I took out the rocks and showed her. She asked me why I found them interesting. So I showed her that they had the same textures, but differant colors. Her response set me on a lifetime of enjoyment. She said "We have a book report assignment coming up, and here is the book you will be making a report on." And handed me a freshman level geology text. I read that whole thing. And came to class daily with questions concerning word definitions, where this place was on the globe, and so many other things. Which she did her absolute best to answer. I was in the sixth grade at that time. And she had gotten completely into my head. I had no idea that she was using an inverse of the Socratic method. She had me, and her other students as well, thinking that she was teaching us, when what she was doing was to get us to ask the questions that led us to educate ourselves by allowing us to follow our interests.
I met her later, and introduced my children to her when she was past 90. She had just returned from a trip to Egypt, and was headed for Australia in a couple of months. Of the children that she had in her little school for the time that she taught, over 50% recieved a degree, and 85% had at least some college.
How does one teach creativity? I don't know, but I do believe she did.
Just for those interested, here is a picture of that school.
Riverside School House Bed & Breakfast - Prairie City Oregon - Eastern Oregon
