Dr Ken Robinson is a leading force in the development of creativity and in this video he expounds on the issue of creativity and the education system and his view that the education system may well drive out the skills that we will come to depend on in the future. His wit and engaging approach is used with skill to draw you in while he weaves a compelling argument to challenge our current approach in formal education. He promotes his strongly held views that creativity needs to be nurtured and not undermined by the education system.
In a previous post on this blog I described the work of Daniel Pink and his arguments regarding the way our education system seems to give preference to developing left brain thinking! Dan Pink claimed that the more creative right sided thinking was being stifled in the traditional education system as it does not recognise, value or develop creativity. The argument is well known in education systems that seem to value measuring outcomes in terms of Maths and English SAT results or other forms of formal tests.
In the US, as in the UK, SATS scores and examination results are THE measure and all else seems to fade into insignificance. The name given to the US programme is 'No Child Left Behind', aiming to secure standards for all children by relentlessly focusing on standards of mathematics and literacy - many educators are concerned of what they claim is the bias toward SAT scores and not the equally important development of creativity. Maybe that is why some that I met in Boston in 2007 referred to this programme as 'No Child Left Alive'!
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Schools, colleges and university are just some of the places where learning takes place but school kids and students can spend a lot of their time in these spaces. There are other places where people learn, some through doing courses at work or online or even learning from others around them in all sorts of situations. The posts here are about learning spaces, writings about learning and technology and thoughts and ideas about all of these.
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There's much to commend this content (it's certainly entertaining). But I do disagree with some of the analysis.
"focusing on standards of mathematics and literacy - many educators are concerned of what they claim is the bias toward SAT scores and not the equally important development of creativity" - This implies that mathematics is NOT creative.
Mathematics and literacy are creative.
Let's think about how our humanity adds value to the world?
If you want to express human emotion - what it mean to be human - then dance, art and music are fantastic.
If you want to describe the world in quantative and acurate terms then mathematics and science are the only games in town.
Of course we need creative thinkers who will help us to understand the human condition (through art, humanities, music and dance) but let's not suggest that Einstein, Gaus, Gallileo and Riemann are not creative!