Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity

TED Ideas Worth Spreading

"I believe that the only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology, one which we start to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity." -Ken Robinson

Ken belives we smother childrens talents. I agree. I once had a student who was an excellent artist and he never did his work in class for me. All he did was draw and doodle. One day I pulled him aside and had a talk with him. I explained to him that if he really wanted to be an artist for graphic novels then he needed to go to art school after high school. This changed his perspective on his current academics. I went so far as to make a deal with him. If he started to actually participate in class and get his work done before the end of class, I would let him draw a picture on my back marker board and I'd leave it there all day. His grade went from an F to a B-.

"If your not prepared to be wrong you'll never come up with anything original." I absolutely love this quote by Ken. My fiance's family is Cicilian. They always make sauce (pasta and sauce). When I was considered part of the family, they bestowed upon me the family recipe. I had it for about 5 years and had never attempted to make the sauce because I'm a terrible cook. I finally tried it and screwed it up BIG TIME. Turned out to be awesome and I now, in some people's opinions, make the best sauce in the family.

I found it very interesting that education systems all over the world have the same hierarchy.
math/lang---->humanities--->arts. I don't think I agree with Ken when he states that dance is as important as math. They have classes outside of school to learn dancing and if that child grows up to be a dancer, they had better be able to do math to make sure nobody is stiffing them on their money, or be able to read their contract before they sign it.