This TED Talk video " Do Schools Kill Creativity" is presented by Sir Ken Robinson, a British author, speaker and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education and arts bodies.
The world is changing really fast in this era. The technology today is so much different than what we had five years ago and it will be dramatically different in the next five years. In fact, nobody can predict what the world will look like in five years.
However, our education system has not changed since the 19th century. Parents are sending their children to public schools to acquire knowledge and compete with peers with different talents in the same ground of competition.
The thing is every children have tremendous talents, they are all artists, and with the current education, we squander them pretty ruthlessly.
Picture of God
Sir Ken Robinson shared a story of a six years old girl in a drawing class. In the teacher’s view, she hardly paid attention. In this drawing lesson, the teacher was fascinated by what she was drawing.
“What are you drawing?”, the teacher asked.
“I am drawing a picture of God,” she said.
“But nobody knows how God looks like”, the teacher said.
“They will, in a minute..."
The point of the story is children are confident in themselves and they will take chance. They are not frightened of being wrong. If they do not know, they will have a go anyway. Taking risk exploring the unknown is how we gain creativity.
However, our society stigmatises mistakes. Mistake is the most horrible thing you can do. And we are running our education system in the structure which you will be penalised by mistakes. The result out of this is we are educating people out of their creative capabilities.
Going back to the story, it only takes the teacher to tell the girl she was wrong with the image of the God, to destroy her creativity and confidence.
Every education in the world are the same
As an educationalist, Sir Ken Robinson had the opportunity to travel the world to work with leaders in educationalists in different parts of the world. He concluded that doesn’t matter where you’d go, every education system has the same hierarchy of subjects.
They would value mathematics and sciences, and then languages and at the bottoms are the arts. In the world, no school emphasise on singing and dancing as much as we teach them mathematics. Why is that?
The public educational system was an invention during the 19th century in the midst of the industrialism boom.
Students are trained to prepare themselves in a “factory-model” education which employs mainly direct instruction methods: a teacher drill information into the class in an “assembly line fashion”, the students learn by memorisation of the notes in class and then they were tested on the information presented to them.
This method, in the context of the 21st century, is highly depersonalised. It has strict hierarchy of authority, organised on process and procedure, emphasise uniformity over innovation, and efficiency over effectiveness.
In this education system, the most useful subjects for work are given priority. Students who excelled in mathematics are perceived more intelligent than students who excelled in drawing.
“Don’t be an artist, you would never find a job”. Who haven’t heard of this growing up in this society?
The education is also rooted in academy ability because university designed “intelligence” based on their image. When you think about it, 11 years of education is an elongated process of university entrance. If you stopped your formal education after you have finished your high-school, you are considered as a failure.
As a result, many highly-talented and brilliant individuals weren’t valued by their schools and society because they are not intelligent enough in the context of industrialism.
The shifts of education
There is no bigger shift of education than it is in today’s world. Suddenly, degrees aren’t as valuable as it was. In the past, if you have a degree, you are almost guaranteed a decent paid jobs. However, possessing a bachelor degree seems like the fundamental of seeking a job.
Academy inflation is happening today. The whole structure of education is dramatically shifting in front of our eyes and there is a need to radically rethink the definition of intelligence.
Sir Ken Robinson shared there are three things about intelligence.
First, intelligence is diverse. Howard Gardener, an American developmental psychologist described there are 9 types of intelligences,:
Naturalist intelligence: the capacity of higher sensitivity to the features of the natural world.
Musical intelligence: the ability to discern pitch, rhythm, tone and timbre of music.
Logical-mathematical intelligence: the ability to calculate, quantify, consider propositions and hypotheses and carry out complete mathematical operations. This is what industrialism education focuses heavily on.
Existential intelligence: Sensitivity and capacity to tackle deep questions about human existence, such as the meaning of life, why we die, and how did we get here.
Interpersonal intelligence: the ability to understand and interact effectively with others. It involves effective verbal and nonverbal communication, the ability to note distinctions among others, sensitivity to the moods and temperaments of others, and the ability to entertain multiple perspectives.
Bodily kinesthetic intelligence: the capacity to manipulate objects and use a variety of physical skills. Athletes, dancers and crafts people are usually exhibit well-developed bodily kinaesthetic intelligence.
Linguistic intelligence: the ability to think in words and to use language to express and appreciate complex meanings. It allows us to understand the order and meaning of words and to apply meta-linguistic skills to reflect on our use of language.
Intra-personal intelligence: the capacity to understand oneself and one’s thoughts and feelings, and to use such knowledge in planning and directioning one’s life.
Spatial intelligence: the ability to think in three dimensions. Core capacities include mental imagery, spatial reasoning, image manipulation, graphic and artistic skills, and an active imagination.
Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. Creativity is the wonderful product when one person marry different disciplines of intelligence and form an authentic idea that has value.
A theterical actor combines his bodily-kinesthetic intelligence with musical intelligence to give the best theterical performance of his life; a politician has linguistic intelligence and Interpersonal intelligence; or a monk who shown exceptional quality in existential intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence and naturalist intelligence.
Thirdly, intelligence is distinct. When you observe our children with care, you can tell what they are good at.
A child who “just can’t sit still” could be talented in bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence; a child who loves to talk, is probably gifted in interpersonal intelligence.
If education gives them the opportunity to nurture their talents, they will rise to be the best version of themselves.
Sir Ken Robinson shared a story of how a doctor discovered the talent of Gillian Lynne, who later turned into a successful choreographer, theatrical dancer and director in the UK.
Lynne had been underperforming at school, so her mother took her to the doctor and explained about her fidgeting and lack of focus. This was an era when ADHD was not a common term accepted by mass.
After hearing everything her mother said, the doctor told Lynne that he needed to talk to her mother privately for a moment. He turned on the radio and walked out. He then encouraged her mother to look at Lynne in the room, who was dancing to the radio. The doctor noted that she was a dancer, and encouraged Lynne's mother to take her to dance school.
Her mother then took her to a dance school, where she met people who “couldn’t sit still”. They did ballet, tap, jazz and all kind of dance genres.
Later as she has grown up, she auditioned for the Royal Ballet School; she became a soloist; she had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School, founded the Gillian Lynne Dance Company. She has create some of the most successful musical theater productions in history, she's given pleasure to millions, and she's a multi-millionaire.
The truth is, the principles of the current education system might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.
The 21st century witnesses the emerging of an information age, a new wave of revolution which required a whole new approach to define intelligence. As artificial intelligence and robotics technology are taking over jobs performed by human, it is more important than ever to identify our gift of intelligence and develop it.
Our job is not only discovering the intelligence and find the best version of who we truly are, we have to help children to get ready for the future, because they are the future.
Would you agree that school needs a radical shift in the way of education?
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Posts like this are personal thought after I have watched TED talks online. I will share 2-5 points on the what lessons we can learn and what conventional beliefs we can challenge. All videos and images, unless stated, credit to TED.com and the presenter(s).