RS 7 School Kills Creativity

I liked the topic of this talk because it seems like something we can all relate to. We have all been in school for such a long time at this point a lot of the time it seems like we are going through the motions. Our parents drive us to get good grades and do some of the things that Ken Robinson says, like discourage us from failure. This discouragement of being wrong and of failure is handicapping younger generations for the future. Older generations were allowed to go out and explore and fail at things, because that's how you learn what to do and what not to do. 

I like Ken Robinson's explanation of our education systems and how they are centered around academic ability and not the things that we want to do. As kids we were guided to do the things that the world looks for in us and not the things that we enjoyed doing because we were told that we wouldn't get jobs doing those things. We need to do pursue something that we can get a job in. He also explains how in his time a college degree meant you could get a job easily, but now you need to become more and more specialized to meet the demands of society. 

I think his view of intelligence is accurate because it shows that our society only values special traits. People mistake academic ability for intelligence and those who are good in school and the subjects we emphasize are encouraged by the system, while those who are good in other subjects but not those we emphasize are discouraged by the system. 

Ken Robinson does a very good job of arguing his case here because the arguments he presents are very accurate once you think about it. We seem to be going through the motions in school a lot and pursuing the things that we believe will get us jobs and make our parents happy. Accounting is a very popular major because that's where people believe the jobs are. I wish the system had not become so business like and that there was more emphasis on pursuing things you enjoy. We are steered towards things that the systems values because the system "mines" our minds for these things that we have learned. It thoughts like these that make me agree with Ken Robinson and believe that schools are killing our creativity. 

The story he told at the end of the talk was something I enjoyed. He told a story of a girl who couldn't sit still. Her mom thought something was wrong but her and a doctor discovered that she needed some encouragement and needed to be put in the right environment to flourish. She became a dancer and had great success at it. The people who run the system need to be more open to the fact that people thrive in different systems and not just their system.