Ken Robinson-Creativity

In education creativity is as important now as literacy. We have to rethink the fundamental way we're educating our children. We should embrace the gift of human imagination and educate for the future.

Whistle while you work!

Behaviour therapy tells us that we are what we do. Our jobs are the implementation of who we are. It makes sense that we all engage in work that gives us meaning. We need to create an environment in our schools in which we nurture each child's individual talents and passions. Often parents steer their children away from their true talents because they think that they have to follow conventional paths in order to be successful. The goal here is to convey the benefits to everybody of connecting properly with our individual talents. I feel very passionately about this, as everyday in school I see students being forced into areas that do not inspire them and worse still do not make the best use of their natural abilities. It would be far more beneficial to see students doing things they love to do and being aware of their own particular talents. Ken Robinson, in his book, The Element, describes people who have achieved the balance between passion and talent, as those who; “have discovered their Element- the place where the things you love to do and the things that you are good at come together”. (Robinson, K. 2009, p.8).

 Our work must inspire us!

Hierarchy of school subjects.

Every education system in the world has the same hierarchy of subjects. Maths and languages are at the top, humanities in the middle and at the bottom are the arts. There is even a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music have a higher status than drama and dance. Ken Robinson tells us "there isn't an education system in the world that teaches dance everyday to students the way it teaches them mathematics." Why? Maths is important but so is dance. If your talent lies in dance and not in mathematics then the education system is failing you!

Allow children to be creative!

In his biography of Einstein, Walter Isaacson says “As a young student, he never did well at rote learning. And later, as a theorist, his success came not from the brute strength of his mental processing power but from his imagination and creativity. He could construct complex equations, but more important, he knew that math is the language nature uses to describe her wonders.”(Robinson, K. 2009 p. 50). As the sign below proves, we are continually trying to prevent children from experiencing the world creatively and hence are prohibiting their understanding of nature’s wonders.