Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

[Caduceus Mercurius]

Today a colleague drew my attention to the following video, which happens to confirm the feelings I've been having lately about the educational system and academics in particular. I'll probably link to this video in some of the discussions that are going on elsewhere on the forum, for I believe most of our disagreements and misunderstandings have to do with the way we were "educated". There's much more to say about this subject than is mentioned in the video, but it's an amusing talk that touches upon many core issues.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

About the show: http://www.ted.com/
About the speaker: Ken Robinson

 

[spice]

Do schools kill creativity?

ABSOLUTELY. They are mass-murderers of creativity.


Schools, religion, and advertising/TV.

The unholy triumvirate.

 

[Mr.Smith]

.

 

[st.bot.32]

get them while they're young..

particularly the area of canada i went to grade school in was extremely conservative, and during a politically conservative era

fortunately I had a few "rebel" teachers who would bring in collections of banned books and have us do creative and critical thinking exercises everyday. how a few good people can have an unwitting influence on your life...

 

[spice]

Those are real heroes that you speak of. 8)

 

[Mr.Smith]

.

 

[HazardousDavis]

Fantastic vid, thanks!
Here are my views on it, -
http://hazardouspioneers.blogspot.com/2 ... y-and.html
cheers

 

[Administrator]

Thank you HazardousDavis. I noticed you started a new topic about the same subject, and there was one response which I will reproduce here:

He has an excellent point about how our culture kinda de-artists it's children. We all were making pictures, and building sand castles and such and now as adults we tend to consume art from others. We actually DID learn some dance, and sculpture, and things like that, but it all stopped at grade 5 or so because they needed to "prepare us for junior high, which prepared us for high school". The fun stopped when macaroni pictures were no longer part of curriculum IMO.

I have many beefs with modern education, many things could be done differently. If we just gave teachers the pay of senators, and gave senators the pay of teachers, it would be a different world.

This guy is FUNNY!!

CM @ Ground Control

 

[HazardousDavis]

What you say above is very true!

Haha, yeah, let's swap the payroll around, and see what happens.

 

[Bastiaan]

Theory: the killing of creativity is an extent of the fact that these things are designed to make left brain dominant in people. Sadly this does not only mean killed creativity.

Supposedly functions of the left hemisphere (researched and put into words by people that are in a certain reality):

* logic
* detail
* reality
* practical
* names of things
* facts
* words and language
* past and present
* calculating and science
* understanding
* knowing
* recognizing
* patterns / order
* strategy
* safety


Supposedly functions of the right hemisphere (researched and put into words by people that are in a certain reality):

* the bigger whole
* impulsive
* imagination
* symbols and pictures
* awareness of time
* philosophy
* religion
* meaning
* beliefs
* apreciation
* capability of 3D view
* fantasy
* functional capability
* seeing possibility
* taking risk

I say you make a big picture of these words, put them together and compose a general feeling of what part of consciousness iit actually is that these hemisphere's are responsible for.
You shouldn't see these words as seperate functions I think.
If it doesn't make sense to you try interpreting these words knowing they're coming from someone (researcher, probably with a dominant left brain) with a certain perspective and reality.
Not that it makes perfect sense to me (very vague, can be misinterpreted, I think I know what it means and therefor judge it to be so) but I do feel like aha! when I see this.
I wanted to put question marks behind some words but then I might as well put em behind all of them.


We are looking at a MASSIVE piece of the (current situation) puzzle here.
Who needs church? Church serves em great still. Now we're pretty convinced we're free. Besides who needs freedom anyway.. If this isn't freedom then I don't care. I am happy with this life. If this is slavery then what isn't? Well perhaps it's what the masses haven't known since we don't know how long.

NEVER WILL I GIVE UP TRYING TO UNMASK THIS WHOLE THING AND ACHIEVE TRUE FREEDOM

 

[GOD]

I must be a both brain side person.................

 

[Dantediv86]

What you say above is very true!

Haha, yeah, let's swap the payroll around, and see what happens.

been sayin' that for a while...people never take me seriously...
and i do agree, schools are for brainwashing nowadays...too bad i need the fucking brainwash to be able to do what i want in society. without a recognised attest that you have been properly brainwashed, nobody would want you working for them.....

 

[mysticwarrior]

I must be a both brain side person.................

Everyone uses both sides, you need those to think properly. But it is you who decide which brain hemisphere you going to use most of the time. But look at those functions that bastiaan posted. If you look at them, then you see that kids practice on school, much more with the left part of the brain, then they are practising the right brain. This makes kids almost automaticly choose for the best trained part of the brain, in most cases this will be the therefor left part. Well the right brain is all about creativity, imagination etc etc. So it's harder for the most kids to be creative then to do math or right brain thinking in general.

In my opinion school should be more focussed on the right part of the brain, then they are doing right now. Because i think that training the left as well as the right part, will balance the thinking process much better. Since our society is build on left brain thinkers and people are limited in there thinking process, a certain balance could give a completely new view on society.

 

[GOD]

I understand what you mean and agree . We must train kids to think for themselves , to be responsible loveing adults . i dont agree with all that pseudo psychelogical left and right brain bullshit though .

 

[mysticwarrior]

I understand what you mean and agree . We must train kids to think for themselves , to be responsible loveing adults . i dont agree with all that pseudo psychelogical left and right brain bullshit though .

Well for me it doesn't matter which part of the brain is responsible, but the left and right function's clearly show's two different kinds of persons, wether the functions come out of there noses or our there ears.

http://painting.about.com/library/quiz/ ... brain2.htm

It's a small test, maybe it's fun to try.....

 

[Bastiaan]

We must train kids to think for themselves

We must educate people about responsibility and health better, we must this we must that

Everyday there are hundreds of ideas of witch everyone agrees that's what we should do and yet.. nothing seems to change! I wonder if there's some kind of force working against us that would like to keep things the way they are..

The thing is, since they were born everybody felt something was not quite right. But we're used to it because we've never known different and we've been conditioned to ignore it and to ridicule ourselves about it. Also a society has been built that allows us to enjoy life quite a little (but nothing compared to what it should be let me tell you). We don't want that joy taken away from us.
There's more. Much more.
But the big picture is: we're the base of the piramid and reality as we've been conditioned to believe it is COMPLETELY FALSE.

 

[GOD]

"You answered 11 items out of 20 as right brained. Your score is 55%. Your right and left brain work together equally."

 

[mysticwarrior]

"You answered 11 items out of 20 as right brained. Your score is 55%. Your right and left brain work together equally."

My test result was 80% right brain thinker

 

[Caduceus Mercurius]

I got exactly the same score as GOD.

You answered 11 items out of 20 as right brained.
Your score is 55%. Your right and left brain work together equally.

 

[GOD]

"Your right and left brain work together equally"

= I`m well balanced and not one sided .