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    “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Sir Ken Robinson

    Görkem Gümüştekin • public
    • 4 min read
    “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Sir Ken Robinson

    Table of contents

    Sir Ken Robinson challenges the traditional education system and its impact on creativity. He argues that schools often stifle creativity and discourage students from pursuing their passions. Robinson advocates for a reform in education that values and nurtures creativity, recognizing its crucial role in fostering innovation and preparing students for a rapidly changing world.

    For Key Ideas, Questions and Quotes from this talk, you can scroll below.

    Sir Ken Robinson gave this speech at the TED Conference. All rights to the speech and the video above belong to TED.

    About Sir Ken Robinson

    Sir Ken Robinson was a British author, speaker and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education and arts bodies. He was director of the Arts in Schools Project and Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick, and Professor Emeritus after leaving the university. (Source: Wikipedia)

    Key Ideas From Talk

    Ken's Ted talk was the funniest one I've ever watched. However, don't let the humor fool you. He touches on a very meaningful topic in a very entertaining way. That's why, if I had to recommend a Ted talk to someone who has never watched one, it would be Ken's.

    So what is Ken talking about that is both entertaining and important? Education. Yes, the kind of boring education we all know. The system that we have been exposed to for years, which labels us, categorizes us as successful or unsuccessful, intelligent or unintelligent, etc. This system is shallow when compared to human capacity, uniqueness, and abilities.

    Ken talks about why the current education system is the way it is and where it can evolve. After clearly stating the situation, he presents a solution. Although the talk is remarkable as a whole, the parts that impressed me the most were as follows:

    1. Creativity is as important as literacy: Robinson argues that our education systems prioritize literacy and numeracy over creativity, leading to a devaluation of creative abilities.
    2. Education stifles creativity: Robinson suggests that schools often discourage creativity by promoting conformity, standardized testing, and a focus on "right" answers, which can inhibit students' natural creative instincts.
    3. The need for diverse intelligence: Robinson emphasizes the importance of recognizing and nurturing diverse forms of intelligence beyond academic abilities, such as artistic, musical, and kinesthetic talents.
    4. The role of teachers: Robinson believes that teachers play a crucial role in fostering creativity by encouraging exploration, curiosity, and individual expression, rather than conforming to a rigid curriculum.
    5. Embracing mistakes and taking risks: Robinson highlights the importance of allowing students to make mistakes and take risks as part of the learning process, as it helps develop their creative problem-solving skills and resilience.
    6. Unleashing creativity for the future: Robinson emphasizes that in a rapidly changing world, nurturing creativity is essential for preparing students to navigate uncertain challenges and contribute to innovation and progress.

    Questions to Ask Ourselves

    1. How has school and my upbringing affected my attitude towards creativity?
    2. Do I engage in activities that allow me to express my creativity? How does being creative affect my well-being?
    3. Has anyone ever discouraged me from being creative or made me feel bad about it? How did that experience affect me?
    4. Do I feel fulfilled and engaged when I engage in creative activities? If not, what is preventing me from doing so?
    5. Do I prioritize being intelligent and achieving good grades over being creative? How does this affect me emotionally?
    6. Are there any beliefs or thoughts that limit my ability to be creative? How can I challenge these beliefs and overcome these obstacles?
    7. Do I actively seek opportunities to improve my creative skills? How can I expand my knowledge and abilities in areas that interest me creatively?

    Notes From Talk

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    My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.
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    They’re not frightened of being wrong. I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original — if you’re not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this. We stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities.
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    Picasso once said this, he said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out of it.
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    We know three things about intelligence. One, it’s diverse. We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms, we think in movement. Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain, as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn’t divided into compartments. In fact, creativity — which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value — more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things. And the third thing about intelligence is, it’s distinct.
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    What TED celebrates is the gift of the human imagination. We have to be careful now that we use this gift wisely and that we avert some of the scenarios that we’ve talked about. And the only way we’ll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future. By the way — we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it.

    This talk is a part of following list: "Talks That Changed My Perspective".