Summary of an article by Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Authors Avatar by sashaobama (student)

Summary                                                                                               Gerald

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson started off introducing three themes. One is the extraordinary evidence of human creativity. The second is how he felt we are put us in a place where we have no idea what is going to happen and no idea how this may play out. He then continues by expressing his interest in education and how education cannot prepare us for the future as we do not know what the future holds which leads into the third theme which the extraordinary capacity that children have.

He then continued saying he wanted to talk about education and creativity. His contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status. That does not mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you’re not ready to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original. By the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become afraid of being wrong. As a result, people are educated out of their creative capacities.

Join now!

He adds on saying: “Truthfully what happens is, as children grow up we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side.”

Our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability. The whole system was invented round the world there were no public systems of education before the 19th century. They all came into being to meet the needs of industrialism.

So the hierarchy is rooted on two ideas: Firstly, that the most useful subjects for work are at the top. So students were steered away ...

This is a preview of the whole essay