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ESL forum > Techniques and methods in Language Teaching > Schools kill creativity by Sir Ken Robinson    

Schools kill creativity by Sir Ken Robinson



Nelssa
Ukraine

Thanks a lot,dear Ivona! HeartHeartHeart

13 May 2009     



Caroline565
Australia

Hi again Douglas. Sorry for not responding to your post sooner but I had forgotton to check the thread for the past few days. I can understand your fear that parents might use this approach to make excuses for themselves... but don �t some of them do that anyway... no matter what is tried LOL. �I was (and still am) excited by Ken Robison �s ideas and maybe his approach will lead to the breakthrough that is needed (certainly in some schools). I would love to see more debate among teachers regarding this subject. I suppose one of the reasons for this is, that I have a nephew who suffers from �dyspraxia. He is a beautiful young boy (9years old)who appears to be so normal. He has a vivid imagination and even at nine years of age he can hold a great conversation with any adult. He is gifted at writing wonderful short plays (admittedly with a lot of spelling errors Smile). I would be worried that by being "slotted" in school, �that his creativity might be stiffled. Would love more of your very balanced comments and ideas Douglas.
Take care,
Caroline�Smile

14 May 2009     



douglas
United States

I agree that there is definately a need for Robinson�s idea in many places and that many children are stifled into living the "normal life" and working a "normal" job--it is very unfortunate.
 
My problem is how to implement something like this on a large scale. 
 
1) The school gets educated on the concept by the experts and decides to evaluate it for their own school.
2) A needs assessement is done and a school-specific plan is made.
  Q1-How is the assessment done?  "We saw 10 children dancing with themselves at recess--they are our target audience." (??)
3) The plan is voted-on and funded for implementation.
4) Meetings and training are held for educators on the program and how to identify target children.  Q2-As normal, most educators will see it their own way and try to make it fit some concept they are already familiar with (human nature), some will be against it and twist the explanation to support thier own arguments--in the end what was taught and what becomes the "general knowledge/understanding" are two different things.
5) Educators start identifying potential children for the program and parent education begins.  Q3-(My personal opinion) Many parents of the real "dancers" never get the education--they too dance to a different drum and the structured, stifling school meeting ae not their cup of tea --or "the dancer" never brings the info home to the parents, he was too busy dancing to worry about that.  (Oh, and the education is done by the educators that don´t quite understand the as it is meant to be.)
6) The parents that require attention or need to be noticed or need to feel "special" or socially superior begin to insist that their children be put in the program because their children "have" to be special.  The school leadership succombs to these parents because they are the ones that come to the meeting, often have prominent positions in the community and scream the loudest if they don�t get their way.
7) The program starts with 9 mediocre kids and maybe 1 "dancer".  The dancer doesn�t fit into the group so the program is targeted  at the others while the dancer dances in the corner.
 
Hmmm?

16 May 2009     



Caroline565
Australia

Thank you for your comments Douglas. �I can see the various negative points that you believe might be encountered, but I also think that if we always dwell on negative points that we may never move forward in accepting new ways. �I am one of those people who like to at least give new ideas a fair trial. �If a plan does not work out, then it can always be abandoned. �In the scenarios referred to by you, I certainly could see huge problems �IF it was going to be like that, but such situations could be avoided by a good leader who will not be shouted down.
��Anyway Douglas I do appreciate and respect your comments. It is good to air our views on such matters in the forum.
CarolineSmile

16 May 2009     



Ivona
Serbia

Hmmm... i cannot elaborate like Douglas, so i will be short. (especially since i �ve just returned from my second trip to Belgrade in one week, and another one is awaiting me next Thursday)
I don �t think that Ken �s idea was that we should go from one extreme to another, but to find a
 BALANCE
 or better to restore it. We have lost so much of the innate/biological/natural in us with the development of technology, i.e. reason, that man is left spiritually impoverished.
In the modern world, everything is being calculated, classified, categorised, dissected, analysed, and if it does not meet any of the prescribed standards, it is eventually dismissed as disruptive of the system (just what Douglas is trying to do here! but he �s probably playing with us!Smile)
What Ken suggests is that we should:
- allow for students who are different from the �good obedient students � and try adapt ourselves to them, and not vice versa
- to recognise more than two intelligences (linguistic and logical-mathematical) in children (like e.g. kynesthetic one in the �dancer � case)
- to bring (endangered) creativity back to life and not let it be extinguished - because if it does, there will be nothing left to sustain us... we will be merely "living and partly living" (T.S. Eliot)
- balance convergent thinking ("there �s only one answer") with divergent thinking ("there �s more than one answer")
- be open to the �new �, to things not subject to rational explanations ...

(gz, i wasn �t short after all ..)

16 May 2009     

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