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Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.
Think about this: “We don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it; actually, we get educated out of it.”
Click below to begin the video:
You may need to simply click ‘refresh’ if you do not see the video above these words! Otherwise, you can view it here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
HELP! Education & Creativity e-mail says
Click below to begin the video:
There is nothing to click on!
Thanks!
There is nothing to click on!
This made me cry, with joy and also with great saddness and loss.
Where is the video?
There was nothing to click on to view the video.
the best 20 mins you will ever spend learning something valuable…spend time with your children they need you
No video, would love to see it!1
Hi, the video is right on this page, above the comments. Hit “refresh” and you’ll see it! Then, click on the “play” arrow.
Best,
Ellen
There was nothing to click on, but I would love to see the video.
This is what I needed!! This is what my children needed…THank you God for this video.
Kyla
nothing to click on
tried the refresh thing
it’s blank where the video should be
want to see it!
AWESOME! Sign me up! I’d love to see the education system revamped!
Reminds me of a story…
The teacher gives the class a picture to color in. A little girl finishes hers, hands it to the teacher and the teacher puts a big red X on the page. The little girl is in tears and asked why did I get an X on my picture? The teacher tells her, you used the wrong colors, you colored the grass brown, grass is green, you colored the sky yellow, the sky is supposed to be blue, and the tree’s are supposed to have green leaves. The little girl asked the teacher to look out the window. Outside the sky was a golden yellow sunset the grass was brown and there were no leaves on the trees, just as she had colored her picture!
Wow!! He’s brilliant and his message explains the NEED NOW to change the face of education and NO LONGER accept drill and kill and learning just the 4 R’s. Kids need to be able to THINK outside the box and it can’t ONLY happen at home.
Thank you!!
Very sad but true, It makes you think differently about children making mistakes.
Wonderfully delivered and accurate. I agree that college preparatory classes are not for everyone. I also agree that we should allow our kids to seek their dream “jobs”. If they love what they’re doing, they’ll never “work”. As a public school teacher, I must say that it would be perfect if we could actually allow more time and latitude for creativity. However, in Texas anyway, our kids are required to know such a vast array of information and are tested on it. I think testing our kids so structurally deducts from creativity. I hope we can all encourage as much creativty as possible!
God Bless.
I loved this video. I would love to see it be a part of a teachers seminar.
Wow…I needed to hear that more than ever as I go thru various issues with my son.
thank you.
Wow! What a speaker and what a wonderful message. We’re unschooling due to the academic morass (the endless testing and how teachers have to teach to the test & more) that is like a quicksand to the creative genius of these big souls in temporarily little packages that we call our children.
Whoo-hoo! Thanks so much for the powerful message.
As a teacher (and a parent), this is why I began teaching. It’s great to hear people are thinking of the future.
is a dvd copy available to show to a large audience? Would love to show this to a gathering of educators.
If you can’t find anything to click on…you might be on your work computer or at work and your local server is blocking you from it. I tried it at home last night on my personal computer and it worked. There was something to click on and it worked. At work, however, there is nothing to click on. When I found the link to it, the district blocked it. Just FYI in case you are checking it from work.
Take care!
I was not able to view the video, but after reading many of the above comments, I have an idea as to what it featured. I am a k-6 art instructor and have almost 20 years of teaching experience, and cannot tell you the level of frustration I have in regards to this topic. Curriculum is a great passion of mine. I have taught virtually every subject at one point or another, although Art is my main endorsement. There is no other subject quiet like it. You use every thinking and problem solving skill, simultaneously to create any project. Product completions is mental, emotional and physical. I feel that to teach this subject area best, is to give a set of outcome goals and then let students be creative in achieving those goals, or in other words, there is not 1 right answer to the problem. It is unfortunate for our children that this is not the norm.
In addition, the value for creativity is missing among many who make curriculum and instructional practice decisions that affect teachers and their rooms. Most have a great understanding for assessments and dollars, they say creativity is important, but only if can be objectively assessed and the outcome is all the same. Hmmmm.
This year has been my most difficult. Never, have I had so many Kindergartners so overcome with the fear of failing and making a mistake that they won’t even try. The anxiety over failing leaves them in sobbing tears. I in my room, effort and process always overrides profection and product. I am currently teaching 33 sections between 2 buildings, with NO time in between sections ( I have learned how not to go pee), I see every grade every day with no time to clean-up or set-up between sections. I have been told, though not directly, that it is about contact more so than instruction. I could go on and on, but I think I have said enough. I am not alone. There are MANY others with budgets of less than 50 cents per student for supplies and impossible schedules.
It was refreshing to read my email today and see this was the topic. I was beginning to think I was alone in feeling the way I do. And if you are someone who can do something about this, good luck and god speed. As for me, I have been told to just be glad I still have a job…. for now.
Wow, what an incredibly neat video. Like a true notetaker, I had my scratch paper out, because there were some of his comments that have to be repeated. He was as pleasantly humorous as i was pleasantly surprised to hear a “meeting of the minds” on education speaker so geniune and so full of truth.
SirKenRobinson, thank you!
Wonderul video!…I learned a lot!
Thank you for sharing this wonderful video. As homeschooling parents, this clip truly touched our heart. We feel that the arts completely neglected in most educational curriculums, even the homeschooling ones. Thanks again.
Creativity in education requires a whole new level of trust in ourselves and our children as the hope for the future. As parents we want our children to be able “to make a living” because our generation focused on that. Now we realize being fulfilled in life is so much more and our world needs innovative, creative thinkers who are not afraid to experiment and try something new. Every child has some important contribution that we must carefully nuture, not shut down.
Can’t view the video…it doesn’t come up…
I thought Ken Robinson made some valid observations. Pretty much any teacher realizes that children have individual strengths and learning strategies. SOmetimes the fact that they are IN an institution necesitates a certain uniformity.
From teaching my own children, (this yr. 6 different grades) one of the toughest things is to recognize and accomodate these differences.
I’d like to comment that we should not be in a rush to equivocate encouraging creativity with removing what small vestiges of discipline remain in public schools. Many children require a routine, a set-out dependable way of doing things, to give them the confidence to ‘take a risk’ and be creative. They need a safe, as in ‘I know what to expect’ environment in order to achieve the limits of their creative genius. Adults - caring adults , need to set up a structure for them and then find ways of helping go further. Realisticly, a public school has the problem of only getting the first part done. More and more, parents are too busy to take up the rest , and the children are deprived of what used to be creative play time with siblings, by not having any, or by electronic baby-sitters.
Someone mentioned drills as a negative. My personal experience has been that they save a lot of time. Kids can learn quickly the basics, and progress to the creative sooner. A child who masters the basics , has the tools to do pretty much anything he is interested in. Including dance, drama, music , art, small’business’ ventures, work on ’causes’ they are attached to, developing friendsips and relationships, etc…
These are all creative endeavors.
How easy is it to be creative in ‘drama’ without language? to write creatively without reading skills? To creatively comprehend and explore mathematics without the basic understanding of relationships between numbers and spaces and quantities? We must be careful not to take the easy road and go for ‘play time only’. Play time itself, can be stifling, with no new material to use.
Children have the ability to learn any variety of ways, and their challenges are far reaching as well… they require a caring guide in learning sometimes, and the caring guide is the part that is sometimes missing in a rules based system. The care for the overall well-being of the child has to be paramount. Anyone who worships academics above the vulnerable individual in his/her classroom should not, in my opinion, be given guardianship of anyone’s child.
What I take from Ken Robinson’s video is not a suggestion of a free for all, void of discipline chaotic approach to teaching. I understood the message to be that if someone is not taking the time to recognize what is going right with a child, they will become focused on what is going wrong with the child, and ultimately destroy much of what was going right to begin with.
Children love to engage themselves towards various objectives of learning and achievement, and self-confidence is one of the few requirements to enjoying that process - to children who believe they are appreciated for what they can do right, whatever or how small, that child will engage the opportunity to learn something else.
The child’s potential is unlimited, and we don’t need to push a child to want what is good - that part is natural - we just need to take away obstacles, provide hope and opportunity. Not enough people, in my estimation, adequately value the trusting relationship between pupil and teacher, or the teacher’s own belief in a child and the way it affects a child. Too often human kindness and attention to the actual person is overlooked for the sake of expediency.
Instead of obtaining objectives buy-in and co-respect, along with respect for the various roles of children and teacher, a teacher can fall back on rules and use those rules to apply a discipline or oppression - that without the former is just a lack of skill or caring, is highly ineffective, does nothing to produce quality character, and may have been what Mr. Robinson was pointing out.
I would love teachers and coaches to have a greater appreciation for all of the mysteries and talents that can be unlocked in each group of children they meet, simply by engaging them as individuals that they respect, one by one.
I have been an educator in Malta for 34 years and I’ve never heard more common sense. I was impressed to say the least. This video is a must see for all teachers
Great video! Sir Robinson said what many of us are thinking. I think it’s not just the educators that need to hear it though, it’s the politicians. Our whole system needs an overhaul! Teaching to test will just keep us going down this path we are on. By overloading kids with what they “need” to succeed in today’s high tech world, we’re quickly pushing ourselves out of being competitive. We’re failing our children, and unless we start demanding change in our education system to not only respect diversity (in individual strengths), but value it, we won’t be strong in any field. We certainly won’t be able to pass on to our children the country we grew up in.
I have a 2 and a 4 1/2 year old, and my biggest stress is knowing soon I’ll have to figure out the best school option for them. My son loves painting, and music, and dancing, and I’ve already heard out of him in preschool, “Why do we have to sit in those chairs all day?” He’s very bright, and I want to make sure he’s in a school where his passions will be respected. Not an easy task when we look at most schools, both public and private.
Great video and a reminder for all of us - not just educators. How often have we told a child what to wear? I finally learned with my third that it’s okay to wear an orange top with bright blue leggings and a brown skirt. We need to encourage creative not squash it.
I’m a high school teacher and can’t tell you the number of times I’ve talked to unhappy students who are taking subjects because their parents want them to be ________. Students drop art or drama courses for courses towards careers that pay well. We as a society do not value the arts as much as we should and maybe schools are just reflecting our values.
Also, we need to keep in mind that there are many types of learners and we need to advocate for children to make sure that their learning styles are known to the teacher and accommodated for.
That was an extremely important and powerful message… Thank you Ellen for sharing that with us!
This really brought me to tears as I am struggling with my youngest “adjusting” to his first year of school at the same time as my eldest takes her first steps into the world of “getting a job” etc. Well said, well presented, important information. The phrase “it’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it” comes to mind. The relationship between teacher and child is paramount for communicating respect and openness to uniqueness and originality. Reading can be taught in a two-way, fun way for example. I hope my children’s teachers will not think they know my children before they even meet them. I hope they know learning is a full experience that encompasses the body. Children at school are learning far more than what is actively taught. They are excellent at learning, not stupid, and they know “intuitively” if their creativity is welcomed…or not. More power to nurturing the whole person, for the benefit of all.