Assignment: Response to Ken Robinson Videos

Video #1: Ken Robinson on Schools Killing Creativity

[Link] to video.

I was immediately drawn to this video by its title because in 1991, I was rerouted from public school to private school because my parents were told I had ADHD. Several steps were taken to combat this alleged malady of mine: I received one extra year of nursery school, and my parents paid for one year of private Kindergarten in hopes that the individualized attention would correct the problem. However, by the end of my Kindergarten year, two events stood out like a sore thumb on my final report card, summed up by the following phrase:

Does not pay attention or correct incorrect behavior.

My teacher cited to incidents. One, while completing one weekly alphabet exercise, I incorrectly placed the letter C flashcard atop a picture of a towel, despite being corrected several times. Years later when I gained the ability to explain my own train of thought, I told my mother why: "The towel was too small, I thought it was a cloth."  In my house, the term cloth was used to describe a small towel we used to wipe counters and do dishes. I did not misunderstand the alphabet exercise as my teacher thought, but I was making a very precise determination!

The second incident ran along the more traditional lines of ADHD diagnosis. While in the midst of reciting my numbers, I apparently looked to my teacher and said, "I'm going over there to play right now," and abruptly cut my lesson short to play in the corner with the faux kitchen set. In reality, I was not being neglectful of studies, I was simply bored of reciting the number sequence of 1 through 20 once again.

My parents responded to this report by placing me in a grade called Transition, which was offered by the local public school. It was designed as a grade between Kindergarten and 1st grade, and reiterated much that was already learned. It even had nap time!

But years later, when I graduated with a 4.5 GPA and went on to college, my parents began to realize: it wasn't that I had ADHD, I was simply not challenged. Add this to my love of writing fiction and art, and my parents further realized that I was looking at the world as a writer and storyteller even in Kindergarten, every time I skipped a lesson to play with the kitchenette's fake pots and pans.

With these two incidents in mind, I immediately rushed to Ken Robinson's School Kills Creativity video. A line that struck me as a theme to his presentation was: "Shakespeare was in somebody's classroom." That he was, along with many other creative masters of the past and present. Who then is in a classroom now, feeling stigmatized as Robinson put it, or otherwise unaccomplished in the academic sense?

I found it curious overall that worldwide, mankind has managed to establish an "academic hierarchy," as Robinson put it: Math and Language stands at its peak, followed by Science, then the Humanities. The Arts compose the bottom, with music and art rated slightly higher than drama and dance. And yet, when thought about enough, it is music, art, drama and dance that every culture looks to for entertainment. It is creativity that identifies and drives a culture, but we have developed an opposing academic culture to "ruthlessly squander it."

It is not a purposeful kill, in the sense that we understand the end result that is cut out. It is more of a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of students, and their creative capability.

During harsh economic times, the Arts is often the first casualty of the school budget. In my former high school, the school board as decreed a $100 charge on all elective courses - a major blow to students like myself who filled their electives with music, art, drama and dance. With four available slots for electives, a student can potentially be charged upwards of $400 just for their creative ability.

What kind of message is this wordlessly penning for these students? That creativity comes with a price? That it is not prized as much as sports, which charges students considerably less? That talent outside of the core academic subjects has no acceptable place in public schools?

Teachers do not only teach in the classroom. How students and their talents are received likewise serves as a lesson: they are either acceptable, or unacceptable. But why is there so much stigma attached to creativity? As Robinson theorizes, public schools produce university professors, who live life in their heads. Their heads are where they think.

But a creative student may express thought in different outlets, such as art, or music composition. These are no less profound, in fact they take an entirely different set of skills that must be taught, practiced and mastered. How it is considered a lesser accomplishment than someone who can express verbally or by words is astounding, given that music and art require no less training or dedication to master.

Overall, this stirred a passion within me, and I enjoyed the presentation throughout. Robinson has a very humorous way of speaking, and is prone to tangents. But I enjoyed each of his tangents, because each worked as a parable, relating back to the topic at hand: "we are educating [students] out of their creative capacities," and this will affect the future. How are education's worst problems to be combated and resolved, if they are not approached with creativity?

Creativity is the future, Robinson says, and as a former public school student who was also victimized by a misplaced academic hierarchy, I agree with him.