Standing Ovation: How Schools Kill Creativity: Silent Diologue

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

How Schools Kill Creativity: Silent Diologue

In his lecture "How Schools Kill Creativity" Ken Robinson states that "creativity should be as important in education as literacy," and that "dance is as important as neuroscience." What he means by this is that Artistic schools of thought are just as important as their more emphasized counterparts. Robinson believes that the way the education system is set up stifles creativity that children possess inherintly. Robinson says that the traditional education system molds us into people who are frightened of making mistakes, and believes it is detremental in the long run. Robinson emphasizes the thought that "If you're not prepared to be wrong you'll never come up with anything original." While Robinson clearly states that Math, Science, Language etcetera is important to a degree what he worries is that we're just not paying enough homage to the arts. Robinson believes that intelligence is in his words made up of 3 qualities: it is distinct, dynamic and diverse and if we cater to only one side of the spectrum a lot of kids who are truly talented will be left behind thinking they're not good enough, because their talents havn't been embraced by the current education system. I would have to agree with Robinson, when i was in middle school and high school I could barely pass my classes but somehow turned up straight A's in music. My lack of production in the traditional classes made me feel like there was something wrong with me, like I couldn't produce like I should. I feel like had my talents been embraced I might have had a more confident youth and not felt as much like a failure. I think if more people were educated on the subject it might be easier for society to embrace a change in the current system.

1 comment:

MikeyP.February 9, 2011 at 4:59 PM
Yeah i too hate the fact that our talents go to waste in public education as our schools don't embrace our talents such as music, but care more about english and math. But what if you don't want a career in those subject, it doesn't make you any less intelligent if you don't master those skills or not.
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Welcome

Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Standing Ovation”! The title of this blog refers to the audience of active readers we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! I encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. I hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it!