I came across this TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson and I think it captures so much of what I feel about the challenge for educationalists, whether university lecturers or dance teachers. As your explore reflection on practice as a concept, I would be really interested to know your thoughts on Sir Ken's talk. You could look at his previous TED talk from four years ago, which I found inspiring, hilarious, but truly challenging as a teacher working within the education system. Sir Ken produced a seminal report on creativity in the curriculum, which you may wish to look at. I attach it as a PDF to Libguides (module WBS 3002).
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Sir Ken Robinson gets it just right; his tone, a juxtaposition between comical yet informative, captivates his audience from the offset. He presents similar running themes throughout both his lectures, playing with the idea that our obsession with enthralling ourselves in education of such a linear narrative, neglects natural, diverse human talent. Confidence, he suggests, is the ability to recognise organic flair within individuals, whilst both allowing and encouraging it to flourish.
ReplyDeleteEducation systems promote the opinion that any artistic creativity should be combated, suppressed, buried. The expectation of people is to conform... Not to achieve their dynamic dreams. The result? Squandered talent. Sir Ken Robinson explains that we should not lose our capacity to be original by making mistakes; on the contrary, this is how we learn. He insists we should not become institutionalised, and I wholeheartedly agree.
The Arts, dance in particular, has always had a certain stigma attached to it; it’s not a core curriculum subject nor is it widely considered an intellectual one, but, a child deprived of social skills, spacial awareness or social interaction, just to mention a few qualities dance harbours during development, would most certainly be lacking.
Firstly I think I should start by saying I really enjoyed listening to them. I loved the way that he kept a very light and jokey atmosphere, allowing the audience to engage in what he was saying rather than sitting there feeling like they were being lectured. He brought up a lot of very interesting points, in particular the idea that all educational systems are going through a revolution, I do believe that the educational system does need to be changed but they need to decide on a new system, implement it and stick to it. It seems like over the past 9 years (since the introduction of AS levels) they have been changing and tweaking things almost every year.
ReplyDeleteI think that his idea that education should be personalised to fit the school and the pupils is a very good one and I hope that the introduction of academy schools should help with this. Allowing teachers to get back to teaching a subject and not merely how to pass an exam, like Ken I believe way too much onus is put on passing exams when we should be nurturing children’s talents and passions. As he mentioned in his speech entitled ‘do schools kill creativity?’ for too long we have been putting a disproportionate amount of focus on the subject that we think will help you to get a job and allowing the creative subjects to fall by the wayside because the children are not going to grow up to be artists, musicians or dancers. Like him I think if children enjoy school more then they will get more out of it. To me, at the moment it seems like the government is more interested in the statistics coming out of a school, like exam results and tracking grades then they are about the quality of education the children are receiving. I was helping the art director to do our tracking grades last week and neither of us could see the point of giving a year seven a grade as they have only been in the school for five weeks, they have barely had time to learn where they are going.
‘We have sold ourselves to a fast food model of education and it is impoverishing our spirit and our energy as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies.’ Sir Ken Robinson ‘Bring on the learning revolution’ TED conference 2010
He also touched on the idea that it is wrong to think that education is linear, it should be organic, grow as the individual grows, too many people are being pushed down the same path, go to school, go to university, get a job; but as he said not everybody should be going to university. At the end of their school career we should be looking more closely at the individual’s talents and giving them guidance rather than just telling them move on to the next step. There are so many people now that have a bachelor’s degree that it is losing its importance, before it would mean you would get a good job now you need an MA for that because there are not as many good jobs as there are people with degrees. Perhaps when the government raises the tuition fees it will stop this and people will concentrate more on what they are good at rather than simply getting a degree. I just hope that it will not turn universities back into an elitist privilege.
‘Your job is not about what you do but who you are.’ Sir Ken Robinson ‘Bring on the learning revolution’ TED conference 2010
I very much enjoyed his story about Gillian Lynne and it made me think about how quick we are to dismiss some children’s behaviour and blame it on a disorder or a learning disability. Like Gillian some people have to move to think, some people relate better to images then words and some children are just insolent. This made me think about one of the children in my school, we are told that he was not challenged enough in Primary school and as a result has developed ADHD, I just want to clarify he has not been diagnosed by a doctor this is what his parents believe; and because of this disorder he is allowed to disrupt lessons and swear at the teachers. Is this an illness or is this just a rude little kid?
On a whole I thoroughly enjoyed his speeches and thanks for sharing them with us.
What extremely interesting and thought provoking talks by Sir Ken Robbinson! He really is a great speaker- not only funny but captures his audience relating his argument to everyday, real situations. I totally agree with his philosophy and I too can relate. I loved the fact how he talks about people who just go through their lives just getting on with it. I am someone that LOVES what I do. When I dont dance I do a lot of promotional work and this is when I understand how he was saying when you LOVE something the time flys because when I am promoting it goes by ever so slow! I think our education does dislocate us from our talents. All my dancing lessons I had to take outside of school. I was dancing 5 nights after school and went on Saturdays to The Royal Ballet in London for my training as you could not have that level of teaching in school. 'Bring on the learning revolution' TED 2010 as ou system now is based on what worked years ago. This is not an easy task but something that must be acted on. 'We must think anew and act anew. We must disenthral ourselves' Abraham Lincon, 1862. This is the idea that we just take things for granted that this is how the order is, but we must accept things need to change.
ReplyDeleteHis talk 4 years ago in California asks whether we are 'growing out of creativity?' TED Conference 2006. He explains how we are almost being educated from waist up and our education system seems to only be concerned with our academic ability to prepare us for University. But what about the rest of us? Why are the arts at the bottom of the education system? Even music and drama are getting recognised yet some schools still dont offer dance. I had to take my GCSE Dance outside of school as they didnt offer it there. His ideas reflect those of Howard Garder who introduced the idea of multiple intelligences. I can relate to one story he told on his recent talk (Feb 2010)about a Fireman. I remember being asked what I wanted to do on a careers day at school and when I told them that I wanted to be a dancer the response I got was that this was not a proper career and that I needed a back up. So I chose Journalism and had to do my careers day based on that. Intelligence is so diverse you cannot say that just because someone had bodily kinaesthetic or musical intelligence that they will not have a career from that. If we all had logical, mathmatical minds then the world would be an extremely boring place to live! It is these multiple intelligences that makes each and every person unique and we should and cannot suppress creativity.
We are conforming to the idea that we should follow the education system right through from primary, secondary school, college and onto University, which for some (Doctors, Lawyers, University Professors) is the case. However, what about the others? He talks about how we are standardizing education and it should be customized. Learning should be an organic process, not a mechanical one.
A degree is now worth nothing as so many people are coming out of University with one. When applying for a job it actually now comes down to other experiences, talents and personality you have. My dad conducts many interviews at his office job with Ernst and Young where he might interview a graduate from Oxford with a top degree or a graduate from another University and it often comes down to having extra experiences and personality to be a team player.
The idea of personalized learning to create a place where children can find their natural talents is definatley what is needed in todays society so that children can grow into not out of creativity.
I really enjoyed listening to Ken Robinsons 2010 TED talk. I loved his quote ‘human communities depend upon a diversity of talent’.
ReplyDeleteIt made me think so many young people struggle with knowing what they want to do after they leave school. They don’t get the support, guidance and knowledge they need to know what direction to take. My sister for example had finished studying and gained her degree and has a good job, but she still doesn’t really know what she wants to do...does she enjoy her job? No I don’t think she is. People go through the motions and do the work but aren’t really engaged in what they are doing.
Finding the right career for yourself is very important, it’s something we can spend 40 years of our life doing and that’s a long time to be doing something that doesn’t bring you any joy.
If more time and energy was put into nurturing people’s talents and from a young age, giving them diversity in education, feeding their individual passions and giving them knowledge of the wide range of opportunities in the world I think many people would have a much more fulfilling working life.
Nowadays too much emphasis is put on what society would deem as a ‘good’ job, and how much money you earn. A ‘good’ job should not be measured by financial gain but by emotional fulfilment