Sir Ken Robinson 'School Kills Creativity' TED Talk - A Reflective Journal

The main theme of Ken Robinson’s TED talk is that the creativity of children is not nurtured in our education system and that the schools are primarily focused on achieving academic success. He highlights that a significant potential problem with this could be that children will grow up scared to make mistakes. Making mistakes and learning from them is something that is an inevitable part of the creative process. He believes that creativity should be considered as important as literacy.

Children are being educated within a system that is examined very rigorously and where success is measured by grades and percentages and getting an answer wrong has become increasingly stigmatised. Young children aren’t afraid to make mistakes and will make attempt to answer a question; however this approach is educated out of children by the time they leave school.

Robinson discusses the idea of an educational hierarchy of subjects that exists in schools around the world. He puts maths and literacy at the top, followed by humanities such as history and geography then lastly the arts like drama and dance. The arts are considered the least important faculty and so have the least time and resources dedicated to them in school. He goes on to say that there is even a hierarchy within the arts themselves; art and music is considered more important than drama and dance.

The symptoms of this style of educating according to Ken Robinson are that it only serves to produce university professors. Academic success dominates the view of intelligence in society and so education focuses on academic achievement. Robinson predicts that in the next thirty years the amount of university graduates will cause academic hyper-inflation. Academic inflation is something that can be seen already. Twenty years ago a university degree could almost guarantee a respectable, reasonably paid job. Now there are a huge amount of university graduates that cannot find employment or who are working menial, minimum wage jobs. Also the level of university education required for certain jobs is increasing. Where previously a degree was required, now a masters is required, and where previously a masters was required a PHD is now required.

According to Ken Robinson the way we are educating our children for the future is not sustainable. There needs to be more emphasis on vocational education and building skills for work and for the future.

Ken Robinson does raise some interesting points in his TED talk, however I believe he puts far too much emphasis on creativity in education. I agree that academic inflation is already a problem but I think this is to be combated by having more vocational subjects taught in school. Children should be given the opportunity  to choose whether or not their education is academically focused or vocationally focused after a certain age, maybe fifteen or sixteen. Up until then literacy and numeracy are vital for any job sector, industry or academic career. I agree with the point Ken raises about the examination systems that are used in schools. They do not measure learning they are more often than not just a memory test and I don’t believe they give accurate results of an individuals’ intelligence or potential. I don’t believe that creative children will sustain an economy, I believe children who are literate, numerate and skilled to work will.