In this video, Sir Ken Robinson spoke about human creativity in general, and how it is being destroyed by schools. He initially mentioned the ingrained innovation and creativity that children have which are seen as unessential by the education system - but Sir Ken Robinson thinks it should be seen as important as literacy. He brought up the point that children are not afraid of being wrong, and they are fine with taking chances if they do not know exactly what to do. Sir Ken Robinson then said "If your not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original", and says that as we grow up, we become more afraid of being wrong. Tying this in with education, he said in our current education system, making mistakes are deemed unacceptable - thus taking away our creativity from the time we enter school.
I always have loved doing all forms of art as a hobby, but i hated art in school (along with every other subject). It was very easy to be wrong in art, at least with the teacher I had. I never did feel really comfortable with doing what I wanted and having fun in class, I always worried about meeting the teachers unclear expectations and tight deadlines. Art is probaly my favorite thing to do, but was my least favorite class in high school. Sir Ken Robinson then followed with a quote from Picasso, saying "All children are born artists; the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up". I personally think this is a great quote
Sir Ken Robinson describes this process as being 'educated out of it'. A large reason for this happens to be due to the hierarchy of subjects in all education systems, with the arts always being on the bottom (there is also a hierarchy within the arts: art and music is higher than drama and dance). Sir Ken Robinson’s opinion regarding this is that the arts should be equal to other academic subjects in the hierarchy. Many people don’t pursue their interests in fear that they cannot make a living with it. Sir Ken Robinson states that we know three things about intelligence: (1) It is diverse (2) it is dynamic (3) it is distinct. Composer John Phillip Sousa similarly shared the idea that our creativity is being destroyed - in the case of Sousa, he believed that new technology (at the time - 'talking machines') were destroying our creativity.
1 comment:
That sounds terrible, not being able to freely express your own art due to fear of criticism and failure. Art in the school systems, especially these days, should allow students to expand past simple formulas of right and wrong. Besides, what is art anyways? I'm positive every professors answer would include some sort of variation off the other's response. I know that art is a part of history, and it does have guidelines, but students shouldn't feel the need to conform to what somebody else expects.
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