In Ken Robinson’s video Changing Education on Paradigms he discusses how every country on the earth is reforming public education. We need to know how to educate our children to take their place in the 21st century economies. We need to educate our children so they have a cultural identity. Today, most children believe that just because you have a college degree does not mean you will be guaranteed a job, which is absolutely correct. The problem with our current learning system is that it was designed for a different age period. We must raise education standards because we are in the 21st century. Ken Robinson feels that our students cannot focus because we have so many technological tools, but they are not being put to use. Instead, teachers are using the same boring lesson plan that consists of lecturing. He states “ We are getting our children through education by anaesthetising them.” We are basically putting them to sleep because of boredom when we should be waking them up to what is inside themselves. Schools are made up of standardization and we need to move in the opposite direction from this. Schools need to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of creativity.
What can we learn from Sir Ken Robinson? We can learn so much from this inspirational man. Our students need to focus on being creative thinkers and unfortunately our education system only educates to be good workers. In our classrooms we will cultivate our students’ interest and energy. Ken Robinson teaches you not to educate students out of their creativity. We want to create unlimited possibilities in our classrooms and acknowledge each student’s talents. Mr. Robinson points out the importance of acknowledging your student’s talents because so many feel that if their talent does not fit into the education system’s classification then they are not considered intelligent. Our students should be unleashing their talents and discovering their culture identity in the world. Sir Ken Robinson really gave us a new outlook and his words could not be more true. We need to truly rethink our school systems and make our students feel alive again.
Author: Kynyetta Barren
In Sir Ken Robinson video, The Importance of Creativity he speaks at a conference about how education is killing creativity. He believes that creativity is as important as literacy. A lot of teachers just want their students to get the work done, pass a test, or do a project. Creativity should be encouraged in everything you do in the classroom. Ken tells us that “Education is meant to take you into a future that you can’t grasp.” What he means by this is no matter how much we learn we will never catch up to all the new advancements that are being made. He states that children in this generation are frightened of being wrong and we are the cause of that. It is the reason schools kills creativity. We agree that children are scared of being wrong. We are scared of being wrong at the work we do for classes. Since we have taken EDM310 we feel that creativity is very important because it opens your mind up to different things that are being used in the classrooms. As Ken Robinson stated, “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.” We believe that education in schools is getting too caught up in the basics of teaching. Of course math, reading, writing, history are important, but what about the skills children show and use outside of the classroom. As educators, we can incorporate creativity into our lesson plans and promote students to use their creative minds! We could use smartboards, blogs, building projects, etc. Creativity involves breaking out of an established pattern in order to look at things in a different way. In our classroom we want our students to be creative and express themselves through art.
By Douglas R. Jarvis Jr.
Sir Ken Robinson delivered a wonderful commentary on education at a TED Talk in April of 2013. He discussed the irony of the legislation we call “no child left behind”. So what is ironic about this legislation? The dropout rate in some of our states approaches 60% and in Native American communities, it can grow as high as 80% ! So the irony is that we have created a system that leaves the majority of our children behind. Sir Robinson believes that we must first recognize that each child is an individual. No one method of teaching will ever be able to reach the learning personalities of every student. America has tried to standardize education to the degree that teachers struggle to be able to use their own creativity to develop lessons that inspire and capture the curiosity of a student. Sir Robinson made the point that children are naturally curious and it is quite an accomplishment to extinguish that. So why do we bogg down in standardized testing and allowing a room full of politicians to decide the best way for children to learn? Is it not the teacher and the school that facilitate learning? I completely agree with this assessment. To really change the dropout rate in this country, we have to return the teacher’s power to decide how to best reach his/her students. We need to allow the administrators in the schools to determine the effectiveness of the method a teacher may choose to use because they too are educators. As teachers, we must take this responsibility very seriously and not just try to teach information. We must encourage, counsel, advise , and be involved with the well being of each of our students. I believe every child has a gift and that it is our job to help him find it. Not every child is meant for the University but, that does not mean he can not be successful. Vocations provide the backbone of our nation and we are reaching a dangerous deficit of skilled workers in this country. Last year, I attended Alabama Community College System Governor’s Breakfast in Montgomery, Alabama as an ambassador from Bishop State. Dr Bentley expressed his concern that six million skilled jobs are unfilled in this country due to the lack of qualified workers. The kids are dropping out because they are discouraged and being treated as second class because they are not scholastically gifted. That is a crime! while I am proud of those gifted students as well we simply can not turn our back on a student because he can not score a 30 on the ACT. When we as teachers take the time to encourage our students and let them feel proud of themselves we give fuel to the student to keep fighting. So lets all find a way to reach our students and remember they are different but, they all deserve our best. Death Valley is the driest place in the U.S. Life is very scarce there and yet a few years ago with a rain system dropping seven inches of moisture onto the desert floor, flowers bloomed and blanketed a desert in green. This is a beautiful metaphor for our education system. If we rain support, creativity, and encouragement on our students we can cut the dropout rate and help every student blossom.
SEE THE DIFFERENCE!
SEE THE DIFFERENCE!
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