Thursday, October 28, 2010

Summary of Introduction & Chapter 1 – Bursting the Banks – from Out of Our Minds – Learning to be Creative by Ken Robinson

In his introduction, Ken Robinson stresses the importance of creativity, not just in the arts, but for all businesses and organizations if they are to be competitive in the global community.  He states that everyone has creative capabilities, but we often don’t recognize them or make an effort to develop them.
There are strategies that businesses can use to stimulate creativity among its employees, but that is only a short-term fix.  The long-term solution needs to come from our educational system. 
Robinson states, “This is now dominated by a narrow view of academic education that overlooks the greater part of young people’s intellectual capacities…  In the interests of raising standards, schools and universities are increasingly encased in standard testing regimes that inhibit teachers themselves from promoting creative development.  In a profoundly ironic way, many political initiatives to raise standards in education are making matters worse.”
“The Bursting Banks” seems to refer to the explosion of changes in our lives due to the exponentially expanding technology.  Robinson views change as being the normal progression of civilization, but he impresses that changes are now occurring at an incredible rate, and we need to develop new skills to survive and flourish in this new culture.  He does not believe that our strongly academic approach to education is allowing our youth to develop the skills they will need for a globally competitive job market.
Robinson urges schools to spend much more time on basic communication and problem solving skills.  Our students need to be imaginative, innovative, flexible, adaptable, self-confident, and capable of working well in teams.  Schools need to stress vocational relevance and promote transferable skills.
Robinson believes, “ The dominate ideologies of education are now defeating their most urgent purpose: to develop people who can cope with and contribute to the breathless rate of change in the 21st century – people who are flexible, creative and have found their talents.”  He concludes that just trying to strengthen the same academic programs that we have taught for generations will not solve the problem.  We need to develop different, cross-disciplinary approaches to education.

2 comments:

  1. As educators, we need to model creativity for our students. I agree that teachers are VERY limited in their own creativity right now as we are given strict parameters for curriculum in order to achieve those high test scores! We have the challenge to be creative in other ways within the limits put upon us. Our elementary school has put into place some collaborative pieces for educators through the BLT's, and regular multi-grade level meetings. That is a good start to gaining more tools to stretch the sides of that box we feel we are sometimes put into when we educate our children!

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  2. This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

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