Ken Robinson has several themes running through his book. A main theme from the subtitle is learning to be creative. Throughout his book, Robinson indicates that schools are not focusing in the right areas to promote the creativity that will be necessary for our students to be productive leaders in the business world of tomorrow.
Robinson states that our present education system is “dominated by a narrow view of academic education that overlooks the greater part of young people’s intellectual capacities”. He goes on to say that “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.”
When I started teaching in 1968, there did not seem to be a lot of direction for what to teach at each level. I have to admit that it is helpful to have more direction and organized plans for courses of study at each level. However, I often feel that we have pushed the planning around specific standards too far. I often feel limited in planning for my students when I know they will need a particular topic that is not written into the standards. On the other hand when students are not working up-to-speed in a particular area, it is necessary to go back and pick up standards from a lower level. Since we are required to include our standards in our lesson plans, I am often stretching a concept a lot to make it appear to fit. I do not enjoy being placed in a position of either stretching the concept of the standard or doing my students a disservice by not providing them with topics they will need.
At the yearly math/science conference in Huron, there is often a panel of university instructors brought together to help the high school teachers understand what our students need to be successful at the university level. When I have attended these sessions, the university professors have unanimously been very dissatisfied with our high school standards. They do not feel that the students coming out of our high schools today are as well prepared as they were before so much stress was placed on teaching to the standards.
I agree with Robinson that our stress on teaching so that our students will do well on an academic test is seriously limiting what we could and should be doing for our students. As Robinson says, “The dominant 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.”
Robinson argues that our preoccupation with a very limited scope of academics is short-changing many of our students. Granted, reading, math, and science are important, but so is the ability to communicate effectively in a variety of ways. The fine arts have been relegated to a poor second-class field in many schools, disservicing many of our young people with wonderful talents in these areas. If our students of the future are to function well in society, classes such as sociology, psychology, and other areas of the social studies are important. We are so busy trying to force all of our students into very specific molds, that we are preventing them from developing their own talents and creative powers.
As Robinson says, “Our ideas can enslave or liberate us.” We need less enslaving and more liberating.
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