Ken Robinson

Even in modern day 20th century despite our growth in society, anyone who wishes to pursue any dreams or aspirations in the arts is heavily criticized for any chance of success and is frowned upon. In this article, Robinson (2006) takes an interesting approach to convey his point across that school education systems kill creativity. He takes three approaches which are listing, explaining and analysis. He uses he’s own personal stories and professional stand point to grasp the reader’s attention. Robinson discusses the theme spoken throughout the presentations and how it will tie into his presentation. He now goes on by explaining that creativity should be treated with the same status as literacy has in education. According to Robinson (2006) he states, “We stigmatize mistakes and we’re now running a national education system where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. The result of creating that stigma is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities”. Robinson refers to a quote from Picasso that states “all children are born artist”. How will we fix these issues and keep the creative mindset if all we do is frown upon those who are more artistically bound rather than academically bound. Robinson shares a perfect example of the previous statement. He shares a story of a personal friend named Gillian Lynne, a world known choreographer for Phantom of the Opera and Cats. He opposed the question to Gillian on how she became a dancer and she explained that in school she felt hopeless and could never concentrate. The teacher suggested to her parents that she had a learning disorder; she was sent to see a psychologist who later on came to the conclusion after observing her that Gillian was not sick in anyway, she was just a dancer. She later on attended a dance school, auditioned Ken Robinson 3 for the Royal Ballet Academy, graduated and founded her own company. One of many perfect examples of artistic people who became insanely successful despite the lack of academics. Robinson (2006) concludes with how there are three types of intelligence, “it’s diverse, it’s dynamic and it’s distinct”. According to Robinson (2006) “We invest a lot of time into educating children on how to succeed in the future but if we are unable to predict the future in five years despite our expertise the who’s to say we’re meant to educate them for it.” How will we prepare them for a time that is so far away and technology that has yet to be invented yet. Robinson goes into further analyzation when he says “We must adopt a new conception of human ecology, one of which we start to reconstitute out conception of the richness of human capacity”. As for the future it won’t serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we’re educating our children”. Robinson (2006) How can we push the human capacity to its full potential if we’re not exploring all it its aspects. We would not have people like William Shakespeare if we didn’t explore the artistic aspect and the historic change made in art and literacy. Robinson did an exceptional job at capturing the reader’s attention and let the think of his discussion and making them form their own opinion. He also backed up every point with a personal story and/or fact which made this more effective. He used humour as an essential way to make his presentation entertaining yet analytical. He argued both pros and cons to each paradigm in order to show he was not biased.

Ken Robinson 4

Robinson theory that school kills creativity was proven to be well written and presented by adding humour, personal stories and facts. He left the readers with a lot to debate about and consider.