Sir Ken Robinson's remarks were recorded on April 10, 2008, at the Apple Education Leadership Summit, a gathering in San Francisco of more than one hundred school superintendents from around the world. Robinson is the author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative.
This video is the second part of a two-part presentation. To learn more, view the first part.
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I'm not so sure how one can plausibly test an infant's divergent thinking skills...is he falsely comparing an infant's natural tendency to produce random unconnected utterences with actual divergent thinking??
I loved watching both parts
I loved watching both parts of this video. The diminution in children's creative thinking caused by our linear approach to education highlighted in both videos is very troubling. In Los Angeles, we operate a rigorous after-school dance program in the city's most underserved neighborhoods and are just concluding our fifth year operating a dance-themed charter school, Gabriella Charter School, where all students must take one hour of daily dance instruction. See http://www.youtube.com/user/everybodydanceLA#p/a/u/0/Wq675hQODkY. We are big believers in the power of arts education to stimulate children's academic achievement but we still have much to learn and are constantly fine-tuning our approach. Thank you for posting this video.
Waldorf again
Waldorf Education teaches for this kind of thinking..how to look for many possibilities, how to think in ways that use both synthesis and analysis..how to remain an artist, how to continue to think creatively. The arts are the medium through which all subjects are taught. The heart of education, the pedagogy, is a living, innovative and unique part of Waldorf schools.
This is pure genious. I am a
This is pure genious. I am a senior at Apopka High School in Apopka Florida and I have been thinking this same theory for years. The modern eduactional system destroys creativity. The main focus is memory and recal and these are mental boundries that our limited by our biology. It is unfair to say I am more intelligent or less intelligent because I dont remember something. An ability to create something new and beautiful shows true creativity and genious. Thank you for showing the educational world how they have robbed me of individuality and inteligence.
Creativity
Wonderful!!! As an artist now and art teacher in the past I have always believed these principles Sir Ken Robinson is expressing in this video. It is a confirmation for me and makes me feel hopeful about the public educational system that I have long been a critic of, as a student and as a teacher. Thankyou Sir Ken for this wonderful educational and such vital work. I will do everything to inform others about this video and have posted it onto my own website and Facebook, etc. - Catherine Meyers
http://appleriverartstudio.googlepages.com
The faculty of imagination
Thank you for sharing Sir Ken Robinson’s erudite and engaging presentation.
The faculty of imagination is largely associated with artistic expression. As a result, its cultivation is left primarily to arts education, which problematically is unavailable in most schools. Despite all constraints, students continue to ply their imaginations in myriad ways – directly and artistically through media such as poems, stories, graphic comics, music, painting, photography and video, and indirectly through activities like volunteering, special science or enterprise projects, and sports. A US study from the National School Boards Association shows that 96% of adolescents with online access create new content online, primarily outside school.
As recently as 2004, Harvard University’s Project Zero noted: “There should be room in assessment to reward imagination and creativity and care taken not to inhibit it.” Part of the challenge is that cultivating and assessing imagination requires a different frame of reference, language, and tools than those used for reason. As yet, there are no widely used protocols in place to include or value imagination in assessments, Consequently, the rich student effort, described above, goes largely unrecognized.
This failure is exacerbated further because school conditions students to think in terms of ‘right’ answers and ‘wrong’ ones. However, to be imaginative is to ask ‘what if?’ and ‘why not?’ It is to picture and express what doesn’t fully exist. Students, afraid of being wrong or sounding foolish, become stifled. Most, therefore, graduate with a diminished faith in their own capacity and little understanding of its true worth. These attitudes reflect the West’s historical bias against imagination, in favour of reason.
The zeitgeist is shifting. Imagination is seen increasingly as intrinsic to all endeavors. In 1964, the philosopher Henri Corbin wrote, “The most astounding information of modern science regarding the physical universe remains inferior to [the imagination].” It appears that the more we learn, the subtler the line becomes between what is real and what is imaginary. For example, the founder of Second Life, which has 1.7 million players, observes that the creation of an avatar is a ‘gateway’ experience between the “real” world and the world of imagination. Because the creative process is so intense, the players’ online characters are strongly identified with. Not surprisingly, virtual economies are now generating significant financial profit in what gamers call the First World. The ability to imagine alternative selves in simulated virtual worlds, no matter how fantastical, ultimately helps stretch understanding of who we are and what reality is. There’s also a growing interdisciplinary body of research and practice regarding the use of such imaginative activity in health science, sports psychology, social psychology, organizational management, community development, and the military.
Howard B. Esbin, PhD
www.heliotrope.ca