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

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

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.