I'm in grad school now, working towards a master in Public Administration. I've finished my first semester and I've discovered it's as challenging if not more, than I thought it would be. And, I think I want to share some of the discussions I have in regards to the many topics we discuss. In Leadership Ethics my professor wanted us to reflect on some TED Talks that students shared with the class. Here is one of them.
Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
I support Sir Ken Robinson’s ideas about the importance of creativity, and that we are teaching creativity out of students. It reminded me about a story, one of my college professor told our political science 101 class one day. It was about when his son was a 4th grader and the teacher told him at a parent teacher conference that he couldn’t sit still in class. He was always fidgeting and it was disrupting class because of all his wiggling. He said, “well, he’s a 4th grader, they fidget, they're kids, they SHOULD be wiggling around in their seats.” My professor was really disappointed in the fact that we expect children to sit still in class for hours, and that was just unnatural. That always stuck with me.
Yeah, kids are little balls of energy and we spend all this time finding ways to suppress their energy and creativity instead of harnessing it and allowing children to try and fail. I fail all the time, in school, at work, in my personal life, but I take those failures as opportunities to learn and grow. To be and do better. Working with youth, I have more patience and understanding for their need to wiggle and fidget, and most of the time I encourage it. As long as no breaks anything or pokes an eye out. Enachescu and Damasaru (2013), also support Robinson’s ideas; they said, “innovation and creativity can greatly improve the efficiency, transparency, accountability and responsiveness in educational systems” (pg. 644).
One of the lessons I take from Robinson, is “preparing to be wrong.” His point was, If one is not prepared to be wrong, than one is not prepared to come up with an original idea (Robinson, 2006). He said that we’ve been teaching children to work in an industrialized society, but if we keep doing that, it will create a generation of workers, who will be ill prepared for the ever growing global and technological work place. In my own work place we allow for lots of creative ideas and problem solving. I will continue to be open to new was of seeing and doing things. I also, nurture that type of thinking with the kids and adults I work with.
The other lesson that was interesting to me was his example of Gillian Lynne, who was also a fidgety little girl. When she was allowed to go to dance school, she became a world class dancer who has entertained thousands of people and became very successful professionally. There are probably many Gillian Lynnes we have suppressed with medication and told to simmer down. I will continue to look past the surface of the people I work with in order to harness people’s true talents. Talent that maybe they have not harnessed or suppressed because it was not encourage in school or at home. I would also, hope at some point I can help to create policy that changes how schools educate students. Additionally, encourage society to understand the importance to fund arts & drama in public schools, for the continued betterment and growth of human kind.
References
Enachescu, V., & Damasaru, C. (2013). Innovation and creativity in human resource management. why should we change the way we teach our students? Revista De Management Comparat International, 14(4), 644-653. Retrieved from http://0- search.proquest.com.ignacio.usfca.edu/docview/1501910075?accountid=14674
Robinson, K., (Feb. 2006). Do Schools Kill Creativity? TED Talk. Retrieved July 7, 2015 http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity/transcript?language=en
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