Mr. Robinson is a creativity expert and he started out the video by stating that he felt creativity is just as important as literacy and should be treated on an equal level. He then went to tell a story about his son who was in a school play and one of the children got the wording wrong, but that child was not afraid of being wrong he just went with it. Robinson then said, "If you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original" which he feels most kids have lost that ideology by the time they are adults. Schools these days have decided that if you get an answer wrong then it is the worst thing to possibly happen and in return we are taking the creativity out of our youth. All public schools around the world have a hierarchy of subjects where the top is math and languages, the humanities, and then at the bottom are the arts. Robinson then goes to explain that the arts are not given the same time as mathematics and he wonders why. It is theorized that we teach our children from the waist up, and then their heads, and then a certain side of their head. He also thinks that the main goal of public schools is to create university professors. The hierarchy is split up into important with the top being the most and the middle and bottom are not as important so jobs in that should not be sought out. His finals thoughts are he thinks we need to completely rethink how we teach the youth.
Robinson's video was very informative and interesting to see. He said a lot of things that I hadn't really thought about. I agree with his view of the hierarchy. Some children can just not do well in academic classes it is not that they are dumb they just excel in the arts which is usually looked down upon. I feel like all of the subjects need to be equal and not just put on a pyramid because of standardized tests that tell how smart a child is. There are all different kids of children and only making tests or levels of intelligence based on one type of child is unfair. I enjoyed seeing his video and learning a different view of how our public schools should change.
I also watched this video and gained a better perspective on creativity! I agree with Robinson and you on having the arts be ranked a bit higher with the rest of academics. I believe some children just learned better in the arts, and it just may be their calling. Who are we to be depriving them of this privilege?
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Robinson when he says we cant be afraid to make mistakes. As young children we learned through our mistakes. The children in our future classrooms are no different then we were. Sometimes, they are going to have to get an answer wrong to see how to get the right one. We need to be shaping the whole child! Thanks for you input :)
I enjoyed reading your response to the video. I like it when you said, "There are all different kids of children and only making tests or levels of intelligence based on one type of child is unfair." I personally believe there are several types of intelligences, and each child has their own strengths and weaknesses. However, if we focus mainly on the weaknesses, aren't we holding them back in their strengths? We should be encouraging our students to further pursue and develop the skills they are good in and that they enjoy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think making mistakes is an important part of the learning process. However, it can discouraging when teachers enforce that there is only one correct answer. I feel as if we should be letting children figure out creative solutions to the problems instead of just giving them the correct answer. We should be teaching our students to think, not just repeat everything we taught them.