Ken Robinson: How to escape educations death valley

Ken Robinson’s talks are always entertaining and thought provoking. Watch this TED Talk in which Ken Robinson discusses the following topics:

  • Disengagement
  • Children are diverse
  • Education focuses on a narrow spectrum
  • ADHD
  • Broad curriculum
  • Curiosity
  • A creative profession
  • Standardised testing
  • Creativity is important
  • Individualise teaching and learning
  • Engage students
  • Teachers need discretion and autonomy

Do schools kill creativity?

This talk by Sir Ken Robinson at the 2006 TED Conference is a fantastically entering and funny but more importantly thought provoking talk. It is one of if the most watched TED talks ever with 3,974,014 views. I have seen it a few times over the past couple of years and it makes me think about how a pedagogical scaffold like Blooms, which places creativity at the top of higher order thinking skills, is often at odds with the way schools educate students. Ken Robinson’s talk is about how he believes schools kill creativity.

Why is it that every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects, mathematics and languages at the top and on the bottom are the arts? Ken Robinson 2006