Ken Robinson: How Schools Kill Creativity (Ted Talk)

School in a way "kills" our ability to be creative individuals, if we make a mistake we are looked down upon. This is something I learned from a speech about public schools.  I would have to say I agree.  Hello my name is George and this is my review on a Ted Talk. Basically TED conferences bring together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less).

In the Ted Talk I watched Ken Robinson talks about why creativity is as important as literacy. He also states his opinion on why it should be treated with the same status as the rest of the subjects. One point he brought up was the education system. He believes today's education system is run in a way that mistakes are the worst possible thing you could make. This interested me because if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with an original idea. Take the light bulb for example.

The light bulb was the work of not just one man, but the work of many. Humphry Davy invented
the first electric light by connecting two wires to a battery and attached a charcoal strip between the other ends of the wires. The charged carbon glowed making the first arc lamp. From there many others improved upon his ideas. One of those men was Thomas Edison. One of his famous quotes is "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work". The quote leads us to infer that Edison was not afraid of being wrong like many of us today.Today we fear being wrong and so we choose not to be creative and put our ideas out there.

Another point Ken Robinson brought up was the fact that the arts in every school system, no matter where you go, its always the same, arts at the bottom. Why is this? Well according to him education was meant for the age of industrialism. The most important subjects for work were at the top such as math and writing. On the other hand the least important such as arts were placed at the bottom. Unfortunately that has not really changed much and it should if we ever want to succeed.
Thankfully my teacher Mr. G encourages us to think outside the box and be creative. Like Ken Robinson, Mr. G feels the arts are as important as the other subjects. In his class mistakes are not looked down upon as we are only human and we all make mistakes.