Practice 10: Do schools kill creativity?

    Today we were shown a TED talk imparted by Ken Robinson about the role of creativity in education. Then we were given a list of questions to answer. We also had to write two paragraphs about this topic saying wether we agree or not with the sepaker; all of this following, of course, the steps:

1. Narrowing down

2. Brainstorming

3. Edit the brainstorming

4. Initial draft

5. Edit the initial draft

6. Final draft

 TED TALK

What’s the topic of the TED talk? What’s the main idea? When does the speaker introduce his idea? How?

• TS=Education
• CI=Creativity
• He states his idea

What are the means of support used by the speaker to convince us that his opinion is right? Provide examples.

• Anecdotes (The dancer)
• Jokes
• Quotes
• Statistics (UNESCO)

What’s the speaker’s conclusion? How does he “conclude”?

    He inquires the audience to use the gift of creativity wisely and also encourages them to help their children develop theirs. This is a summary of the whole TED talk.

Write 2 paragraphs saying whether you agree with the speaker. Topic: Schools kill creativity.

e) Final writing

WHY SCHOOLS KILL CREATIVITY

    I strongly agree with the speakers opinion: We are educated out of creativity. I probably wouldn’t say so if I myself hadn’t had experiences similar to the ones the speaker talked about, but, unfortunately, I did. I can remember all the times I was almost kicked out of maths class for being drawing instead of doing maths. I see the teacher’s point, I wasn’t doing what he had commanded, but the problem was that I didn’t understand maths, so I turned to drawing as a coping method. What I did is what many kids these days do, if this is happening continuously, why the educational system doesn't change? Simple, because it's easier to stay the same. So, summarizing, my story is just one example of how schools kill creativity, but there are lots of stories similar to mine that should be told.

    I think that the main problem in the actual educational system is that we are encouraged to memorize unuseful facts and obey commands. Furthermore, statistics talk for themselves: 61% of the surveyed teachers say that their students have to memorize facts often and, 13% of the same surveyed teachers say that their students can choose what they want to learn. What's surprising is that all the surveyed teachers come from supporting environments, I just don't want to imagine what kids from non-supportive environments are going through. The interesting part is that these teachers are from all over the world, which coincides with Kern Robinson’s hierarchy: All educational systems are the same: They have the same subjects and they give more importance to certain ones. In closing, and basing on the evidence I have presented, we are definitely educated out of creativity.