Do schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson | TED - YouTube

Good morning. It's been an incredible conference, highlighting human creativity and the unpredictability of the future. Everyone has a stake in education because it's supposed to prepare us for this uncertain future. Consider that children starting school today will retire in 2065, yet we can't predict what the world will look like in five years.

I assert that creativity is as crucial in education as literacy, and we should accord it the same importance. We're born with immense creative capacities, but our education system, which is designed to meet the needs of industrialism, often stifles this creativity. The hierarchy in education systems across the globe always places mathematics and languages at the top, with the arts at the bottom. This hierarchy within the arts further prioritizes some forms over others.

Our education systems are predicated on academic ability, steering children away from subjects where they might not excel in a traditional sense. This has led to a situation where many talented individuals believe they are not smart because their abilities were not valued or were even stigmatized in school. With the upcoming explosion in the educated population, degrees are becoming less valuable, and we need to radically rethink our view of intelligence.

We know that intelligence is diverse, dynamic, and distinct. Creativity often comes from the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things. However, our current system seems to be designed to produce university professors, who, while important, should not be the epitome of achievement.

We need a new conception of human ecology, one that recognizes the richness of human capacity. Our education should not mine our minds but rather cultivate the full spectrum of our abilities. We must educate children holistically to face the future, even if we won't see it ourselves. Our responsibility is to help them make the most of it. Thank you.

The original article: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY&list=PLV7xfBoJKBNQ3yhYgQRqocSWs1MKF7j0n&index=1