Creativity

[gr82bart]

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Great vid. TED in general is wealth of inspirational vids.

Regards, Art.

 

[artz]

Great speech, thanks for sharing!

 

[Valerie]

I love TED talks... incredibly thought-provoking! This one is no exception.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Well, I guess I have a different view: self-indulgent drivel. Worse than my posts on APUG, even.

My take on education is that students should not think. Their minds should be open to accept what is poured into them - putting a great responsibility on those deciding what to pour.

Critical thinking interferes with formal learning. With enough critical thinking a student can't be taught 1 + 1 = 2, just look at the first 100 pages of Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica wherein it is attempted to prove merely the existence of '1'. Imagine that sort of recalcitrance to accept the obvious manifesting itself in a typical classroom. And then imagine having a young Gödel pipe up from the back of the class with his view of things.

After being taught what it has been found valuable to know, then it is time to start thinking on one's own and to start and try to decide just which 50% of what one has been taught is bunk. When one starts to think on one's own then one is, almost by definition, no longer a student: education is over, real life has begun.

When I was in high school I stood up in sociology class and gave a speech on education with the same points as K. Robinson. The sociology teacher indulged me - even with the Freudian slip of "And what do students learn: how to shit in straight rows ..." - but I got the impression that he didn't think much of any of it, and now neither do I.

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

Well, I guess I have a different view: self-indulgent drivel. Worse than my posts on APUG, even.

My take on education is that students should not think. Their minds should be open to accept what is poured into them - putting a great responsibility on those deciding what to pour.

Critical thinking interferes with formal learning. With enough critical thinking a student can't be taught 1 + 1 = 2, just look at the first 100 pages of Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica wherein it is attempted to prove merely the existence of '1'. Imagine that sort of recalcitrance to accept the obvious manifesting itself in a typical classroom. And then imagine having a young Gödel pipe up from the back of the class with his view of things.

After being taught what it has been found valuable to know, then it is time to start thinking on one's own and to start and try to decide just which 50% of what one has been taught is bunk. When one starts to think on one's own then one is, almost by definition, no longer a student: education is over, real life has begun.

When I was in high school I stood up in sociology class and gave a speech on education with the same points as K. Robinson. The sociology teacher indulged me - even with the Freudian slip of "And what do students learn: how to shit in straight rows ..." - but I got the impression that he didn't think much of any of it, and now neither do I.

Bertrand Russell was a Philosopher, it is his job to overthink things to the point of ridiculousness. Students do need to be taught to think critically. They also need hard knowledge to use when thinking. Somehow, our schools decided that knowledge is all that's needed, which is why American schools neglect art, history, and literature while pushing math and science. The problem with that is that a scientist needs to be able to think, not just calculate numbers and regurgitate latin names.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Students do need to be taught to think critically.

I think a student would have think very critically before accepting that statement. [insert smiley as needed]

My views have shifted on this topic, and I now find myself in agreement with the pedagogical mainstream: thinking and learning are separate activities.

And man is really lousy at thinking: we have only been doing it in a formal sense for 10,000 years or so. Out of an evolutionary lifetime of 4 billion years it's a very recent activity.

Thinking, such as we do it, is best self-taught. Education is so potentially dangerous that enforcing a method of thought would be even more so. After all, what would a student be taught but "don't think critically about what you are being taught about how to think -- this is the way you should think."

I'm just thinking critically about what Robinson is yapping about ... certainly one can't argue with that if one is in agreement with his points. The result would seem paradoxical - but there are no paradoxes, only false assumptions.

 

[MattKing]

Nicholas:

Does an f-Stop Timer work best for a photographer who is thinking, or one who is learning?

(we need a "mischievous" smiley for posts like this.)

Matt

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Does an f-Stop Timer work best for a photographer who is thinking, or one who is learning?

Sales are good to both sorts. It's the ones who are neither learning nor thinking that will see no benefit. [Not at all sure what sort of smiley to put here...]

 

[mabman]

I absolutely agree that arts education shouldn't be marginalized, although after watching the vid I'm not sure that arts exposure/lessons/etc can be translated into "creativity" for the masses. And, for those students so inclined, how exactly you identify them at an early age, and do you then have separate schools just for them? While possible, this concept may not be practical for all areas...

I'm coming at this from the opposite approach - I was encouraged to take music lessons at an early age, and it served me well through high school - very enjoyable, some formal instruction, a lot of practice. But, in thinking about it and watching the struggles of some of my private teachers and other musicians I knew, I opted to pursue a career in IT. However, my dad, who is in the IT industry and had been laid off a couple of times by that point, encouraged me to pursue music professionally, as he considered the IT industry in a state of upheaval. But, it's worked out for me overall, and I still enjoy music, but the life of a professional trombone player is a very challenging one, and I was very concerned it would stop being enjoyable after a while.

So, even in the arts, children may opt for something more concrete for money, and do what they love later. I guess I'm saying I do prefer a more generalised education, where arts are available, but I would avoid pigeon-holing kids one way or the other - you never know where they may end up.

 

[Rich Ullsmith]

Thought provoking argument by Mr. Ted, and am glad to have been introduced to him, but for the most part agree with Nicholas.

Public education is the same as public transportation, public utilities or public restrooms: it is to provide a generalized service with a predictable outcome (measured by testing), within an agreed upon period of time.

Public schools are like domestic auto repair shops. They can help with the grand majority of models and their problems. If you bring your Porsche (the gifted or developmentally disabled child, in this analogy) to the domestic shop for a valve job, guess what you will get. I believe in the idea that everyone has a gift and it is only a matter of finding it; but please do that on your own time, and on your own dime.

The majority of children you would refer to as developmentally "normal" in a clinical setting, they have already learned by school age that their purpose in life is to be pushed to and fro by adults. Children are like 400 pound sows: smart, stubborn and low to the ground. How to get them through the gate, if they don't want to go? Well, our "educators" prod them, threaten them, cajole them, bribe them. In days past, they would get a whack on the rear, all to no avail.

Strangely enough, if you put a bucket over the pig's head and push backwards, it moves willingly (if not enthusiastically) forward through the gate.

Try it with your own child, if you like. Tell them they can only draw between the lines, see what you get. Tell them why their idea won't work, and off they go to find ten reasons why it might. Tell them their story can't have any people in it, and see what characters are created. Put the bucket over their head.

K-12 is flush with art training as it is, and it doesn't cost a dime: it's called daydreaming, and enough of it takes place by both student and teacher that extra time does not need to be set aside. Nothing stirs creative thinking like the ennui of mathematics and language.

 

[jonjameshall]

Thinking, such as we do it, is best self-taught. Education is so potentially dangerous that enforcing a method of thought would be even more so. After all, what would a student be taught but "don't think critically about what you are being taught about how to think -- this is the way you should think."

IMO (as one of them there educators) teaching children to think freely, without boundaries, without consequence has lead to millions of students in the UK to the conclusion that school is a waste of time. I think you either have to go the whole hog, commit to "a design for life" or don't do anything at all. Most of the time educationalists wimp out and start asking children what they think, and this just confuses children.

In my line of education (art college) I have to mop up after children who have been given such a wide birth that they have simply chosen to switch off and disengage.... They see an attempt to teach them, as a personal attack on them, and spend a great deal of their time fighting against systems that don't exist. I spend most of my time teaching students "how to learn" and very little delivering Film, TV or Photography skills.

I feel children need to be taught to have "discipline". Not as in; to be "disciplined" or punished, but taught how to set themselves a task and then follow it through to its (il)logical conclusion. Children need to be taught how to learn and that learning is a fun and enjoyable exercise to allow oneself to undertake.

I teach from the point of view that you have to learn the rules before you decide to break them. In that way you work with mindfulness and do not to confuse "art" with "accident".

Although, as many of my students tell me, I talk a load of crap sometimes lol

As for creating an artistic elite; we already do in the UK where sadly, financial status and not talent, is still the biggest influence over educational success.