Are schools stifling creativity? Sir Ken Robinson tells Jessica Shepherd why learning should be good for the soul.
“All children start their school careers with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds, and a willingness to take risks with what they think,” he says. “Most students never get to explore the full range of their abilities and interests … Education is the system that’s supposed to develop our natural abilities and enable us to make our way in the world. Instead, it is stifling the individual talents and abilities of too many students and killing their motivation to learn.”
“The entire notion of “subjects” needs to be questioned, he says. “The idea of separate subjects that have nothing in common offends the principle of dynamism. School systems should base their curriculum not on the idea of separate subjects, but on the much more fertile idea of disciplines … which makes possible a fluid and dynamic curriculum that is interdisciplinary.”
Really interesting post. I feel that there is definitely a culture of top down teaching and that the focus is on information not stimulation. Everything is so rushed that there is no chance for reflection by the pupils. I feel that the whole system needs to be altered. Saw a great TED Talk a while ago about peer learning called “Can kids teach themselves?” Made some good comments on the topic.
Paddy
unboxdesign.blogspot.com
http://www.unboxdesign.co.uk
Paddy has an interesting point… and I am thinking of course kids can teach themselves, maybe it is the teachers who need to learn again :) Tom has very insightful way of describing teaching as ‘facilitating a learning process for both the teacher and the students’, teacher’s role is to make that experience ‘sticky’…