Creativity

I enjoyed the lectures given by Sir Robinson. I thought he was extremely entertaining. He had a great sense of humor, and it made the videos interesting to watch. I agree with what he proposes within both videos to some degree. I think that creativity should be encouraged. Also, I agree with him completely in the idea that children are not afraid to make mistakes. It is school that instills this fear of failure in children. That is a terrible side effect of our educational system, or better yet all educational systems. School should be the place where students try different things, make mistakes, and find what works for them.

While there were several ideas that I agreed with, there were several points Sir Robinson made that I was unsettled with. For one, he proposes that creativity is as important as literacy and we should treat both with the same status. I am not quite sure if it is because of my love of reading or because I have seen the dismal literacy levels with in our own inner-city schools, but this statement brings about a strong negative response from me. Literacy should be thee most important subject in school. With proper reading skills you can potentially teach yourself anything. With proper writing skills you can communicate with anyone. To compare teaching dance, theatre, art, etc. with teaching literacy is absolutely ridiculous. However, if he had said creativity was as important as mathematics that would have been something I could have gotten on board with. Besides adding, subtracting, division, multiplications along with decimals and fractions, what use is math to those that don’t need it for their future careers? I’m sorry to all you math majors out there, but it was probably my least favorite subject and as soon as I could leave it behind I did.

Also, in both videos Sir Robinson brings up the issue of ADD or ADHD. He talks about it light heartedly and even makes a comment along the lines of this was before ADD was around, otherwise this child would have been simply medicated. I fully believe that both ADD and ADHD is something that is frequently over diagnosed, and is often used as a scapegoat. However, I do not want to dismiss is so quickly.

I see a similarity between what Sir Robinson is saying about creativity and technology in school. Most schools do not allow students to have cell phones and limit use of technology, maybe because its not available and maybe because some teachers do not know how to use it themselves. It is used less in school, than it should be. Students are being stifled. Also, with the use of technology and creativity in the classroom, all subjects can be made interesting to students... well maybe not math. Just kidding! Please no hate messages from you math lovers out there.