Sir Ken Robinson: The Importance of Creativity

Click Here To See Video

Mr. Robinson makes some excellent examples and points about children not being encouraged or exposed to the arts in education as they should be. He believes that creativity in education is as important as literacy. It doesn't take just a logical mind to solve mathematical problems. Someone had to be creative enough to think of all the formulas we use to design buildings. In fact you would have to be creative to come up with a design for a building. As adults we tend to discourage children from being creative without realizing what we're doing to them. We brush them off as being annoying when they bang on pots and pans at six o'clock in the morning. I say buy them a drum set and see where they go from there. Sure a child drawing on the walls is a pain when you're the one that has to scrub it off. I say devote a wall specifically for them and you can even cover it in paper and let them have at it, or join in to show that you are encouraging them to be creative. In the education system though we are so focused on drilling children on multiplication problems and ensuring that they produce high test scores every day, and the arts only once a week. I believe that creativity should be encouraged every day. When I subbed for the elementary schools in Ocean Springs, and this goes without saying that I'm not an art teacher and have no current methods for teaching art, but I set aside the last ten minutes before the announcements came on for the children to draw a picture for me. I told them that it could be about anything that THEY wanted to draw. There was not one child that did not give me a drawing.

Today there is more medication for 'problems' that could be better taken care of if parents knew about better options. For example with the girl that could not sit still and was unable to focus until they took her to a dance school where she was able to focus her talents and energy. I'll give a personal example involving my little brother. He was diagnosed as being 'ADHD' and was on medications all through the school year. No longer was he fidgeting in class or unable to sit still for long periods of times. He also wasn't running up and down the hallway at home or constantly pestering my little sisters. However, he wasn't on the medications during the summer either. My parents feared that it would stunt his growth so they took him off, but they did enroll him in little league which was something he loved doing and he was able to run around and use that excess energy and he was still "normal" at home.