In Do Schools Kill Creativity by Ken Robinson he discusses how children are taught to abandon their creativity. I picked this talk because I am passionate about creativity in education. Even with the amount of creative careers in the 21st century creativity is suppressed as an unstable path. Robinson made some interesting points incorporating humor and stories. This talk has helped me understand the reason for the abandonment of creativity in education and how that leads to “academic inflation”.
Robinson talks about the invention of diagnostics explaining the need for creativity. “"Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick; she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school… Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.” Robison said. He uses this story to explain “learning disorders” and the lack of understanding leading to the diagnostic. Talking about how we are taught to grow out of our creativity, by making failure seem deathly. “ We stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities.” Robinson said.
As a creative soul my mind feeds off of creativity, turning everything into art. I have always seen the ideal of college to be absurd, why should we all have to take the same path? My elders preaching that not getting a proper education will lead me to “failure”. In their eyes their children won’t have to pay for school, because they are brilliant. What they don’t realize is the scale of the economic inflation as a result of creative suppression. Although this talk was in 2006 we have made a marvelous strive to creating creative careers. Millennials writing new standards of living, being fulfilled by social and community involvement. As the younger generation we are given creative career possibilities, but most turn them down because of their instability.
I hope to serve as a role model for the younger generations, utilizing my creative power to make a successful life for myself. Writing my own standards, not living by those created before me. I hope that educators will encourage creative capacities as an alternative of learning not a disability.