"LEARNING FROM SIR KEN ROBINSON" by: Jake Dukes, Katlyn Lusker, and Tarcela Kohn
"Changing Education Paradigms" There were so many things to learn from the video
Changing Education Paradigms
by Sir Ken Robinson. A few things we learned from Sir Ken Robinson
were; “Every country on earth at the moment is reforming public
education,” “The current system was designed and conceived for a
different age,” “Kids now are living in the most stimulating period in
the history of the earth and we because of this we need to make some
changes,” and “We need to go in the opposite direction of school
conformity and standardization.”
The first thing we learned
from Sir Ken Robinson was “Every country on earth at the moment is
reforming public education.” The two reasons for this are economic and
cultural. This video asks the questions, “How do we educate our children
to take their place in the economies of the 21st century?” and “How
exactly do we do that when we cannot anticipate what the economy will
look like at the end of next week?” We think these are two very
important questions to ask ourselves, especially knowing how the economy
has been going lately. We aren't guaranteed anything, so these
questions are valid. Sir Ken Robinson put it best when he said, “One big
problem we are facing is that we are trying to meet the future with
doing what we have done in the past.” People who went to school a long
time ago were told that if you work hard, do well, and get a college
degree, you would get a job. Kids now a days do not believe that, and
they have every right not to. Sir Ken Robinson said, “You are better off
having a degree, but it does not guarantee you a job anymore.”
The second thing we learned from Sir Ken Robinson, which is a
continuation of our last point, was “The current system was designed and
conceived for a different age.” Sir Ken Robinson explained this by
saying, “Public Education, paid for from taxation, compulsory to
everybody, and free at the point of delivery, was a revolutionary idea.”
He also said many people group other people into two categories based
on “Academic Ability.” He said those categories are the “academic or
smart people” and the “non-academic or non-smart people.” This creates a
problem because many brilliant people think they are not because they
have been judged on this particular view of the mind. Public Education
being made up of economic and intellectual categories has caused chaos
in many peoples lives. Some have benefited from it, but most people have
not.
The third thing we learned from Sir Ken Robinson was
“Kids now, are living in the most stimulating period in the history of
the earth and we because of this we need to make some changes.” Kids
have so many distractions “from every platform” now that include
computers, phones, advertising, and television. We agree with Sir Ken
Robinson when he said, “Children get to school and their teachers expect
them to focus on ‘boring stuff’ for the most part.” We agree with this
because we have witnessed this happen and we can testify to this
ourselves. In this video Sir Ken Robinson continued by giving his views
on ADHD and how lots of drugs to treat ADHD shut kids senses off,
deadening them to what’s really happening. He said, “We are getting our
children through education by anaesthetising them, but we should be
doing the exact opposite.” We need to wake our children up to what is
happening inside of themselves.
The fourth thing we learned
from Sir Ken Robinson was “We need to go in the opposite direction of
school conformity and standardization.” Children have basically always
been put through school in “batches” according to their age, but is that
really what’s important? Is that really what we want our students to
think is the main thing they have in common with other students? One of
the most impacting things we thought Sir Ken Robinson said was, “If you
are interested in the model of Education, then you don’t start from the
product line mentality.” Sir Ken Robinson believes we need to go in the
opposite direction of school conformity and standardization, and that’s
exactly what he meant by “Changing the Paradigm.” In order to make this
change we must first, think differently about human capacity and get
over the old conception of academic, non-academic because all it is is a
myth and secondly, we have to recognize that greatest learning happens
in groups, collaborations is the stuff of growth.
“How to Escape Education’s Death Valley” In the TED Talks video;
How to Escape Education’s Death Valley by Sir Ken Robinson, there was a lot of information that we found
useful. Sir Ken Robinson started his video by saying that the No Child
Left Behind is an irony, because approximately 60 percent of kids drop
out of high school, and in the native community about 80 percent of the
kids drop out. We were unaware that when a student drops out of school,
it cost an enormous amount to clean up the damage. With this dropout
crisis, it does not factor in the students that are disengaged, that
don't enjoy school, and the students who do not benefit from school. Sir
Ken Robinson stated “that this is the reason our education is going in
the wrong direction.”
Sir Ken Robinson explained that there “were
three principles on which human life flourishes, and work hand in hand
by culture of education under most teachers have labor and most students
to endure.” The first of the three principles that Sir Robinson
explained that we learned was that all humans are different and diverse.
Sir Robinson made a great analogy, he asked the audience members if
they had kids, grandkids, or have seen kids. He then goes on to ask the
parents of two or more children and makes a bet with the audience
members that the children are different from each other. There is no way
of confusing them with each other. “Education under the No Child Left
Behind is based on not diversity but conformity.” One of the effects of
the No Child Left Behind has been to narrow the focus on the STEM
disciplines. Sir Ken Robinson said that the STEM discipline was very
important; however, a real education has to give equal weight to the
arts, humanities, physical education, and to the kids.
The second of the three principles was curiosity. Sir Ken Robinson
explained that if you light the spark of a child’s curiosity, they will
learn without any further assistance, very often. He continued by saying
children are natural learners, and curiosity is the engine of
achievement.
Lastly, we learned that teachers are the lifeblood of schools, but
teaching is a creative profession. Sir Robinson stated that “to teach
properly; it is not the delivery system that you just pass on received
information. However, great teachers do pass on received information,
but they are mentors who stimulate, provoke, and engage. We have also
learned from Sir Ken Robinson that the role of a teacher is to
facilitate learning, and that is it.
"How Schools Kill Creativity" In the TED talks video
How Schools Kill Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson, we learned a lot about creativity. Sir Ken
Robinson began by saying, “creativity now is actually just as important
in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.”
He explains that as kids we are more creative because we are not scared
to be wrong. As we grow up we are more likely to be less creative
because we are frightened of being wrong. Sir Ken Robinson also said,
“we are now running national education systems where mistakes are the
worse thing you can make.” This results in educating people out of their
creative capacities. One specific thing we really liked in this video
was when Sir Ken Robinson quoted Pablo Picasso saying, “All children are
born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.”
Creativity is a good thing because it separates us from the rest of the
people in our classes, making us unique. Sir Ken Robinson concluded his
speech in this video by saying, “We need to see our creative capacities
for the richness they are, and see our children for the hope that they
are.” Our task as teachers should be to educate their whole being so
they can face the future, and to help them make something of it.
