Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

By Hannah W.

Sir Ken Robinson is an expert when it comes to creativity. He is trying to start a movement to make schools inspire creativity instead of squandering it. He whole heartily believes that every child is born creative. Yet the school system squashes their creativity and tells them it is wrong. They try to make us believe that being wrong is the worst thing that can happen, but Robinson believes that losing our creativity is the worst outcome.

To get his point across to the audience, Robinson likes to tell stories about how children know that their creativity is a virtue and they will do it even if the teachers don't like it. One of the stories he told was about a little girl in a drawing lesson. The girl rarely paid attention to the lesson so the teacher went to see what she was was drawing. When she asked the girl she said that she was drawing a picture of God. "But nobody knows what God looks like." Without hesitation the girl said "They will in a minute." He loves telling that story because the girl cannot be persuaded out of what ever inspired her to draw God. Adults on the other hand would sheepishly throw the drawing away in hopes to forget such a foolish idea.

Robinson is right in that when children go through school they lose an aspect of themselves that makes them unique and special. It makes no sense to me for our children to learn from people who have lost a part of them that they can never regain. Having people like this teaching will only cause the same thing to happen to the generations to come. We need to encourage imagination and creativity so that the world will be a far better place than what we have today.

Ken Robinson is an incredible speaker; it is like he has spent his entire life up there. He has an air of confidence and likability that is contagious. He grabs your attention by speaking through personal experience and by using jokes.

George Bernard Shaw once said "Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will." We have not lived like this in any recorded time, but imagine if we did. It would be a far better world for everyone, and Robinson knows it, so he is trying to start a revolution in hopes that the outcome will be a creative one.