Tuesday, February 12, 2008

PLJ reflect on Sir Ken Robinson video

As Sir Robinson approaches the stage, he introduces his speech with a central theme; creativity being undermined in relation to the current education system. Sir Robinson argues that it's most prudent to adopt a philosophy stressing the importance of creativity in the classroom, he quotes "We are educating people out of their creativity" and "We have a body, why not use it [to dance]?" Robinson also states that a couple years previously, Bachelors degrees were required to be employed in a field, now Master's degrees are necessary for the same profession. He also believes that because children are as Picasso states "born artistic" and because most children will not probably earn a sizeable enough reputation as a scholar to make a "decent" living, the arts are the best alternative. It seems as though Robinson's world is very extremist; either a student attends the Harvard institute, or becomes an artist; presently, there is no middle territory, it’s black and white or pass or fail.
For people like me, Robinson's news is somewhat frightening; it’s plausible that I could morph my ways to reflect those of an artist, but logic is my passion. I can't imagine majoring in any other field except for engineering or mathematics, the reality is that art is not enjoyable for my character. On the contrary, work is inevitable; I must become employed and suffer the far less drastic life associated with right brain occupation than the ones associated with being unemployed.
To be completely honest, I think Sir Robinson exaggerated a little too much. He believes that the world will only consist of extreme left brainers and extreme right brainrers, but if this claim were to come to fruition, the amount of job slots would not cover the demand. If the human population primarily consisted of artists and PHD professors, the world would be deprived of jobs, resulting in a higher percentage of homelessness, poverty, and other related things. The main point here is that Robinson is correct in the sense that creativity will and does need attention, but the world will not develop a strict two sided "job world".

No comments: