Sir Ken Robinson used his TED talk time to express his opinion on how education is killing the artistic side of children. In order to keep his audience captivated throughout his TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson integrated humor into his spiel. Long explanations were softened with stories from his life and short, simple jokes. This helped the audience to feel as if they were in his life personally, and therefore caused them to pay greater attention to the big idea. You would not have known that he was talking for almost twenty minutes. Sir Ken Robinson got right to the point when he began his talk. It only took him about five minutes to explain his major point. He spent the rest of his time going in depth with real life stories, actual facts, and relatable connections.
There are a few questions that rose in my mind after listening to this TED talk. First, how do you grow back into creativity? Ken told his audience that everyone is born an artist but, as they grow older, they are told that they can’t do certain things because they will never get a job. This creates a world full of kids who are only good at taking scantron tests. According to both Daniel Pink and Sir Ken Robinson, it will be THESE kids who have trouble finding a job in the future. The artists who said “no” to all of the disbelievers will be the ones that flourish. But how can you get in touch with that younger, more open, you? Through meditation? Spending time with small children? Letting go of a straightforward life? That last one is probably the best bet. Letting loose and keeping an open mind can help anyone realize their true potential. We have to find what has always been right beneath our noses.
Second, what if I want to be a university professor? Let me explain. Sir Robinson argued that the only point in modern day education was to create university professors. These are the people who think of their body as just transportation for their head. Well, what happens to these people in the future? Do they have to change their entire way of living just because they can’t find a decent job? There still must be teachers in the future. Maybe they won’t be what we think of when we think about teachers today. In reality, they will probably people that stand in front of a class for the first couple minutes to teach grammar and then let their kids loose on the world for their lesson. Every great person in this world was in someone’s English class at some point in their lives. The world still needs teachers, just not in the same way that it did 50 years ago. Teaching needs to be severely changed if kids are going to succeed in the future.
This brings me to my last point: are we all put on meds and told to calm down? I know that there was definitely a point in my life where I had to be told to settle down and do my school work. We were all posed with the threat of going to the principal’s office (or something of the sort) when we were younger. That has stuck with us all our lives. Most people are too afraid to do anything out of the ordinary because we are afraid that it will be wrong. Now, instead of laughing with my friend while a lesson is being taught, I overanalyze everything. I wasn’t even brave enough to trust my instincts while building a boat in tech ed. I had to have very systematic steps. I have had to teach myself to get out of this habit and it’s taken a very long time (still not finished, by the way). It is sad that everyone is told to conform at such a young age. Adults deny it, but they order us to act a certain way without actually saying it.
In order to achieve the life that we want, we must revert into our younger, more open-minded selves. It might not be possible, but it couldn’t hurt to try.
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