I watched many TEDxTalks (Technology, Entertainment and Design) videos of Ken Robinson concerning his vision of education and creativity. His point of view calls into question the present education system and calls to a change for the present students and the future ones.
In his TED “How to escape education’s Death Valley”, he suggests that the legislation “No child left behind” set up in America, should instead be called “Millions of children left behind”. Indeed, in some parts of the country, 60% of students drop out of high school and in the Native American communities this percentage grows up to 80%. From an economic perspective, American economy would obtain a net gain of trillion dollars if those numbers were halved, but also, it costs an enormous amount of money to make up for the dropout crisis.
According to Robinson, the dropout crisis is just the tip of an iceberg because among all the students in school, many of them are disengaged and don’t get any real benefit from it. America is the country which spends more money for education than other countries and hundreds of initiatives are taken every year, but those actions are going into the wrong direction.
Robinson reminds that there are three principles on which human life flourishes, but there are contradicted by our current education system. The first principle is that human beings are naturally different and diverse, but “No child left behind” is based on conformity (and not on diversity). School fosters pupils’ abilities in a very narrow spectrum of achievement. The American legislation only focuses on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines, which are necessary but not sufficient. For Robinson, a real education should give equal weight to the arts, the humanities and physical education. In America, 10% of students would have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), but Robinson doesn’t think this number is such epidemic. His vision is rather that if you sit kids down for hours doing repetitive tasks, then it’s expected they start to wiggle at some point. For the most part, children are not suffering from an attention deficit disorder, but from childhood. Children grow with a wide set of talents, so they will thrive more with an education broad curriculum bringing them into play.
The second principle is curiosity. If you can light the spark of curiosity in children, they will learn without assistance. Children are natural learners, and curiosity is the engine of achievement. But Robinson claims that our present culture has de-professionalized teachers, whereas they are the driving force of the success of schools. Teaching is not a delivery system : teachers are not present just to pass on some received knowledge, but also and especially to mentor, stimulate, provoke and engage. At the end, education is about learning. Robinson thinks that a part of our current problem is that our education culture is focusing on testing (and not teaching and learning). He acknowledges that standardized tests are important but they should only be a tool supporting learning. Instead of curiosity, we have a culture of compliance : both children and teachers are encouraged to follow routines rather than their own imagination and curiosity.
The third principle is that human life is inherently creative. We create our lives and we can recreate them as we go through them, thanks to this endless process of imagining alternatives and possibilities. That explains why human culture is so diverse and dynamic. According to Robinson, one of the roles of education is to awake and develop these powers of creativity, but instead we promote a culture of standardization. Robinson takes then the example of Finland : even though they are frequently the first in math, science and reading, they are not obsessed with those disciplines. Instead, their education system has a very broad approach including humanities, physical education and arts. Some people may complain that we can’t compare Finland and America, but he retorts that we can compare Finland and a state in America.
Robinson establishes characteristics of high performing education systems. They individualize teaching and learning ; meaning that the system engages each and every student through their curiosity, individuality and creativity. Moreover, they attribute a very high status to the teaching profession ; meaning that they recognize that you can’t improve education if you don’t hire great people to teach and giving them constant support. Robinson states with determination that investing in professional development is not a cost, but an investment. Finally, these systems devolve responsibility to the school level ; meaning that decisions are made in classrooms and schools by teachers and students. Robinson suggests that current policies are based on mechanistic conceptions of education, as if education is an industrial process which can be improved by having better data. He emphasises that education is a human system, about people.
Each student who drops out has a reason, which is rooted in his own biography. They may find it boring or irrelevant, but their stories are always unique. New programs, called alternative education programs, designed to get kids back into education are beginning to take shape. They are very personalized, they are supporting the teachers, they have close links with the community, they propose a broad curriculum and they involve students inside as well as outside school. Robinson wonders why these are called “alternative”, because if they were common practices, we won’t need an alternative.
He tells then a metaphor : Death Valley is the hottest and driest place in America, where nothing grows due to lack of rain. In 2004, it rained ; then one year later in 2005 Death Valley was coated with flowers. This phenomenon proved that Death Valley is actually not dead, but dormant. Right beneath the surface are seeds of possibility waiting for the right conditions to burgeon. With organic systems, just as school is, if the conditions are right life is inevitable. So, if you take an area, a school or a district and change the conditions in order to give people a different sense of possibility, a different set of expectations, a broader range of opportunities, to value teachers-learners relationships, to allow people to be creative and innovate, then school which was once dry regains life. Robinson concludes his speech by affirming that the role of leadership in education isn’t and shouldn’t be command and control, but is climate control. Leadership is about creating a climate of possibilities, so people will rise and achieve things you didn’t anticipate and couldn’t have expected. He quotes Benjamin Franklin, who said “there are three kinds of people in the world : those who are unmovable, those who are movable, and there are people who move”. So if we can encourage more people, there will be a movement. And if this movement is strong enough, it creates a revolution. And this is what we need.
Even though Robinson’s opinion regarding our current education system is severe, I find it interesting and relevant for our future activity. Indeed, children having ADHD or just “unsuitable” to a classic school career are the most likely to come to our office or institution. In his TED “Do schools kill creativity ?”, he takes the example of Gillian Lynne who is a great choreographer working for The Royal Ballet of England. When she was a student, she felt hopeless at school and her teachers thought she had a learning disorder. With her mother she consulted a specialist who, after listening to them, left Gillian alone in a room with some music on. She started to dance immediately. The specialist said then to her mother that her daughter wasn’t sick, she was a dancer. After an amazing career as a soloist for The Royal Ballet, she founded her own dance company and has now an international reputation. This example reminds us that we have to be very careful with children we will receive and that we must not emit a diagnosis too quickly. Moreover, Robinson’s criticism concerns exclusively typical children and not disabled ones, for whom our current education system is not very suitable either. I think that in the future, developmental psychologists can and will be part of the education change we need.
Links to different TEDxTalks of Ken Robinson concerning this issue :
Words I have learned :
– call into question : remettre en question
– halved : diminué de moitié
– flourish : s’épanouir / prospérer
– wiggle : remuer
– driving force : moteur
– compliance : conformité
– devolve : décentraliser
– coated : recouvert