A Dysfunctional Education

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace;
making the complicated simple, awesomely simple;
that’s creativity.”
Charles Mingus

UNLOCKING OUR POTENTIAL 

There is a paradox that exists in the education of our children today. 

The present system of education, one designed for 19th century industrialism, continues to promote a catastrophically narrow idea of intelligence and ability. It is an antiquated system that manages to morph us into automatons – robots designed to follow a precise sequence of instructions. 

So why don’t we get the best out of people? This is largely because the current systems of education were never designed to develop everyone’s talents. They were intended to promote certain types of ability in the interests of the in-dustrial economies we serve. We’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies – far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity, are ignored or even stig-matised – with terrible consequences. 

More often than not, our systems of education confuse standards with stan-dardising. They continue to work under an assumption that education can be improved without the professional creativity and personal passion of teachers. The result is that too many good teachers are streaming out of the very schools that urgently need them to stay. Our schools are becoming dreary and homo-genised. 

All of this is holding us back in a world that’s moving faster than ever. The result is a terrible waste of talent and motivation in countless students. 

Throughout the world today, companies and organisations are trying to com-pete in a world of economic and technological change that is moving faster than ever. They urgently need people who are creative, innovative and flexible. Too often they can’t find them. 

What should be done about it? 

NURTURING CREATIVITY 

We are educating people out of their creativity. Reforming education isn’t enough. That’s simply improving a broken model. The real task ahead lies in transformation. 

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creat-ing an education system that nurtures rather than undermines creativity. He submits some well-founded arguments for changes in how we should think about our own intelligence and creativity and how we should educate our children and each other to meet the extraordinary challenges of living and working in the 21st century. 

Watch The Video: Do Schools Kill Creativity?

To face the future, a country like New Zealand needs to celebrate and develop the diverse talents of all of its people – young and old alike. It needs to culti-vate creativity and innovation, systematically and with confidence, in business, in culture and in rebuilding its post industrial society. It needs to provide leadership at home in promoting deeper forms of cultural understanding and cooperation. 

These are the real basics. Basic to all of them is a different view of human talent and ability, and of the real conditions in which people flourish. 

Watch The Video: Bring On The Learning Revolution

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD is an internationally recognised leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He speaks to audiences throughout the world on the creative challenges facing business and education in the new global economies and has worked with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and some of the world’s leading cultural organisations.