Sir Ken Robinson: Fostering Creativity in Education is Not an Option

January 11, 2013 | 1:48 PM | By

Esteemed education advocate Sir Ken Robinson explains in this short video why creativity is crucial in education, and why it will require a transformation in the way schools work.

In his words, “Creativity is not an option, it’s an absolute necessity.”

FILED UNDER: Culture, creativity, progressive education, Sir Ken Robinson

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  • jumpforjoyphotoproject

    Time to play and get creative with it :)

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  • Riazul Haque

    A child is pretty creative from birth till he or she starts school. The
    reason for this is that the child is fully exposed to the undiluted home
    environment and learns by interpreting and assimilating it becoming quite
    creative in not just adjusting to it but growing in it thus creating his or her
    own personality.

    We need to provide opportunity for the child to continue learning in the
    same way in school provided we, instead of exposing the child to the abstract
    and rather disjointed curriculum of the school, bring the world to the child in
    school.

    Not just the current world but the world from its beginning to now in a
    condensed story book form so the child learns how we got to where we are now
    and how by chance or by necessity many of the discoveries were made and
    Nature’s workings were uncovered and then applying that acquired knowledge to
    deal with many of the life problems and thus solving them in a creative
    way.

    Given that kind of chronological background plus exposing
    the child to the current prevailing environment and the thought form, a child
    will develop creativity in the same way as he or she did at home.

    I am applying this approach in teaching science – a subject most people get
    lost in – by exposing them to all the basic science instruments scientists use
    to do science and I am doing so without books and without the arbitrarily
    divided subjects, see: http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=149281.

    After learning what the various
    instruments are used for, the students become quite creative in using the
    various instruments to solve day to day science including research problems.
    And they crisscross subjects becoming quite interdisciplinary in their
    approach. This degree of applied creativity they were never able to
    manifest when taught via the fragmented subject mode of teaching.

    Creativity thus comes from exposure and does not manifest de novo.
    Even to solve a problem, one needs to be exposed to the problem. Creativity
    thus does not arise in a void and we must stop searching for it or expect to
    produce it in a void.

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  • http://profiles.google.com/barry.kort Barry Kort

    It’s a bit of a cliche that creativity involves “breaking the rules” (express or implied constraints).

    Almost everyone alive today will recognize this classic scene in Harry Potter, where Hermione flips from being a rule-follower to a rule-breaker:

    Ginny: Harry, what happens if Umbridge does find out?

    Hermione: Who cares? I mean, it’s sort of exciting, isn’t it? Breaking the rules!

    Ron: Who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger?

    But do people really get the deeper insight there?

    How would a young adult audience apprehend or explain the poignancy of Hermione’s transformational epiphany?