Do Schools Kill Creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson | TED Talks

This Ted talk in particular is inspirational to me because it is linked to my subject. I have already studied this speech for my third year degree as my political speech. It is a speech about Creativity and education. At the beginning of the speech Sir Ken Robinson states that “throughout all the Ted talks that day no one knew what the world would look like in 5 years’ time”. Yet we are meant to be educating the children for the future. In this speech it is also stated that children are creative and innovative from a very young age. As the speech develops, the point is made that we “unlearn” our creativity and come to focus on simply providing teachers with the correct answer and become scared of being wrong and taking a risk or being creative. This is what the education system does as children get older, they get more aware of being wrong. Robinson asserts that “all kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly.” Robinson points out that each individual has particular talents and that it is important to focus on these talents that in some ways are naturally occurring; they are the areas to which we are most inclined. However, the education system forces children to learn a range of skills, many of which they have no interest in. This he implies wastes creativity and potential. We should nurture creativity and the willingness to take a risk even though that may at times turn out to be wrong. We learn from both the right and wrong choices. This talk applies to the performing arts because students must be prepared to experiment and at times fail because only then do they find out what succeeds. The process is a whole; both the success and the failure.