Thanks to the Prodical Kiwi(s) Blog for alerting me to this video of a talk by Sir Ken Robinson on nurturing (or not nurturing) creativity. It wasn't as informative as I had hoped, but it hits some high points and is at least amusing. Not everyone can take the time to read John Taylor Gatto's phone book sized The Underground History of American Education. My apologies to all my teacher readers (who no doubt wish they had more freedom to nurture creativity) and epecially the university professors. :) I really like the story of dancer and choreographer Gillian Lynne.
I'm too late. The video is no longer available. Internet time is faster than real time!
That's strange; I can still see it, both directly and on YouTube. Try this direct link instead. I was particularly thinking of you when I posted it. :)
It's worth a watch. A few things struck me.
1) Everyone has a vested interest in education. It's like religion or politics. It helps me understand the extreme reactions I get from so many people when I mention I was homeschooled and dare to plan on homeschooling my kids.
2) "If you're not prepared to be wrong you won't do anything creative."
3) All over the word the hierarchy of education is the same: math and literacy at the top, then science and humanities, then the arts. Even in the arts music and art are more important than dance and drama. As he said, we start by teaching the whole kid then progress to teaching from the waist up and then on to the right side of the head.
4) In the 19th c. there were no public education systems. They were a product of industrialization.
5) He makes the point we all know about academic inflation and how a masters is worth what a bachelors used to be.
All this is from memory, I might have misquoted slightly, sorry.
Except that I think you mean we teach to the left side of the head -- what he said I don't recall, but I'm sure that's what he meant -- that's an accurate summary of what struck me, too.
If #2 is correct, my guess is the following is yet another example of why government schools fail:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/125786.html
DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN ABOUT GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT? And how govt schools are teaching state subservience?
You never had to convince me that schools assume you are guilty until proven innocent, nor that they teach submission to authority. It's been proven time and time again that public school students are stripped of rights the rest of us take for granted when they walk in the door.
It's a horrible story, and the child's parents ought to pull her out of that school immediately (perhaps they did). I loathe the litigation-happy attitudes that have spoiled so much of our modern society, but even I have to admit suing the school seems a reasonable action.
Still, even this example isn't so much about state, or even general, subservience as subservience to school authorities. Parental authority, for example, is only supported when it happens to coincide with school policy, and tends to be undermined otherwise. You're quite right that some will then transfer this unthinking subservience to the government, but I believe it's more likely to be preparing students for subsequent submission to employers with equally intrusive policies.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm all for supporting one's government and obeying both the letter and the spirit of the law, and for serving one's employer wholeheartedly (thought not with "all your heart, soul, mind, and strength"). What I fear most about schools, perhaps, is that so many students emerge with neither the mental skills nor the knowledge base necessary to discern when authoritative requests and policies are right and reasonable, and when they are wrong or needlessly intrusive. Nor the moral foundation, but that's another issue and not one likely to be well handled by a secular school.
