In Ken Robinson's book Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, Robinson argues that creativity is highly sought-after skill in the 21st century economy and that creativity can be systematically taught. He spends the first part of the book dispelling common misconceptions about creativity. Creativity is not a special in-born skill that only artists and innovators possess. Creativity is not limited to the world of art, and it can be part of any process.
Everyone has huge creative capacities; the challenge is to develop them. The culture of creativity has to involve everybody, not just a select few.
I agree with Robinson that creativity is something we possess and are able to further develop. In my student teaching experience, I encountered many students who believed themselves as "not creative" and unable to make mind maps. Upon first glance, mind maps look like they requires you to be already predisposed to be able to draw or to be good at art. However, with a little guidance and scaffolding almost everyone was able to complete a mind map on the skeletal system. Creativity isn't something that you either have or lack; it's something we all possess and isn't limited to a narrow definition which can set limits on what we can do or achieve.
The problem is that many of our established ways of doing things, in business, in government and education, are rooted in old ways of thinking. They are facing backwards, not forwards. As a result, many people and organizations are having a hard time coping with these changes and feel left behind or alienated by them. To face these challenges we have to understand their nature; to meet them, we have to recognize that cultivating our natural powers of imagination, creativity, and innovation is not an option but an urgent necessity.
Robinson lays out what he believes to be two key forces which are changing the face of our world: technology and population growth. The interplay between these two factors have drastically changed the way we all live and how we utilize the limited resources we have on this planet. Many new challenges and issues derived from these two factors require a new way of thinking and operating, but the old systems which exist have a difficult time adapting because they were created in a different time for a different purpose.
Robinson spends much of this chapter laying out the history and quickening pace of technological change we have faced as a species. I believe he does this to provide some context about how drastically different our current world is when compared to the recent and distant past. It is easy to become caught up in the current moment of our lives and take for granted the internet, cell phones, automobiles, functional (mostly) governments, stable societies, modern economies, and fast food. All of these things did not exist for the majority of human existence, but I barely think about it. Change is happening at an amazing pace and with change brings uncertainty.
Robinson spends much of this chapter laying out the history and quickening pace of technological change we have faced as a species. I believe he does this to provide some context about how drastically different our current world is when compared to the recent and distant past. It is easy to become caught up in the current moment of our lives and take for granted the internet, cell phones, automobiles, functional (mostly) governments, stable societies, modern economies, and fast food. All of these things did not exist for the majority of human existence, but I barely think about it. Change is happening at an amazing pace and with change brings uncertainty.
Creativity is not solely to do with the arts or about being an artist, but I believe profoundly that we don't grow into creativity; we grow out of it. Often we are educated out of it. [...] The dominant forms of education actively stifle the conditions that are essential to creative development. Young children enter pre-school alive with creativity confidence; by the time they leave high school many have lost that confidence entirely. [...] But if creativity is to become central to our futures, it first has to move to the heart of education.
This is a long and complicated chapter in which Robinson explains how the current educational system was born from the needs created during the industrial revolution. Public schools follow a factory format designed to educate people who are skilled enough to enter the labor workforce. Robinson goes further to indicate how some policy makers emphasize the need to improve standards, increase efficiency, and improve return on investment. He explains how this approach is similar to how one would go about reforming the automotive industry but unlike cars which do not care about how they are produced, human beings care about their experiences in education.
I found this to be a simple yet brilliant analogy to understand the limited and sometimes unproductive rhetoric regarding on how to improve our schools. By focusing on only one aspects of the problem, we ignore how to see the greater system at play at a much bigger holistic level.
Robinson goes further in the chapter to explain how certain aspects of education are more highly regarded such as math, science, and language while other disciplines such as art, dance, and drama are held lower. This hierarchy has directly led to the the latter being cut from funding or ignored during processes of educational reform. I found this to be very true within my own educational experiences. When I got an English degree at UCLA, many of my family members were shocked and dismayed at my choice because they did not know what kind of job prospects were possible with it. Many of them thought that they only thing I could do with it was become an English teacher. Of course they were were wrong, as I am striving to become a science teacher.
Robinson, K. (2011). Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. Oxford: Capstone.
I found this to be a simple yet brilliant analogy to understand the limited and sometimes unproductive rhetoric regarding on how to improve our schools. By focusing on only one aspects of the problem, we ignore how to see the greater system at play at a much bigger holistic level.
Robinson goes further in the chapter to explain how certain aspects of education are more highly regarded such as math, science, and language while other disciplines such as art, dance, and drama are held lower. This hierarchy has directly led to the the latter being cut from funding or ignored during processes of educational reform. I found this to be very true within my own educational experiences. When I got an English degree at UCLA, many of my family members were shocked and dismayed at my choice because they did not know what kind of job prospects were possible with it. Many of them thought that they only thing I could do with it was become an English teacher. Of course they were were wrong, as I am striving to become a science teacher.
Robinson, K. (2011). Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. Oxford: Capstone.