TED Talk #1

Reflection on Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms

 I am writing this in the context of just learning that MU is suspending its undergraduate Art Ed program. I did not get my undergraduate in Columbia and I know there are many other art ed programs out there. However, if such a big university takes this action, will others follow suit?

So, within the context of arts advocacy, the video opens with Ken Robinson saying that public education has two main purposes: economic and cultural. Society needs to prepare its youth to complete in the economic climate of a rapidly changing society. Societies also want to communicate  regional cultural identities to children in the context of globalization. 

 

Students need a tool box of skill sets and thinking skills to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing society. Art education has its place in developing skill sets and thinking skills in a different way than other curricula. Art education also helps transmit cultural identity while also looking at traditions of other cultures. It is inherent to what we do.

 

Another part of the video that stuck with me is when Ken Robinson talks about the students who feel alienated by traditional education. The main intelligence that is valued is academic in nature. Those who don't succeed in academics feel dumb. This is such a narrow presentation of gifts and talents. What if people realized that the visual-spatial kiddos who are messy and think "too far" outside the box could surgeons, engineers, and revolutionaries in the technology field? Instead, they lose interest in school, and at best, go to trade school. Art education helps validate talents that may not be reinforced in the regular classroom.

The video goes on to explain how students are growing up in an increasingly visual information age, yet education tends not honor this fact and continue to teach in ways the students find boring. Instead of giving students aesthetic experiences -  in which students are most fully alive and engage all their senses - education tries to anesthetize students to function within standardized learning environments. I have found this to be particularly true. I have students say they come to art class to "do." In most other arenas they are taught at and do not get experiences they get in art.

The last part of the video I want to highlight is how education kills divergent thinking. This ties into a segment I heard on NPR on the drive home: How to see a galaxy in your toilet bowl. http://www.npr.org/programs/all-things-considered/ Children are born as little exploring scientists. Their habits can be annoying to some, but should be validated since exploring is how they learn about how their universe works. We, as adults, may try to subdue divergent thinking in children, but we should really try to encourage it. Art class is a safe place for divergent thinking. The art class is an environment that can, even though it sometimes does not, help encourage the preservation of divergent thinking.