Creative Spark Talk Analysis

Creative Spark Talk Analysis
Mario L. Gabriel
PHL/458 Creative Minds and Critical Thinking
April 8, 2015
Dr. Charles Flowers

Creative Spark Talk
Sir Ken Robinson is an educator, respected author and leading advocator for changes to the educational system. A Professor believes that the education system needs to be more creative and stop preventing creativity. Sir Robinson speech on “How Schools Kill Creativity”; given on February 2006; at TED conference in Monterey California. It focuses on the education system goals and the educators understanding the process of developing a successful system. The focus of his speech is how schools do everything they can to dissuade children from being creative. He is advocating for a monumental change in current educational systems that nurture and promote creativity. The education system profound way of how the selection process of the employee, prevents the out-of-box thinkers from maintaining their creativity growth.
Stages of Creativity Robinson begins his talk referencing how we have become a society that deeply vested in education. He goes on to say today’s children have incredible talent but we waste it through our current educational systems. He discusses how we have become a society that is educating for 50 years in the 2065 we really have no idea what the future will look like in five years. In looking at the four stages of creativity, it is easy to see how the current educational systems stifle creativity. Stage one according to Ryan Ruggiero is searching for challenges or “meeting challenges in an imaginative, original, and effective way” (Ruggiero, 2012). Robinson discusses how our educational systems have become more about mathematics and science and less about the arts. Young children are willing to take a chance. If they do not know an answer to a question, they are not afraid to go for it or of being wrong according to Robinson. Robinson makes an excellent point that “if you aren’t prepared to be wrong then you will never come up with anything creative” (Robinson, 2007). Stage three, which probably the most important deals with investigating the problem. It is important to make sure you obtain the necessary information to deal effectively with the problem. The last stage is stage four, which involves producing ideas. It is important to make sure you generate enough ideas to decide which action you should take.
Concepts of imagination and Curiosity Almost the entire talk Robinson gave revolved around creativity and imagination. Robinson discusses how today’s society has become dependent on rising through the ranks by achieving different degree levels. He explains that in order to rise to different levels there is too much focus on answering questions accurately and too much focus on when mistakes occur.
Personal experiences and Benefit Society I remember not doing well in my Biology class and my instructor challenge me to change location in the classroom. I did not believe that the seat selection was the problem, but changing the seat eliminated the surrounding distraction and my grades highlighted the improvement. I took that same approach to the rest of my classes and the results astonishing. I believe at that time most of my teachers had written me off, but as an educator you have to seek ways more creative approach to capture and develop the students minds for thinking out of the box. I have learn from that experience and lecture, we as educators in the educational system have to be open to ideas and develop different methodology that will help our learners to mature and produce different avenues of approach to accomplishing a task. Sir Robinson talk was quite eye opening for me and has made me take a more analytical approach to how I even educate my children.

References
Robinson, K. (2007, January 6). Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? [Video file]. Retrieved from Youtube.com website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
Ruggiero, V. R. (2012). The Art Thinking. The art of thinking: A guide to critical and creative thought (10th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Longman.