Summary of "How school kills creativity" by Sir Ken

Summary – „How school kills creativity“ by Sir Ken Robinson Yolanda Kaptein 12/11/14

The talk „How school kills creativity“ given by Sir Ken Robinson in February 2006 focuses on the crackdown of creativity within the educational system. He thereby puts special emphasis on the hierarchy of subjects and the importance to change it.

His opening statement refers to creativity as being as important as literacy in education.
Sir Ken undermines his position by giving two examples, one of a girl that could barely concentrate in class but was very imaginative when drawing, and the other of children creatively changing the lines in a nativity play.
He gives those examples to point out that school nowadays defames mistakes and thereby eduates children out of their creative capacities by making them afraid of making mistakes. Here Sir Ken questions rethorically that if you are not prepared to be wrong, how can one come up with an original idea, suggesting his definition of creativity is the process of creating something innovative that has value.

Furthemore, Sir Ken puts forward the hierarchy of subjects he seems to find in every educational system in every country, explaining that every school puts language and math first, humanities second and and arts last. He sees the problem with this hierarchy in the way it was invented and the purpose it was created for.
The systems were inaugurated during industrialisation to educate students with the subjects which were most useful for work back then. Moreover he sees a problem with the way schools build the path for university entrance, only serving the purpose of producing university professors.
Among Robinson’s concerns is teachers telling children they will never become musicians and artists, which will then lead to creative, intelligent students thinking they are not.
Giving reasons for the system to change, he foreshadows that within the next 30 years we will have more students graduating than we have had in the entire history. Projecting that what he calls ‚academic inflation‘ will evidently lead to degrees being worthless.
What he means is that a few years ago having a degree meant having a job where as now we need higher and higher levels of graduation for the same line of work.
This indicates that we also need to rethink the way we see intelligence, as the school systems are changing so rapidly
Giving the example of Gillian Lynne a famous dancer from the Royal Ballet, he explains why it is so important to see the creative capacity for the richness it is, so children can explore their talents instead of being told to sit still in class.
Pointing to his final statement, he argues that rethinking fundamental structures for education is essential to preserve the gift of human imagination and to make sure that our children will be able to build up to their full potential.