TED Talk - Ken Robinson

Iman Oweisi
Professor Jen Bartman
ENC1102
15 February 2013
Creativity Is Leaving Our Future Ken Robinson, an educator and public speaker, presented his view of how schools are killing creativity at a TED talk conference in 2006. There were many different tactics that have been shown throughout the video, and this is what allowed Robinson to reach out to his audience, and convince them on his views. One way that he went about introducing his claims, was by using many different real-life scenarios that deal with creativity being unaccepted, and due to his journey through a vast number of countries, he was able to tell with certainty how arts are viewed in different cultures. He also used humor during much of his presentation, which was one way of introducing his creativity to the audience. On top of this, Robinson stated that creativity should be viewed as important as something that is as highly-held as literacy, which instantly brought the audience to an ovation. As I have previously stated, creativity through arts has always been looked down upon throughout each culture worldwide. By travelling across the globe, Robinson was even able to witness first-hand how the educational hierarchy system worked, with arts always reigning at the bottom. The one point during his presentation that appeared to have the largest impact on the audience was his story about Gillian Lynne. He spoke about how Lynne was being told as a child that she had a sickness, when all she really had was an interest in dancing. Thankfully, “she was placed in a dance school, eventually went onto ballet, became a soloist with a wonderful career, graduated from the ballet school, founded her own company, and became responsible for some of the most successful theatre expressions in history.” Gillian is now a multi-millionaire that has given pleasure to a countless number of people, all because of her passion for arts, and her constant pursuit disregarding the pushdown of her creativity. If she were not placed into this dance school, somebody else would have told her to calm down along with some medication, and all of these accomplishments would have been lost. On the other hand, there are many kids who are being pushed out of keeping their creative complexity each day, and who knows what is being taken away from our future. Robinson most likely introduced this story in order to support his ethos, and to help the viewers understand how important it is for children to be supported with their unique desires, as compared to being squandered. Robinson believes that schools these days are a way of teaching kids to become university professors, and he uses different humorous examples to prove his point. He informs the audience, that as students move up the educational ladder, they are taught from the waist up, until they are ultimately focused on their heads. This statement was absolutely correct, and was able to appeal to the pathos of the spectators, because most people that listen to this talk have climbed up to a certain level in the educational system. This most likely was able to reach out to the audience, because they each understood how it was like growing up with this education system. If they were to look back at their childhood, they were taught drawing and physical education, but progressively lost these courses, and began to focus on sciences or mathematics. The speaker also introduces the comical fact that professors use their body as a mode of transportation for their minds. Robinson said this to reach out to the viewers, and exemplify that this was not the right thing to teach the youth into becoming. Some children may actually focus on doing so, but of course, many others have other goals in mind, and they should not be pushed into learning what they are unwilling to be taught. Each TED talk spokesperson has a wide variety of creativity, stated by Robinson. This is what allows each character to stand out from the group of old, and new speakers. One simple statement that Ken said was that creativity is as important as literacy. This is something that many of his audience members were able to agree with, because we’re are coming to live in a day and age where it is impossible to dispute the fact that children are being forced to take certain courses, even if they are unwilling to do so. By having this understood, the listeners then have a genuine understanding as to what level of magnitude creativity delivers. Along with this, he made use of many real life situations, and used them to show how younger children are not afraid of being wrong. He introduced a short story of a young girl that was drawing a picture of God, and obviously her teacher believed that this little girl was absurd for trying to draw such an image. This quick input that was thrown into his speech showed the listeners that no matter how ridiculous something may seem, a child will continue to go along with it. A severe problem of being taught out of creativity, is also being taught out of originality. By being persuaded at a younger age that mistakes are the worst thing you can do, you become less and less prone to create such errors. On the other hand, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, then nothing original will be created with your mind. Throughout Ken Robinsons TED talk, there was a vast variety of claims and evidence provided which helped approach his views on the educational system and creativity. The logos used by Ken Robinson for his presentation was incredible, because of the way that each example he decided to express to the crowd had such an important meaning behind it. These stories were also the most powerful technique used by Robinson in order to support his claims, and it is the main way the viewers were able to put his claims into sense. Along with these stories, the way that Ken used humor in his speech was a major advantage. Due to his usage of numerous comical references, he was sending a message to the crowd, stating that humor is one form of creativity, and there are many different uses for this skill. Overall, this TED Talk would have been much less persuasive if it were not for the methods being presented throughout the speech, because these were the aspects of the presentation that allowed the viewers to look at Robinson as a credible man. The main worry presented in this topic was that creativity must not be taken away from our children today, because we unknowingly predict how it will affect the world’s future. The current academic system is based on what is believed to be the most important things to learn for the future, even though there is no guarantee that these courses will prove beneficial.