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IPFS News Link • Education: Government Schools

This Is How Education Kills Creativity

• http://www.trueactivist.com, by Sophie McAdam Rea

Is it a coincidence that pretty much all children love to write stories, have fantastic imaginations, enjoy getting messy, painting, making music, inventing characters, acting out plays, drawing and making things? Why don't we carry this natural capacity throughout adulthood? Why would nature intend us to lose these gifts?

Eight years ago, a man named Ken Robinson made a TED speech that revolutionized the topic of education. It caused many parents to pull their kids out of school, it was a matter of hot debate among experts, and it has been watched on the TED website over 31 million times to date (not including over 7 million more times on YouTube). Many of you may be familiar with this lecture, but for those who aren't, we highly recommend you take the next twenty minutes to sit down and listen to what this man has to say.

Robinson is an expert on creativity and education, and he strongly believes that at the moment, the two concepts don't seem to co-exist. In this speech, Robinson argues eloquently and passionately that education is destroying our childrens' capacity to think outside the box. Ken Robinson led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, an inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and he was knighted in 2003 for his achievements.

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