How Schools Kill Creativity - Movie Review Example

School disciplines that focus on arts, music, drama, and fields that venture into creativity have apparently been left behind. It is in this regard that the current argument aims to assert that schools and the contemporary educational system all over the world actually kill rather than cultivate creativity. In the video entitled “How Schools Kill Creativity” presented online through TED Talks, a creativity expert, Sir Ken Robinson, contends that “creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status” (TED Conferences, LLC 1).

In a highly interesting manner of delivery, Robinson initially affirms that the predominant themes in the conference focus on three components: (a) the extraordinary evidence of human creativity; (b) the evidence of creativity placed people in an ambivalent situation or where there is no idea of what will come out in the future; and (c) there are extraordinary capacities for innovation that children actually manifest. Robinson asserts that through the current educational system that pervades globally, children are actually being made to restrict creative and innovative talents by emphasizing that it is not acceptable to be wrong.

He cites Picasso as affirming that all children are born artists (1). To cultivate creativity, it is considered important to acknowledge to children not to be frightened of being wrong, for it is through committing mistakes that innovation and concepts of originality allegedly emerge. Likewise, Robinson also explained how the educational system follows a hierarchy of subjects, where top subjects have been expressly noted to be mathematics and languages followed by humanities. The bottom subjects are disclosed to always be the arts.

This hierarchy inevitably develops only the brain and leaves out other parts of the body from the waist down. As contended, the reason for the educational system’s emphasis on the development of academic abilities is to appear “meet the needs of industrialism” (1). No transformations or adjustments have been made to refocus on rethinking the view of intelligence since. Robinson aptly enumerates three things about intelligence, to wit: (a) that it is diverse; (b) intelligence is dynamic; and finally, (c) intelligence is distinct.

He concludes his talk with the affirmation that we should seek to educate our children holistically: both academic and creative skills, which is the only way to help them effectively see and make the most of the future.