#education creativity

[jtmanders]

[purpleroot]

Sir Ken Robinson and My Left Foot

In 2006, an educationist named Sir Ken Robinson gave a talk at a Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference. That talk has been viewed on the Internet nearly 17 million times at the time I write this. I believe there are a couple of reasons for the popularity of this talk. The first is that Sir Robinson is an exceptionally engaging speaker. The second is that the content of his talk resonates deeply with people. You can view this TED talk here. In this note, I will explore some of the thoughts expressed in Sir Robinson's book Out of Our Minds, which expands on some of the ideas in his TED talk.

The first is the idea that creativity is something that can be practised in any line of work, not just in the professions that are regarded traditionally to be creative. One can be a creative mathematician, or a creative scientist, or a creative dancer, or even a creative businessman. Creativity is a way of thinking and working that can be applied in every field of work. Therefore, schools ought to actively nurture creativity in students rather than nip it in the bud. 

The second important point Sir Robinson makes is that the academic curriculum in most schools is based on a narrow conception of intelligence. This is how he puts it: 

"The academic life tends to ignore the rest of the body. In many schools, students are educated from the waist up and attention eventually comes to focus on their heads, and particularly the left side. This is where many professional academics live: in their heads, and slightly to one side."

As a result, schools end up addressing their content and teaching methods primarily to the subset of children who happen to fall within the contours of this narrow conception of intelligence, while the rest of the children tend to feel disengaged from school and everything associated with it. Sir Robinson makes the case for a broader conception of intelligence, and argues that the dominant logico-mathematical focus of schools is misguided. He also points out that popular measures of intelligence like the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) are based on just such a severely constrained model of intelligence.

Finally, Sir Robinson gives us a historical perspective on how the sciences and mathematics came to dominate the discourse of the makers of educational policy (I think this is more true of the West than countries like India). In a nutshell, the Enlightenment and the resulting scientific progress in the West resulted in science and allied disciplines being elevated to a higher pedestal, and the humanities being concomitantly downgraded, so to speak. While it is good that the scientific way of thinking has gained acceptance, it's counterproductive to downplay the role of the the humanities.

I'd like to end with my thoughts from a wonderful movie I watched recently. My Left Foot depicts the real-life story of an Irish man named Christy Brown, who was left almost completely paralyzed from birth due to cerebral palsy. His powers of speech were barely rudimentary, and he had movement only in his left foot. The story is about how – with support from his family and doctors – he managed to surmount his physical challenges, develop his creative abilities and become a novelist and painter. He wrote and painted using his only available tool, his left foot. I thought I'd end with this, because this is a tale of what's possible when a person's creative abilities are permitted their fierce, natural expression. And when you watch the movie, you cannot help admiring the craft of Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays the grown-up Christy Brown. To deliver such a masterful performance requires nothing short of a first-rate intelligence. Whether the traditional school system has the ability or intention to acknowledge this kind of intelligence, however, is an entirely different matter.