Ken Robinson

I came across the name Ken Robinson from a podcast I was listening to on the way to work this morning. The podcast was devoted to creativity in teaching. When the keynote presenter on the podcast mentioned Mr. Robinson, who is referred to as a "creativity expert."

Wow. That's what I want to be when I grow up.

When I read on the TED website, which features the video below, it states that Robinson "champions a radical rethink of our school systems to cultivate creativity." He argues too that our current school system kills creativity or rather students "get educated out of creativity." To which I respond: Amen.

Now this is interesting given that about half a dozen of my best and brightest students (in my College Comp class) just intentionally bombed their NWEA tests in order to get back to class and watch the film that I am showing (Training Day) to conclude the year. As we are watching it, we are comparing it to "Young Goodman Brown."

The students simply saw it - through no influence from me (honest) - as just another damn test that doesn't mean one damn thing to them. Yet, they wanted to get back to class and get back to creating. Now you may say how is watching a film creating, well, it's a creative activity, especially given the discussion we are having about it. Whereas the test? Well, that's staring at a computer screen and answering a series of multiple choice testing. Not exactly the epitome of creativity, is it?

My question is, if our best and brightest think of testing this way, what do the bulk of our student body think of testing?

I have a feeling our current high school agenda - thanks to the people at NWEA, MCA, and all those other standardized test bastards and NCLB, are doing a fine job of educating the creativity right out of our kids.

That's sad.