This brief clip summarizes some key points from the book.
First, Robinson notes how schools - and really our culture - tends to squash - quite ruthlessly - creativity in children.
Why do you think so many people love early elementary school? Nap time. Story time. Painting. Trips to the library. Recess. Reading time. It's all about having fun, creating, and learning.
Now contrast that with middle or high school.
Exactly.
Where did the fun go?
Just watch how children love to create. Then watch what teenagers love to create. Outside of drama and text messaging (wonder if there could possibly be a link there?), it's pretty rare to see a sense of wonder and creativity in the classroom.
I'm as guilty of this as anyone.
Too many standards, assignments, tests, and so on.
More often than not, though, the students are just as guilty - though not necessarily through no fault of their own - and it's no wonder. Look at how we feel about creating after having our imaginations thoroughly drubbed and beaten out of us throughout much of high school.
Several years ago I taught journalism. I gave the students a choice: they could write their articles for the upcoming student newspaper or they could stuff envelops that were to go out to senior parents notifying them of when the yearbook would go on sale.
Every single one chose to stuff envelops. It takes energy and thought to create a story. But it doesn't take anything to stuff envelops. And the students worked diligently printing, folding, stuffing, and sealing the envelops for 90 minutes!
It was one of the saddest days of my career.
Early elementary seems to be the last refuge for creativity, where it is okay for kids to try and fail and to explore their talents and interests.
Don't tell me that happens at high school. In 12 years of teaching there I cannot begin to tell you how many kids don't care what they learn (let alone enjoy what they learn or see value or relevance in it). Instead, they are hellbent on getting the "A" and maintaining that precious 4.0 GPA. Off the top of my head I can think of a dozen students over the past couple years who have stressed to me how important it is that they NEVER get a B!
How insane is that?
I stress to them to have fun and enjoy what they learn rather than just "doing school" (see Denise Clark Pope's excellent text on the issue) and getting that 4.0 while learning very little. But it rarely makes a difference.
Where did such a foolish view of education develop? Well, Robinson takes a thorough look at that in The Elementt.
One problem is that most - if not all - of what we have been doing in school for the past century or so has been based on the Industrial Revolution model. The workforce at that time demanded people who could be productive in standardized shifts of time (such as a 45 minute work session - ever wonder why most classes are that long?), who could read and write and do some math, who could handle a new task ever 45 minutes or so . . . these are all benchmarks of the industrial revolution. Our schools were designed to produce mostly workers who would be doing manual labor.
So when a student made it to high school, they were pushed away from the arts (drama, music, art) because "you'll never find a job in that area." And that was mostly true . . . 50 years ago.
But thanks to the technological revolution and globalization, we no longer need a school system based on the industrial revolution. The majority of our students will not work in factories. I recall what Congressman George Miller told the Press Club when he was speaking about the recent report "A Democracy at Risk," that the only sustainable sources of economic growth in our flat world are innovation and discovery.
Yet we often steer kids away from what they are passionate about (the arts) and emphasize the sciences instead. No wonder so many kids dislike school and struggle while they are there. No wonder so many never develop a broad range of skills to make them well rounded citizens. We need to develop their imaginations and creative capacities if we are to keep up with China and India in terms of innovation and discovery.
Again, the industrial model of education didn't need citizens. They needed workers.
While we still need workers today, we cannot afford - in a flat, globalized world where China and India both produce more honor students than we have students - to turn out people who lack imagination and problem solving skills - and those are the very skills that many businesses are complaining that their workers don't have. It's because we focus too much on math and science and not on developing a well rounded student.
Now Robinson does not claim that arts are superior to the sciences. They are both important. But we need to rethink how we approach this. Why force a kid who loves and is passionate about art, for example, to struggle through chemistry and trigonometry? What school system on earth today makes a kid who is passionate and gifted in science and math struggle through art or choir? Let the kids follow their passions.
Maybe then I'd never hear the words, "Why do I have to learn this" or "When will I ever use any of this?"
I honestly think that if you allow kids to develop their passions and the skills that they are gifted in, you will also see them excel in other areas (this happened with me and math in college. I loathed it in high school and struggled mightily. Part of it was due that I neglected my math work to read and write instead. However, in college, where I really began to excel in my English courses, I also really began to enjoy my college algebra class). I think you'll see them begin to enjoy the process of learning. Which often does not happen now.
I like the story Robinson tells both in the clip above and in the book about a music teacher in Liverpool, where Robinson grew up, who not only had Paul McCartney in his class, but he also had George Harrison. That's right. One music teacher had HALF of the Beatles in his music class. Guess what? He never saw any talent in either, and they both left school thinking they had no musical talent.
And they formed the Beatles! The greatest band in the history of the world!
How could the teacher not recognize their talents? How could McCartney and Harrison not have found their love for music? Isn't that what schools are supposed to do - find talent and cultivate it?
Well, part of it was the teacher (who left the kids to spin records while he smoked in the teacher's lounge) and part of it was the students (they would play cards until a few minutes before class was over when they knew the teacher would return. Then they'd put the record on and skip to the last few notes and tell him how great it was).
A good portion of The Element involves Robinson interviewing some of the most talented people in their respective professions - who hated school (Mick Fleetwood and Matt Groening and Gordon Parks). He strives to answer why.
Robinson offers the example of Gillian Lynn. You probably have never heard of her. However, when she was a child in England in the early 1930's, her school called a meeting with Gillian's mother and explained that they thought there was something wrong with Gillian. She couldn't sit still and was a distraction. Thus, Gillian's mother took her to a doctor who listened to the list of behavioral problems.
Then he told Gillian that he and her mother were going to step outside for a moment. She should just sit tight and wait for them.
Then on his way out he flipped on a radio he had on his desk.
He left the door open and stood outside in the hallway with Gillian's mother. "Just watch her," he said.
Sure enough, in a moment Gillian was up, dancing all around the room to the music.
"There's nothing wrong with your daughter, Mrs. Lynn," the doctor said. "She's a dancer. Put her in dance school."
That is exactly what her mother did. And Gillian excelled. On the first day she felt at home. She said, "Everyone there was just like me. They had to move to think." They had to move to think.
How often do we allow our kinesthetic learners to do that in our classes?
Lynn excelled in dance school. She founded her own dance company and school. She met Andrew Lloyd Webber. She did the choreography for Cats and Phantom of the Opera. She has brought joy and beauty to millions of people. She is an expert in her field. She leads a productive life. Oh and she is a multi-millionaire.
Now, how many people today would put her on meds and tell her to calm down?
That brings us to Robinson's second problem with education and our culture: we are - as he states in the video - in a "false epidemic" of prescribing drugs for behavioral disorders and labeling kids.
He observes how kids of his generation routinely had their tonsils removed (I was one as well . . . and I wrote an essay about it, using it as a metaphor for the removal of the imagination via school systems. I'll track it down and post it later). That was the accepted treatment for tonsillitis . . . cut those suckers out.
Yet, if you ask kids today if they have their tonsils, a majority will still have them.
Why?
It was a false epidemic. This isn't to say that some cases don't warrant having tonsils removed. But not the vast majority of cases! It was an easy fix and over prescribed.
The false epidemic we are plagued with today is ADHD and plopping kids in special ed.
This, of course, is a billion dollar boon for the drug companies. Yet, you can't tell me we need so many kids on meds and in special ed.
Like with tonsils, this does not mean NO kids should be on meds or in special ed. Some warrant that. But not so many.
This is our new false epidemic.
Where were these ADHD and special ed kids 50 years ago? Many people wonder.
Well, first it wasn't an available condition 50 years ago. People didn't know they could have it. Second, kids today live in the most stimulating environment in the history of earth.
Think about it, how much information does a typical teenager take in by 10 am?
KoKo wakes up with her cell phone in her hand ready to text (or at least within four feet of her).
By 10 am, I'm guessing she has sent 100 texts.
She is up at 5:30 three times a week to go to sports excel.
As soon as she gets home, she is on Facebook. She is on there until she has to go to softball practice at 9:30.
Oh, yeah, she isn't just on Facebook. She has MSN going and Youtube (watching videos made and produced by her peers) and her cell phone going off. She is also monitoring yahoo news or msn to see if any more celebrities have bit the dust (she is fascinated by the fact that so many have died so recently). She also has her ipod plugged in to her ears.
Now, I'm not saying this is all good. But it's the routine of millions of kids just like her. They are living in the most stimulating environment ever.
They are taking in more information and creating more information than any generation in history.
Yet, we think there is something wrong with them when they get bored with an education system that is outdated by 50 years! Then we put them on meds or in special ed because they can't focus.
It's not the kids that have to calm down. It's the teachers that have to speed up. I like what Full Sail has now, it's a slogan for teachers to use technology in their classrooms: "No Teacher Left Behind."
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