I think most of everyone here has seen this and I believe to ask some good questions as well as make good points. I believe the problem lies in implementation of a new system, as it seems a nationwide change would leave the next graduation cycle out of its potential benefits.
So my question echoes Sir Robinsons, does our current education hamper individual creativity and growth? And does the US need a major revamp of its public education system?
Absolutely. I teach an after-school / summer program for predominantly low-income K-8th grade students. Most of my Kindergartners are with me each day for longer than they are in public school. The amount of six year olds being medicated on a daily basis because they are bored is unfathomable. I feel like public education in this country is just a conveyor belt pumping out kids into a broken economy. It's extremely frustrating that my infant daughter will be going into the public school system in a few years, because I can't afford to home school her or send her to a more progressive private school.Does our current education hamper individual creativity and growth? And does the US need a major revamp of its public education system?
Two things I really enjoy the RSA Animates and Sir Ken Robinson, very cool. Thanks for posting this Captain_Ozone, I've heard the talk before but it's great to see it this way. Syncretic, I too have a daughter (she's 2) and I'm already concerned about the type of education she will receive. We will likely send her to public schools too and plan to fill in the gaps of her education ourselves in the evenings and on the weekends. I suppose that is all one can do.The amount of six year olds being medicated on a daily basis because they are bored is unfathomable.
-When I was about 13 years old it seemed like over night 50% of my friends were prescribed Ritalin. It was a way for their parents to justify there behaviors and bad grades without having to admit that perhaps they were the ones at fault. -Shameful stuff.
Before I say this, I perform once a week and practice three times a week- I like the arts and humanities quite a bit. But to be frank, in a world which is increasingly digitized, where the most important media is the bit, there's something wrong with the arts, too. When the majority of artists are luddites there's a problem. Because it should be so simple to leverage the most powerful tools in human history to make real art, but every attempt I've seen has either been a commercialization of how cool the internet is without much understanding of it, or trying to drag people away from the medium by using the medium. So far the sciences have made art more widely available and readily consumed in the last 30 years than the arts ever have. And the arts still spite the sciences way more then vice-versa. (How is that spelled!?)
Of course it needs a major revamp, it's needed one for a while. As for creativity, it stifles it. The public system has no room for creativity, how can it when it's mostly come down to teachers passing students so that they don't get fired? Curriculum's are becoming more streamlined, with less emphasis on the individual. It's a collective problem where students are being fit to a mold and sent off to college, work, or the army, as opposed to the mold being fit to them.
Going in that direction a little more, how do we change what seems a world wide view of the education that places the hard sciences at the top, then the humanities, and then the arts. How does the world incorporate an artist as it would a scientist? This isn't to make the professions necessarily equal (that's a different discussion), but to encourage (or even mandate) participation in the arts is necessary for a more culturally literate and successful education system.