Our school system needs to be redefined by people like Mr. Robinson. School subjects such as music and arts should be considered crucial in the early years of education more than any other subjects. This does not mean that areas sucha as Language arts or Math should be left behind. We should find the way to make a right balance. I totally agree with Robinson's ideas, I just love him.
Definitely, meaningful reforms should be introduced, mostly to reduce student's ratio, at the same time teachers also need constant training in order to have an up-to-date knowledge and practice in the classroom.
I concur with you, but I would like add that I consider the key point here is the word "balance." It is very important to develop our skills, but they are not more important than a holistic enrichment, including a wide range of topics and subjects.
This talk by Sir Ken Robinson has reminded me of the book by the same author "The Element". I highly recommend you to have a look at it, as you will realize of the importance of helping our students to find their real passion, that is, their "element". As I see it, schools still need to put a greater effort to foster our children's creativity and with the scarce resources that we teachers have it is not an easy task to do.
Thanks, Mireia for your recommendation. I'll try to get and read the book. As you said, schools have to make a greater effort to promote creativity, but to make it possible we also need governments and society in general to commit themselves to the change.
I strongly agree with the ideas presented by Mr. Robinson. I was talking to a student the other day, and he told me he was scared he wouldn't get into the Cicle Formatiu he wanted and would be forced to study Batxillerat. What surprised me the most was that he wasn't even considering pursuing a career in his actual passion: dancing. So I asked him why that was, and he told me he'd never stop dancing, but he didn't believe he could make a living out of it. I know for a fact that he had a rough time at school just because he liked dancing and his classmates thought such hobby wasn't manly enough. I believe the school system is to blame here. If we as teachers include a wide variety of activities which require different artistic skills and schools foster art programs, it'll be easier for students to develop their creativity without being ashamed or laughed at for it. Schools must become safe environments for creativity.
I agree with you that students choose their studies and future professional career thinking in terms of money and not what they really like doing or are good at.
I see it eye to eye with you. I'd say that there is more place for fostering creativity in primary school than in older stages since during primary school, pupils are thought to be more interactive and dynamic as well as multiple intellegences are often considered in depth. However, at secondary schools sometimes they are considered to be more academic and some creative tasks, projects or subjects are sometimes left apart. I must say that spending some time with such activities, often has a positive consequence on our students regarding ther social and personal competencies, which are fundamental in everybody's life. Our Catalan teaching department should find some place in the curriculum so these abilities are not murdered during the teenage years.
Lately my school has started to working in projects in class. Teachers try to créate group activities that allow students' imagination grow and being free. It's a really complicated task because, nowadays, society isn't used to work with it. If we want to become more creative in class, we must allow students being creative since they're born.
I agree with him in everything and have his ideas in mind when I'm teaching and meeting new students each school year. I understand that many students find it difficult to spend 6 hours sitting still in class listening to a teacher. So, I allow students to stand up and ask questions to others, move table to sit in groups,... Those students like the example in the video that are sometimes diagnosed TDHA I let them go to the toilet during the class, or to the reception for supplies I may need. Whenever I notice bored students or that have finished, I tell them they're allowed to draw or paint; most of them have great artistic abilities. Apart from the arts and music teachers, most of the students in my school prefer 60-minute lessons in silence while doing explanations/exercises. Many comments I hear are like "student A always interrupts or asks to leave the class, they can't sit still for a long time, ..." Whenever I have to teach a class after these teachers, students need to talk a lot and move around, and it's more difficult for me to make them concentrate. But I understand them, it would feel the same to me if I've had to stay 60 minutes in silence and working hard doing exercises.
I'd say that many current schools don't foster creativity but it might be due to the fact that most teachers don't even know how to do it instead of not willing to. Personally, I'd like to know more about how to encourage my pupils to develop their creative abilities since I consider that doing what Robinson said we are not doing (allow kids to make mistakes) is not enough. Usually, we have too many students per class to realise individual talents since most of the times we ask them all to do the same sort of tasks. Any ideas on how to foster they creativity or even become aware of our students creative skills?
Some ideas could be: - Let them express on what they are good at (sports, painting, singing...) and try to use their personal talents in end-course festivals/activities. - Let them present their talent in front of the class, as experts on that issue, and let the other colleagues ask them questions. That would make them feel as the protagonist and grow their self-esteem.
I think the best way is to make them feel they are the centre, we must to speak one by one, face to face, felting the chain of command out, like one of them. In this context students are much more capable of talk about their skills. It could seems dangerous sometimes, but it is not. It is the best way, as far I know, to promote their personal talents.
I think Ken Robinson is completely right when he says schools kill creativity. It is obvious that subjects like arts and music are not as important as maths or language in the students curriculum, at least in our country. We should bare in mind that every child has a different talent, so his/her learning process might be different. Nevertheless it is quite difficult to apply a good teaching system that considers and fosters this creativity. Maybe in the near futre with the new educational law we will be pushed to adapt our teaching methods to encourage children creativity. Agnès.
Well, in a small school teachers usually talk a lot to each other about the students and we see that in diferent subjects students show different talents
What I have done this course is to ask my students to answer a survey about their preferences and hobbies the first week of classes. Once I got the results, I tried to add some tasks related to their passions during the course (readings, videos, songs, etc).
I agree with you. But killing creativity is not just a matter of schools. The whole society must promote creativity since we are born. But Montse, in bigger schools it's almost quiet difficult to speak about students' talents. We must also promote to work and develope this dialogues and conversation in bigger schools too.
Sir Ken Robinson is certainly true in many things: I do agree that mistakes are part of the learning process and we mustn't punish them. Moreover, intelligence is diverse and dynamic, so, sometimes students need to move in order to think or learn better. Unfortunately, in our educational system there are many students in each class and it's challenging to give them a longlasting personalised attention or to offer different ways of assessing their progression as the everyday rhythm, the endless curriculum and specially the extreme ratios may kill education creativity.It's up to us to struggle against that. Anna N
I totally share your point of view. The ratios are usually a nightmare. It's so hard to prepare different tasks for each kind of student since diversity in a classroom also exists. I understand there would be the need to invest a lot of our time in order to rise creativity up.
I agree on the point that mistakes are part of the learning process and it's important to share this idea with students. I also try to use different assessment criteria with them, so that they can take part in their evaluation process and they become aware of their level. I try to use peer and self evaluation rubrics and it is also very useful to ask them for some ideas to improve activities, suggestions, etc.
Precisely, Anna. After watching the talk, I realised that if we want to focus education on the creativity of individual talents, everything needs to change: the concept of class, our lessons, lesson plans, ratios, even the design of classrooms, among other things. A total shake up of the educational system as we know it today. We need to make it more personalized and provide contexts for each personal talent to collaborate with other individual talents to develop great ideas and outcomes that we will never be able to get in a traditional classroom setting. An utopia? An enourmous challenge? Maybe both...
I think there are no right or wrong subjects because a kid can learn in the maths class or not. So, all the subjects are important and teachers should help students see which one can help him/her the best. I would not talk about subjects , I would talk about capacities and foster as many as possible in our students.
I agree on the fact that there should be no important/less important subjects and I think we are already moving towards capacities (competències). However, the way the educational system is organized implies that some subjects are more important than others (for instance, languages are taught more hours than PE or Music).
Creativity is nowadays a must to implement in class. But I think this is only the theory. I personally know the theory affter lots of courses, videos, meetings, etc,, but my question is, how many of us know to put it into practice? In my English classes, all kids are special and different. Some of them are keen on putting into practice different abilities, such as by listening, watching, touching, dancing, creating, using technology etc. We are not all the same, and as far as what I've seen, classes are not creative since we always ask students to do mechanical activities, like filling in the gaps, studying vocabulary and grammar and completing it in a book. If we could change this into something more practical and real-life based (and that is when creativity could appear) everything would have much more sense. I try to do my best so that my classes can be creative, but I have the impression that I need to continue with the more "mechanical activities" (so to say) since students have bought the books and the parents expect you to work on or finish them, we (teachers) are lack of resources and we need to coordinate most things with the department and not everybody agrees. We need to change education and make it more creative and real-life based because the world is changing rapidly, and so should the education. If we keep stuck in mechanical activities, we will create robots with no opinion nor (new) talents. Let's innovate. We need to try new things. We need to make mistakes. But we will only create a better world this way.
My high school tries to foster creativity in some cases, for example, allowing children to write down a blog or when working in project based learning activities. Nevertheless, we could think about other ways of fostering creativity. I believe it would be great to listen to each student and tailor lesson plans, activities... according to their passions and interests. It it is difficult, though, as we usually have an average of 30 students in class. We need to think about it...
As you mention, listening to each student on their passions and interests is key. I don't think a school can foster creativity by making all of them write a blog, as that will only connect with a few of them who may like writing, journalism or online editing.
Hi Ursula, I think that one big challenge is to make teachers change. It is good to see that you in your school are finding ways to allow students use their creativity. I strongly believe that we teachers should spend more time debating and sharing our ideas on creativity.
The introduccion of project based learning is a way of fostering the creativity of students at school. During the project they have to use creativity, together with many other skills and the last part of the project is mostly something they create to show the result. But not all subjects work wiith the metodology of pbl or at least not evey day, so,students many live this contradiction. Sometimes their creativity is killed by the school, some proposals students have are ignored .
Kevin Robinson made me realise that the use of technologies is bringing back the creative component in education, and applying their use in class may be an excellent tool to integrate all the different talents that would have been disregarded by a classical o pre-technological approach. A great perspective that can help us put aside the widespread fear of using technologies in the classroom. Personally, I've seen shy students shine if you give them a task that brings out their passions and talents and that is definitely the way to go. Let's make technology our ally and partner in that process.
Alicia, I agree with you on the fact that technology makes our lessons more creative and can help us to integrate the students' passions and talents. I share the same idea as you when you mention that shy students are normally boosted when they're presented with tasks that have to do with their passions or interests. Therefore, there's definitely no doubt that we as teachers have to be aware of the interests and passions of the students we are teaching. Thus, our teaching practice will become more tailored to our students' lives, which will in turn result in more engagement and participation from the part of the students.
In my opinion, Sir Ken Robinson is right and there should be a change in the educational system worldwide. It seems that every student needs to follow the same path until they are 16, and if they don't manage to do so, therefore they are a failure. Teachers face different types of students in class and they need to adapt the materials or assessment for them, however I think the change should be made my the governments and students should be given other options according to their needs and interests. In my school, we do some projects which are part of optional subjects the students can choose. Also, some students are given the opportunity to do an internship or different types of voluntary work. Then, when they finish 4th ESO, teachers suggest what the best option for them is (Batxillerat, cicles formatius).
Totally agree! Why everyone is supposed to learn same things at the same pace? Throughout my career (25 years teaching) I 've come across many students with very low self-esteem, they feel they're failing just because they seem not to fit in the course, the teacher, or the educational system's requirements. We should focus much more on values and skills.. academic results are not a guarantee for success in life any more.
This is an inspiring video that fosters critical thinking about the teaching approach today. The main idea is to boost sts' creativity and to incorporate it in the learning community, including a new vision towards multiple skills, abilities, disciplines and new technologies in order to prepare students for their tomorrow, not only for the acquisition of their academic certificates. Motivation is crucial.
It's certainly true that in our country there has been a huge academic inflation. This affects the way we prepare our students for their future. However, one can start noticing a change of view towards the apreciation of arts, sports and other fields that unfortunately were underestimated in the past or were only for the gifted.
I'd like to highlight some topics that Ken Robinson mentioned in the TED, future is uncertain, the needs of the labour market in 20 or 30 years' time are unpredictable. Without doubts the educational systems all around the world tend to accept just wrong or correct answers, for this reason students are afraid of making mistakes. The other important idea, is the academic inflation, the question arises; what's worth studying to be successful grown ups? I'd like to link these points with how schools can nurture for creativity: - two teachers in the classroom to address diversity - spacial support for students with educational needs - create fields via school activities such as festivities for students to "show off" with musical or artistic talent - photograph contest - create the cover page of "Agenda Escolar"
I think Ken Robinson is right when he mentions that our school system revolves around industrialism. We structure the shcool timetable into separated subject blocks and devote so much importance to some specific subjects such as Catalan, Spanish, Maths, English... but not too much to other subjects like Art or Music. We tend to think that artistic subjects aren't that important for the students in the long term so as to get a good job. However, Ken Robinson believes that we have to exploit the students' talents and passions, not to diminish them. This implies that we, as teachers, need to encourage our students to take advantage of their artistic abilities since they are children because if we don't, then it might be too late. I think that our job is to consider the fact that every student is unique so we need to foster the multiple intelligences. Why don't we try to incorporate hands-on activities for those kinaesthetic students, music for those who are passionate about music, videos or mindmaps for the visual ones...?
Ken Robinson is making a very interesting approach in his talk about education nowadays. Many times we are not taking into account the possibilities of the students in topics which are not directly related with the knowledge areas we consider more important than the others. Nevertheless, to pay more attention in other topics could have advantages and drawbacks.
On the one hand, creativity must be considered as a hot issue in order to form people and in order to progress individually and as a society.
On the other hand, we have to make sure students get the competences needed to progress into their own lives, and this goal only can be reach through the learning of "traditional topics" such as maths or languages.
To sum up, we are facing many times a dilemma between creativity and discipline. In my own view, both of them are necessary to achieve a proper knowledge of our word.
At my high school we promote creativity - Asking students to prepare Christmas, Sant Jordi, etc. performances (singing, dancing, writing and reciting poetry, baking cakes, decorating the high school and so on.) - Giving them the opportunity to take part in the "mediation team". Nevertheless, I think creativity should be introduced in the classroom. We should switch from the traditional setting to a more creative one, in which students can take responsibility for their own learning and become the autonomous individuals that will foot the bill of our retirement...
I consider that our schools sometimes foster creativity when we ask our students to make something new and to work in collaboration with other students, but it is never creativity related to, for example, physical abilities. In general, we don't value this type of abilities although, in my opinion, they are really important in people's lives.
We all are good at doing something , at performing actions, creating objects, entertaining others, etc., but our educational system usually only considers a very small part of these skills as important for society.
I agree with Ken Robinson in that we don't have any idea of what the very near future will bring and of what life will be like in the short or long-term, so we should try not to kill children's creativity because perhaps what they can do with it will be crucial tomorrow. We should not only assess students' capacities to write, speak or listen, but also their capacities to do something real and useful with their text, speeches, and so on.
I totally agree with you and all the opinions I've been reading so far. We should consider multiple intelligences for a better approach to the students because they don't learn at the same rhythm, they don't perfom the same way so they should be examined differently... They are all intelligent in a different ways! Students know what they don't like but they may need a push to know what they are good at. As a teachers we should remind them more often their strengths, not weaknesses.
I totally agree with K.Robinson on the the statement "school kills creativity". Unfortunately, still nowadays our society and our school system just seem to reward those students who stand out mainly in Maths, Science, and Chemistry,- not so much if you are into History, Philosophy, Literature or Languages, not to talk into Dancing, Music, Art, Sports, manual skills... our students must follow from the very beginning a very strict planning, one course after the other, from nursery school to university, if you don't follow the pattern, you are failing some way... It's high time we started changing this mentality .Success in life is definitley not a matter of passing courses with high marks. What's the point in learning by heart thousands of things, you are not interested in? Who decides it's better being a dancer or being a doctor? being a designer or being a teacher? I strongly believe we, as teachers, must foster self-confidence, passion and motivation first and foremost.
Do schools kill creativity? I would say they don't. Many teachers are working hard to make students succeed and grow. One the one hand, we follow a curriculum and its contents, and on the other hand we try to foster student's creativity and talent. At least, I do, and I guess lots of teachers do.
I agree with Laia partly because of course we can not express all our creativity everytime we want, at school nor outdoors, but it is true that educational system is changing thanks to the applied science in education and everything we know about the learning processes.
At my high school we also try to do our best to foster creativity from the different subjects and areas. I think teachers feel the need to change methodology and innovate, following the curriculum and taking into account student's needs, interests and talents.
In my opinion, educational centers are a referee to transfer education and where social opportunities are offered. Creativity must be fostered in school centres because is an important competence to discover actions to do with things and situations the students will find in their real lives. At my high school, creativity is fostered by offering many material resources and with a PBL methodology that put the student under the focus of the learning process. This methodology enhances creativity and authonomy, which is excellent for the students education.
Our school system needs to be redefined by people like Mr. Robinson. School subjects such as music and arts should be considered crucial in the early years of education more than any other subjects. This does not mean that areas sucha as Language arts or Math should be left behind. We should find the way to make a right balance. I totally agree with Robinson's ideas, I just love him.
ResponderEliminarI agree with you. Some changes need to be done. And I think everyone of us can introduce little changes.
EliminarDefinitely, meaningful reforms should be introduced, mostly to reduce student's ratio, at the same time teachers also need constant training in order to have an up-to-date knowledge and practice in the classroom.
EliminarI concur with you, but I would like add that I consider the key point here is the word "balance." It is very important to develop our skills, but they are not more important than a holistic enrichment, including a wide range of topics and subjects.
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ResponderEliminarKids love holidays and celebrations. Good idea.
EliminarEste comentario ha sido eliminado por el autor.
ResponderEliminarThis talk by Sir Ken Robinson has reminded me of the book by the same author "The Element". I highly recommend you to have a look at it, as you will realize of the importance of helping our students to find their real passion, that is, their "element". As I see it, schools still need to put a greater effort to foster our children's creativity and with the scarce resources that we teachers have it is not an easy task to do.
ResponderEliminarTotally agree, Mireia. Do you think you’ve found your element?
EliminarI think I have! My job as a teacher now is to help my students do so :-)
EliminarThanks, Mireia for your recommendation. I'll try to get and read the book. As you said, schools have to make a greater effort to promote creativity, but to make it possible we also need governments and society in general to commit themselves to the change.
EliminarI strongly agree with the ideas presented by Mr. Robinson. I was talking to a student the other day, and he told me he was scared he wouldn't get into the Cicle Formatiu he wanted and would be forced to study Batxillerat. What surprised me the most was that he wasn't even considering pursuing a career in his actual passion: dancing. So I asked him why that was, and he told me he'd never stop dancing, but he didn't believe he could make a living out of it. I know for a fact that he had a rough time at school just because he liked dancing and his classmates thought such hobby wasn't manly enough. I believe the school system is to blame here. If we as teachers include a wide variety of activities which require different artistic skills and schools foster art programs, it'll be easier for students to develop their creativity without being ashamed or laughed at for it. Schools must become safe environments for creativity.
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Eliminar
Eliminar“Schools must become safe environments for creativity”
Thanks for this wonderful idea.
I agree with you that students choose their studies and future professional career thinking in terms of money and not what they really like doing or are good at.
EliminarI see it eye to eye with you. I'd say that there is more place for fostering creativity in primary school than in older stages since during primary school, pupils are thought to be more interactive and dynamic as well as multiple intellegences are often considered in depth. However, at secondary schools sometimes they are considered to be more academic and some creative tasks, projects or subjects are sometimes left apart. I must say that spending some time with such activities, often has a positive consequence on our students regarding ther social and personal competencies, which are fundamental in everybody's life. Our Catalan teaching department should find some place in the curriculum so these abilities are not murdered during the teenage years.
EliminarLately my school has started to working in projects in class. Teachers try to créate group activities that allow students' imagination grow and being free. It's a really complicated task because, nowadays, society isn't used to work with it. If we want to become more creative in class, we must allow students being creative since they're born.
ResponderEliminarIt’s not going to be easy, but it will be worthwhile.
EliminarI agree with him in everything and have his ideas in mind when I'm teaching and meeting new students each school year. I understand that many students find it difficult to spend 6 hours sitting still in class listening to a teacher. So, I allow students to stand up and ask questions to others, move table to sit in groups,... Those students like the example in the video that are sometimes diagnosed TDHA I let them go to the toilet during the class, or to the reception for supplies I may need. Whenever I notice bored students or that have finished, I tell them they're allowed to draw or paint; most of them have great artistic abilities.
ResponderEliminarApart from the arts and music teachers, most of the students in my school prefer 60-minute lessons in silence while doing explanations/exercises. Many comments I hear are like "student A always interrupts or asks to leave the class, they can't sit still for a long time, ..." Whenever I have to teach a class after these teachers, students need to talk a lot and move around, and it's more difficult for me to make them concentrate. But I understand them, it would feel the same to me if I've had to stay 60 minutes in silence and working hard doing exercises.
I'd say that many current schools don't foster creativity but it might be due to the fact that most teachers don't even know how to do it instead of not willing to. Personally, I'd like to know more about how to encourage my pupils to develop their creative abilities since I consider that doing what Robinson said we are not doing (allow kids to make mistakes) is not enough. Usually, we have too many students per class to realise individual talents since most of the times we ask them all to do the same sort of tasks. Any ideas on how to foster they creativity or even become aware of our students creative skills?
ResponderEliminarSome ideas could be:
Eliminar- Let them express on what they are good at (sports, painting, singing...) and try to use their personal talents in end-course festivals/activities.
- Let them present their talent in front of the class, as experts on that issue, and let the other colleagues ask them questions. That would make them feel as the protagonist and grow their self-esteem.
Este comentario ha sido eliminado por el autor.
EliminarI think the best way is to make them feel they are the centre, we must to speak one by one, face to face, felting the chain of command out, like one of them. In this context students are much more capable of talk about their skills. It could seems dangerous sometimes, but it is not. It is the best way, as far I know, to promote their personal talents.
EliminarI think Ken Robinson is completely right when he says schools kill creativity. It is obvious that subjects like arts and music are not as important as maths or language in the students curriculum, at least in our country. We should bare in mind that every child has a different talent, so his/her learning process might be different.
ResponderEliminarNevertheless it is quite difficult to apply a good teaching system that considers and fosters this creativity. Maybe in the near futre with the new educational law we will be pushed to adapt our teaching methods to encourage children creativity. Agnès.
How can we spot our students’s talents?
EliminarWell, in a small school teachers usually talk a lot to each other about the students and we see that in diferent subjects students show different talents
EliminarWhat I have done this course is to ask my students to answer a survey about their preferences and hobbies the first week of classes. Once I got the results, I tried to add some tasks related to their passions during the course (readings, videos, songs, etc).
EliminarI agree with you. But killing creativity is not just a matter of schools. The whole society must promote creativity since we are born. But Montse, in bigger schools it's almost quiet difficult to speak about students' talents. We must also promote to work and develope this dialogues and conversation in bigger schools too.
EliminarSir Ken Robinson is certainly true in many things: I do agree that mistakes are part of the learning process and we mustn't punish them. Moreover, intelligence is diverse and dynamic, so, sometimes students need to move in order to think or learn better. Unfortunately, in our educational system there are many students in each class and it's challenging to give them a longlasting personalised attention or to offer different ways of assessing their progression as the everyday rhythm, the endless curriculum and specially the extreme ratios may kill education creativity.It's up to us to struggle against that.
ResponderEliminarAnna N
I totally share your point of view. The ratios are usually a nightmare. It's so hard to prepare different tasks for each kind of student since diversity in a classroom also exists. I understand there would be the need to invest a lot of our time in order to rise creativity up.
EliminarI agree on the point that mistakes are part of the learning process and it's important to share this idea with students. I also try to use different assessment criteria with them, so that they can take part in their evaluation process and they become aware of their level. I try to use peer and self evaluation rubrics and it is also very useful to ask them for some ideas to improve activities, suggestions, etc.
EliminarPrecisely, Anna. After watching the talk, I realised that if we want to focus education on the creativity of individual talents, everything needs to change: the concept of class, our lessons, lesson plans, ratios, even the design of classrooms, among other things. A total shake up of the educational system as we know it today. We need to make it more personalized and provide contexts for each personal talent to collaborate with other individual talents to develop great ideas and outcomes that we will never be able to get in a traditional classroom setting. An utopia? An enourmous challenge? Maybe both...
EliminarI think there are no right or wrong subjects because a kid can learn in the maths class or not. So, all the subjects are important and teachers should help students see which one can help him/her the best. I would not talk about subjects , I would talk about capacities and foster as many as possible in our students.
ResponderEliminarI agree on the fact that there should be no important/less important subjects and I think we are already moving towards capacities (competències). However, the way the educational system is organized implies that some subjects are more important than others (for instance, languages are taught more hours than PE or Music).
EliminarCreativity is nowadays a must to implement in class. But I think this is only the theory. I personally know the theory affter lots of courses, videos, meetings, etc,, but my question is, how many of us know to put it into practice?
ResponderEliminarIn my English classes, all kids are special and different. Some of them are keen on putting into practice different abilities, such as by listening, watching, touching, dancing, creating, using technology etc. We are not all the same, and as far as what I've seen, classes are not creative since we always ask students to do mechanical activities, like filling in the gaps, studying vocabulary and grammar and completing it in a book. If we could change this into something more practical and real-life based (and that is when creativity could appear) everything would have much more sense.
I try to do my best so that my classes can be creative, but I have the impression that I need to continue with the more "mechanical activities" (so to say) since students have bought the books and the parents expect you to work on or finish them, we (teachers) are lack of resources and we need to coordinate most things with the department and not everybody agrees.
We need to change education and make it more creative and real-life based because the world is changing rapidly, and so should the education. If we keep stuck in mechanical activities, we will create robots with no opinion nor (new) talents. Let's innovate. We need to try new things. We need to make mistakes. But we will only create a better world this way.
Balance is the key, I think.
EliminarMy high school tries to foster creativity in some cases, for example, allowing children to write down a blog or when working in project based learning activities. Nevertheless, we could think about other ways of fostering creativity.
ResponderEliminarI believe it would be great to listen to each student and tailor lesson plans, activities... according to their passions and interests. It it is difficult, though, as we usually have an average of 30 students in class. We need to think about it...
As you mention, listening to each student on their passions and interests is key. I don't think a school can foster creativity by making all of them write a blog, as that will only connect with a few of them who may like writing, journalism or online editing.
EliminarHi Ursula,
EliminarI think that one big challenge is to make teachers change. It is good to see that you in your school are finding ways to allow students use their creativity. I strongly believe that we teachers should spend more time debating and sharing our ideas on creativity.
The introduccion of project based learning is a way of fostering the creativity of students at school. During the project they have to use creativity, together with many other skills and the last part of the project is mostly something they create to show the result.
ResponderEliminarBut not all subjects work wiith the metodology of pbl or at least not evey day, so,students many live this contradiction. Sometimes their creativity is killed by the school, some proposals students have are ignored .
Kevin Robinson made me realise that the use of technologies is bringing back the creative component in education, and applying their use in class may be an excellent tool to integrate all the different talents that would have been disregarded by a classical o pre-technological approach.
ResponderEliminarA great perspective that can help us put aside the widespread fear of using technologies in the classroom.
Personally, I've seen shy students shine if you give them a task that brings out their passions and talents and that is definitely the way to go. Let's make technology our ally and partner in that process.
Alicia, I agree with you on the fact that technology makes our lessons more creative and can help us to integrate the students' passions and talents.
EliminarI share the same idea as you when you mention that shy students are normally boosted when they're presented with tasks that have to do with their passions or interests.
Therefore, there's definitely no doubt that we as teachers have to be aware of the interests and passions of the students we are teaching. Thus, our teaching practice will become more tailored to our students' lives, which will in turn result in more engagement and participation from the part of the students.
In my opinion, Sir Ken Robinson is right and there should be a change in the educational system worldwide. It seems that every student needs to follow the same path until they are 16, and if they don't manage to do so, therefore they are a failure. Teachers face different types of students in class and they need to adapt the materials or assessment for them, however I think the change should be made my the governments and students should be given other options according to their needs and interests.
ResponderEliminarIn my school, we do some projects which are part of optional subjects the students can choose. Also, some students are given the opportunity to do an internship or different types of voluntary work. Then, when they finish 4th ESO, teachers suggest what the best option for them is (Batxillerat, cicles formatius).
Totally agree! Why everyone is supposed to learn same things at the same pace? Throughout my career (25 years teaching) I 've come across many students with very low self-esteem, they feel they're failing just because they seem not to fit in the course, the teacher, or the educational system's requirements. We should focus much more on values and skills.. academic results are not a guarantee for success in life any more.
EliminarThis is an inspiring video that fosters critical thinking about the teaching approach today. The main idea is to boost sts' creativity and to incorporate it in the learning community, including a new vision towards multiple skills, abilities, disciplines and new technologies in order to prepare students for their tomorrow, not only for the acquisition of their academic certificates. Motivation is crucial.
ResponderEliminarIt's certainly true that in our country there has been a huge academic inflation. This affects the way we prepare our students for their future. However, one can start noticing a change of view towards the apreciation of arts, sports and other fields that unfortunately were underestimated in the past or were only for the gifted.
In my school we try to be innovative using ICT as much as we can in our lessons and doing projects that try to engage and challenge students.
EliminarI'd like to highlight some topics that Ken Robinson mentioned in the TED, future is uncertain, the needs of the labour market in 20 or 30 years' time are unpredictable. Without doubts the educational systems all around the world tend to accept just wrong or correct answers, for this reason students are afraid of making mistakes.
ResponderEliminarThe other important idea, is the academic inflation, the question arises; what's worth studying to be successful grown ups?
I'd like to link these points with how schools can nurture for creativity:
- two teachers in the classroom to address diversity
- spacial support for students with educational needs
- create fields via school activities such as festivities for students to "show off" with musical or artistic talent
- photograph contest
- create the cover page of "Agenda Escolar"
I think Ken Robinson is right when he mentions that our school system revolves around industrialism. We structure the shcool timetable into separated subject blocks and devote so much importance to some specific subjects such as Catalan, Spanish, Maths, English... but not too much to other subjects like Art or Music. We tend to think that artistic subjects aren't that important for the students in the long term so as to get a good job. However, Ken Robinson believes that we have to exploit the students' talents and passions, not to diminish them. This implies that we, as teachers, need to encourage our students to take advantage of their artistic abilities since they are children because if we don't, then it might be too late.
ResponderEliminarI think that our job is to consider the fact that every student is unique so we need to foster the multiple intelligences. Why don't we try to incorporate hands-on activities for those kinaesthetic students, music for those who are passionate about music, videos or mindmaps for the visual ones...?
I think that all of your ideas are very original, but in the lessons day by day, it's hard to deal with all of the diversity.
EliminarI agree with you. The problem is to manage diversity in our classrooms but our challenge as teachers is to find ways to do it.
EliminarKen Robinson is making a very interesting approach in his talk about education nowadays. Many times we are not taking into account the possibilities of the students in topics which are not directly related with the knowledge areas we consider more important than the others. Nevertheless, to pay more attention in other topics could have advantages and drawbacks.
ResponderEliminarOn the one hand, creativity must be considered as a hot issue in order to form people and in order to progress individually and as a society.
On the other hand, we have to make sure students get the competences needed to progress into their own lives, and this goal only can be reach through the learning of "traditional topics" such as maths or languages.
To sum up, we are facing many times a dilemma between creativity and discipline. In my own view, both of them are necessary to achieve a proper knowledge of our word.
At my high school we promote creativity
ResponderEliminar- Asking students to prepare Christmas, Sant Jordi, etc. performances (singing, dancing, writing and reciting poetry, baking cakes, decorating the high school and so on.)
- Giving them the opportunity to take part in the "mediation team".
Nevertheless, I think creativity should be introduced in the classroom. We should switch from the traditional setting to a more creative one, in which students can take responsibility for their own learning and become the autonomous individuals that will foot the bill of our retirement...
I consider that our schools sometimes foster creativity when we ask our students to make something new and to work in collaboration with other students, but it is never creativity related to, for example, physical abilities. In general, we don't value this type of abilities although, in my opinion, they are really important in people's lives.
ResponderEliminarWe all are good at doing something , at performing actions, creating objects, entertaining others, etc., but our educational system usually only considers a very small part of these skills as important for society.
I agree with Ken Robinson in that we don't have any idea of what the very near future will bring and of what life will be like in the short or long-term, so we should try not to kill children's creativity because perhaps what they can do with it will be crucial tomorrow. We should not only assess students' capacities to write, speak or listen, but also their capacities to do something real and useful with their text, speeches, and so on.
I totally agree with you and all the opinions I've been reading so far. We should consider multiple intelligences for a better approach to the students because they don't learn at the same rhythm, they don't perfom the same way so they should be examined differently... They are all intelligent in a different ways!
EliminarStudents know what they don't like but they may need a push to know what they are good at. As a teachers we should remind them more often their strengths, not weaknesses.
I totally agree with K.Robinson on the the statement "school kills creativity". Unfortunately, still nowadays our society and our school system just seem to reward those students who stand out mainly in Maths, Science, and Chemistry,- not so much if you are into History, Philosophy, Literature or Languages, not to talk into Dancing, Music, Art, Sports, manual skills... our students must follow from the very beginning a very strict planning, one course after the other, from nursery school to university, if you don't follow the pattern, you are failing some way... It's high time we started changing this mentality .Success in life is definitley not a matter of passing courses with high marks. What's the point in learning by heart thousands of things, you are not interested in?
ResponderEliminarWho decides it's better being a dancer or being a doctor? being a designer or being a teacher?
I strongly believe we, as teachers, must foster self-confidence, passion and motivation first and foremost.
Do schools kill creativity? I would say they don't. Many teachers are working hard to make students succeed and grow. One the one hand, we follow a curriculum and its contents, and on the other hand we try to foster student's creativity and talent. At least, I do, and I guess lots of teachers do.
ResponderEliminarI agree with Laia partly because of course we can not express all our creativity everytime we want, at school nor outdoors, but it is true that educational system is changing thanks to the applied science in education and everything we know about the learning processes.
EliminarAt my high school we also try to do our best to foster creativity from the different subjects and areas. I think teachers feel the need to change methodology and innovate, following the curriculum and taking into account student's needs, interests and talents.
ResponderEliminarIn my opinion, educational centers are a referee to transfer education and where social opportunities are offered. Creativity must be fostered in school centres because is an important competence to discover actions to do with things and situations the students will find in their real lives.
ResponderEliminarAt my high school, creativity is fostered by offering many material resources and with a PBL methodology that put the student under the focus of the learning process. This methodology enhances creativity and authonomy, which is excellent for the students education.