Creativity is as important in education as literacy

So says Ken Robinson in an incredible talk (even by TED standards) on how education systems destroy the creativity of students, also noting “We have a huge vested interest in [education], partly because it’s education that’s meant to take us into this future that we can’t grasp.”

Every line in the talk is worth quoting, but this gets the point across:

Kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they will have a go. They’re not frightened of being wrong. I’m not saying that being wrong is the same as creativity. What we do know is if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original. By the time they come to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. We run our companies this way … and we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is we are educating people out of their creative capacities.

In 20 minutes, Robinson provides a concise case for nurturing creativity in schools.

via swissmiss