Sir Ken Robinson

The following is written in reaction to watching and reading

Creatively Speaking, Part Two: Sir Ken Robinson on the Power of the Imaginative Mind
&
Schools Must Validate Creative Expression: Take a Chance, Let the Dance

Sir Ken Robinson is a clever and somewhat captivating speaker with antidotes designed to confirm his vague theses. He implies the assumption that divergent thinking is always virtuous. He would have more credibility if he were to develop this thesis convincingly. To suggest that cheating is a meaningful form of collaboration is showmanship, pure dribble. Few will dispute the value of challenging the status quo and coming up with your own solutions to meet a common objective. But to suggest divergent thinking or unstructured creative thinking is the be all to end all is naive. I'll leap to an assumption that he has never managed a project to land a man on the moon or had an executive position overseeing a line operation for a for-profit enterprise. Yes, the arts are important but so are the sciences. They are not mutually exclusive.

My point here is that one of the many charges of public education is to train people to understand productivity -- of people, groups, and organizations. His data on the shrinking capacity for creativity from kindergarten to high school are no doubt valid. But to imply that teaching orderly problem solving focused on goal accomplishment and productivity is invalid, is not to understand a primary function of education. As a matter of fact, this endeavor is even more intense in the college and graduate experience. The hard part and the real challenge of Robinson's protestations is achieving allowance for divergence and creativity within the paradigm requiring order and productivity. Robinson does not acknowledge the latter as a basic function of education and doesn't offer practical solutions to the implied severe imbalance. We have seen this pendulum before. Is Robinson leading the nudge away from the sciences back to the arts?

No doubt the greatest achievements, inventions and innovations, and problem solving come from those enabled to question, test, diverge, and create. We have clear evidence that the greatest economic and job growth come from small entrepreneurs who are free to create their solutions to whatever the market will bear. But seldom do these same individuals thrive in a business environment without the skills to navigate it. To do so successfully one needs to understand the structure and behavior of our primary institutions that are based on order, structure, and understanding of the common denominators necessary to make them work. For example, when the communist empires of Eastern Europe fell there were many seeking to leverage the capitalistic system to earn a better life. However, few had any knowledge about accounting, costs, and profits, banking, or business law. Eventually these institutions were put into place sufficiently to allow investment and flourishing free enterprise.

Likewise, Microsoft reserves a half-billion dollars a year for so-called pure research in the hopes of coming up with the next iteration of Windows or whatever. But by no means would Microsoft turn the keys of their profit making enterprise over to this research group. The major emphasis on this company is to survive and indeed thrive in the marketplace. Without a knowledge of how to navigate that marketplace and all the institutions it encompasses, the company would never succeed.

From my standpoint, the most compelling part of Robinson's entreaty speaks to the importance of educating an individual in such a way as to help them become fully educated and self-sustainable. Do our students emerge with a well-rounded education? Do they know how to make creative use of their leisure time? Can they seek and achieve fulfillment from the pursuit of an avocation not necessarily designed as a route to earning a living but simply for the pure enjoyment of doing so.

In my view, our society's ability to develop and pursue their own interests for the purpose of a fuller, more rewarding life is a need as critical as the school sufficiently preparing its graduates for higher education and vocations. Right now in the US it would appear the average person aspires to spend their leisure shopping, eating, and consuming.

Robinson would have greater impact if he acknowledged the realities of the charter of American education and presented his observations, anecdotes, and platitudes as a stimulus to enlarge the charter rather than a vehicle to suggest it is all being done wrong, that we're all missing the boat. With all due respect, I think that his comments taken in isolation can be somewhat thought provoking if not entertaining but it smacks of superficiality.