Do Schools Kill Creativity?

The role of education and the restrictions it places on one’s growth from childhood to adulthood is discussed in Sir Ken Robinson’s Ted talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” Through quirky humor and bringing up past life experiences, Robinson constructs an opinion in which he believes education and its main pillars constricts the natural urge to question and be creative while pushing the idea that it is wrong to be wrong. I agree with Robinson as I also believe, after watching his discussion, that throughout childhood into adulthood, we are reminded time and time again that being wrong will generally lead to greater errors. Our educational system is constructed in a way where many revolve around the same subjects: math, grammar and some form of science. Many of these systems seem to discourage children from diving into their own creativity and restricting them by having them only focus on these core curriculum subjects. Often times children are forced to sit for hours and hours on end studying these main subjects while only spending a fraction of that time on arts or physical activity. As Sir Ken Robinson mentioned, there are various types of learners, many school curriculums force a single type of learner to flourish while keeping other students who need physical activity or other forms to learn low on the pecking order. If school curriculums continue to restrict and prevent young minds from being creative or taking risks, we as a society will experience a grey period in which new, unique ideas and concepts will fail to come about as the young minds holding them were never allowed to let them out in the first place.