In his TED talk presentation called “Do schools kill creativity?” Ken Robinson introduced the topic of education and its influence on children. His main concern revolved around the idea that public education is meant to create people with narrow-minded capabilities outside of their inclination and frankly excels at producing scholars rather than innovators. This is the fundamental problem as a career in education while being an important part of human life cannot be considered the most outstanding or revolutionary in human history. Innovations are brought by those who pursue their creative interests, and it is impossible to pursue such interests and produce revolutionary results while remaining right. In other words, it is necessary to be prepared for mistakes while pursuing innovation. However, the school places an enormous emphasis on being right. They are created to nurture people and prepare them for the future while remaining oblivious to the fact that the future may change and the relevance of the knowledge of today may simply be dismissed. Hence, the need for a creative and innovative solution to the problems of tomorrow.
In my learning experience, I encountered many aspects that Mr. Robinson emphasized. The most distinguishing one is the culture of perfection that if a person wants to succeed at school, it is necessary to follow anything given by the teacher to students. Then memorize it and demonstrate the capacity to retain this knowledge on the exam. There is effectively no space for creative solutions to the problem or negotiations. Students mark the right answer, submit their blank, and return home with the sense of accomplishment or disheartening feeling of not being able to excel. Therefore, I think the key takeaway of Mr. Robinson about the need for those that can innovate is fair and relevant in the world of today that experiences constant change and requires one to remain competitive while building new ideas upon the knowledge of the past.