Changing Paradigms.

Sir Ken Robinson is an educator and expert on issues related to creativity, innovation and the quality of education. In his lecture “Changing the paradigms” he clearly states that education as we know it is profoundly out of time.

Public education is being reformed around the world with two main purposes: economic and cultural. But, is it possible to have both of them with the inevitable presence of globalization?

It is not a simple task. We don’t want to lose our cultural identity, but we also don’t want to stay out of the big community that the world has turned into.

Then, there is the motto instilled to almost every student: If you work hard and do well, you will get into a good university, you will get a job, and everything will be solved. But that is not a guarantee. It is not believable anymore. And it is partly because the current system was designed for a different period of time. In a time where everything was believed to have a reason and meaning. You needed to have theoretical and academic knowledge in order to be part of the industrialization. That was one hundred and sixty years ago.

We still can see how the educational system is connected with the interests of industrialization. Ringing bells that indicate when to start and when to finish your work, age groups that in the end are just a date of manufacture.

Another important topic is the modern epidemic of ADHD. As the lecturer said, this affirmation is “as misplaced as fictitious”. The system has certain “expectations” of how students should be, and act. They are expected to be quiet, and to imbibe any information given to them. Despite this, there are students that cannot learn with this method. These are the ones that are not fulfilling those expectations. Some of them, are the ones who suffer of ADHD. This is a subjective assumption, but yet, many of them are being medicated. Medicated to finally achieve the expectations of the system. But, what is the point of sedating the minds of hundreds of children, instead of encourage them? That is why we have to protect the Divergent thinking.

Some people misinterprets Divergent thinking with Creativity. Divergent thinking is an essential capacity for creativity. It is a way of seeing multiple answers to one question. We all have this capacity, but it usually deteriorates as we get older. What we need is to preserve and to cultivate that ability. Sadly, we are doing the exact opposite with the current educational system.

When the lecture is about to finish, Sir Ken Robinson clearly tells us that the key to a better education is to release our students from the futile idea of what is academic and non-academic, that great learning happens in groups.

This lecture is an eye opener. It gives us hints about education that we, as future teachers, need to develop into something bigger. These are just the foundations that, if are truly understood, could lead to a new generation of  people that could properly called themselves “educated”.