Sir Ken Robinson is a professor, author and expert on creativity. He has even been knighted for his efforts! (hence Sir Ken Robinson.) He champions creativity and calls for a radical rethinking of our current school systems. He believes we have been educated to become good workers and not creative thinkers.

These topics have been heavy on my mind as our small town is threatened with the loss of our only high school. The town is divided largely into two groups:

1. People who think we need to keep our school no matter what the cost
2. People who feel that “something” has to change and our school because it’s current model is no longer sustainable.

I didn’t actually graduate from this high school. I made the decision to leave because the courses I needed to be successful were not available – the school didn’t have enough kids to offer them. This was quite a few years ago and it’s only getting worse.

This is one of the many reasons I started “Growing Creative Kids.” I have seen a distinct lack of creativity in the schools system and wanted to give parents the tools and inspiration to take charge of their kids creative education.

The following illustrated talk by Ken Robinson provides a look into the education system in a way that I had never considered before – that it’s a relic of the Industrial Revolution and modeled after the assembly line. This is frightening – and enlightening.

If assembly-line mass-produced cars are no longer desirable, how can it be acceptable that we educate our children in the same way? The following video on Ken Robinson’s lecture – complete with some amazing artwork – raises many questions on how we should be educating our children. Please take a look!

WARNING: If you have sensitive ears (as I do), turn the volume down for the first few second as the squeaky “marker on white board” sound is rather painful.

Pretty profound, hey? Ken has also given two very interesting presentations on TED TALKS: Schools Kill Creativity and Bring On The Learning Revolution. In my opinion, the most important thing Ken does is ask questions, questions that get us thinking about what we really want in our education system. How do we want to educate our future generations?

What points did you find interesting in the video? How can we adapt our education system so it serves us and our children going forward? please post your ideas, comments and thoughts below!