We must change our paradigm of education, it’s killing our creativity
Sir Ken Robinson’s lecture is a loud and clear call for change. We must change the current paradigm of education based on the intellectual ideas of enlightenment, and the practical considerations of the industrial revolution. It is actually numbing our humanity, our feelings, real interests and emotions, killing our creative potential for the sake of a narrow view of the world and the material interests of a few who are the actual profiteers of industrial production.
As a child, I went to seven different schools. I was expelled of some of them, recommended to leave in others and just moved by my parents from a couple. The first time I changed schools I was 7 years old. Unknown to me until very recently, that first time was a very emotional and traumatic affair for me. I had to leave my friends, those with whom I shared so many memories and experiences until then. Why was I thrown out? Basically because I was often not putting attention into what the teachers were saying. I preferred to either talk to other students, read, draw or do other stuff instead of focusing in one single point. I actually felt alienated, it felt like someone was hammering me down into a box. My whole being was resisting. Always with a big smile though.
Robinson’s talk wakes these feelings again up in me. It is so true, so right what he says. It is so at the core of what I call the emotional revolution, a change of paradigm that takes seriously us as emotional beings, who feel and create in our freedom and diversity. Rationalism and standardisation tries to kill this by making us all the same – like classifying us by our production date (i.e. birthday). I believe that understanding and accepting what’s inside us, the combination and collaboration of our reason and emotions, is an essential step to make a future which is freer and fairer for us.
