sir ken robinson on -- what else? -- creativity

thanks lee for posting this speech given by sir ken robinson about why stem disciplines (science, technology, engineering and math) are necessary but not enough in education. i don't think i've ever listened to a talk that this man has given that i didn't find extremely intelligent and articulate.

one of my favorite points in this speech was when he talked about getting a group of about 20 "creative" people together for a round-table type summit on creativity. he spoke about how a nobel prize-winning scientist was apprehensive to be in the same panel as a comedian, whose "razorblade mind" he feared would shred everything he said; the same comedian feared that anything he said would be immediately reduced to pieces by the "mind like a planet" of the scientist. sir robinson pointed out that we spend so much time being anxious about other people, and then when we actually meet, we find it remarkably easy to come together in common cause. i've been thinking a lot about this lately, mostly because my thesis is about creating conversation between strangers in museums. what he said is so true, but the difficult question is, how, when you're not organizing a fancy-pants panel, do you help people find that "common cause"?

another point of the speech that i really liked was when he talked about chuck close saying "inspiration is for amateurs," and noting that artists don't talk about being creative, they talk about making things. i love this because i think it highlights such a good solution to people's, and notably, kids, anxieties -- oftentimes, a simple shift from adjective to verb is enough to take off the pressure. If we talk about "creating" -- a simple verb, meaning "making," that anyone can do -- instead of "being creative" -- something that seems to require genius, or at least supreme originality -- isn't it easier to get started and end up with really cool stuff?

carrot revolution

i knew i was going to love this resource, if only for its name. there is some seriously cool stuff pointed out in the posts on this blog. exhibit a: street art view

google art project (gap) now has a companion: street art view. currently, there are a mere 16 chicago sites uploaded (class project?). i also found some in portland, maine, a little town i know pretty well. i've probably walked down this street at least 20 times in the past couple of years, and i've never noticed the graffiti pictured above.

exhibit b: pearltrees

 

this is awesome. there are a lot of ways to collect and display/share favorite web resources, but this is one of the most interesting-looking that i've seen.

evc

i've looked at the street level youth media site a bunch of times before, but i'd never heard of evc. they have some great-looking curriculum materials that i might use. i'm currently planning my elective course for the french immersion program i work at in the summer, and i'm trying to decide between a "make your own museum" class and a "this francophone life" class about oral history/podcasting. if i go with the latter, there are some lesson plans/activities on the site that i could easily adapt for the class. i know storycorps has a great diy guide that i could use as well.

on arts education and 21st-century skills

i just read the article that emily posted for discussion next week, and i was struck by this short paragraph:

At this point, I believe that the prevailing public perception is that arts education is only for young people who want to be artists—“Glee” wannabes. If we applied this mindset to science, we would teach science only to students who aspired to be chemists, biologists, or astronomers.

this is so on-target. as the daughter of two "left brained" lawyers, i shied away from art a lot when i was a kid, believing that since i would surely never be an artist, there was nothing for me to explore by creating things. i don't think anyone ever told me this, but it's how i felt, and it's something that i regret. it's such a shame to waste the adventurousness and inventiveness of childhood by planning out kids' futures for them years before they have any inkling of what they really want to be when they grow up.

and even if what they grow up to be is a lawyer, why should that stop them from discovering other outlets for their creativity?