TED Journal 1: "Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity"

I had seen this TED talk a few years ago, but watched it again this week in connection with a curriculum idea to use TED talks for extensive listening practice and a sort of "Listening Journal" in a course I am coordinating.

The idea will be to ask students to choose a TED talk, listen, take notes, summarize in 100 words or more, and react in 50 words or more, most likely on a weekly basis.

This blog post is part of "eating my own dog food" as software engineers at Microsoft? like to say. I'm doing a TED journal sample using the Ken Robinson talk above. So, here I go.

Process: I watched the talk and took one page of notes yesterday. As a native speaker and an education professional, I have no problem catching what he is trying to say after just one listening, but his accent and rate of speech may be hard to catch for some of our students--they may need to read the interactive transcript or refer to the subtitles, and that is fine if they need the scaffolding, as long as they also attempt to listen one or more without any assistance. His main points are not too complex, and mostly come at the end of the talk. For most of the time he is telling stories and jokes, some related to his points, and some not. I wonder how first year ICU students will react to this because humor can be frustrating when listening in another language.

 Today, I am using my notes to summarize and react. Then, I think I might watch it again to see if I have really caught the main points.

_______________________________
Summary:
In his 2006 TED talk titled "Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity," British creativity expert Sir Robinson argues that education systems must re-think how human talent and potential is developed. He believes schools kill creativity by over-emphasizing literacy and academic subjects. He calls this a hierarchy of subjects. Schools fail to develop creativity, which should be just as important as literacy, and students interested in dance, art, or music are not encouraged because they can't get a job with those skills. The example of the successful Broadway choreographer who was considered as a child to be deficient because she couldn't sit still is very powerful. Robinson argues that the education system was created by university professors in their own image for largely "industrial" purposes, and the system tries to evaluate with a bias toward academic ability (to make everyone like a professor), leaving out development of creativity. Robinson argues that we must recognize that intelligence is diverse, and create a new human ecology for developing creative capacities.


Reaction:
My own experience matches what Robinson says to some extent, and I agree that the development of creativity (defined as the ability to create original ideas of value) can and should be emphasized more in education. In my case, I was strong on academic subjects such as literature and math, and felt successful and encouraged in my education system. However, I was not as good in creative subjects such as music and art, or creative writing projects where I could do whatever I wanted. Now I wish I had been pushed to be more successful in them--given more open, creative assignments, for example. In this talk, I think the most important point is that the education system, especially teachers, should not dismiss students just because they do not conform to the academic traditions that have been created by the industrial model. Teachers should try to help all types of students find and develop their talents. However, at the same time, I wonder how much Robinson accepts that basic literacy in reading/writing/math/science is actually more useful for most students to get a good job, and therefore it is natural for parents/teachers to emphasize those over art/dance/music. Clearly, some optimal balance has to be found.


Reflection:
In terms of listening and taking notes (20 min.), writing the summary (150 words in about 15 min?) and writing the reaction (150+ words in about 15 min.), this was roughly a one hour task for me. I enjoyed it, but I wonder how students will react. _______________________________ For some students, it may take longer, but I hope students can get used to doing a good TED journal to get exposed to some powerful ideas as well as practice their listening, note-taking, and skills for writing a summary and reaction. In the future, we could also add an oral summary and reaction (1~2 minutes or audio/video)...but that will require a bit of technical logistical preparation that may be beyond the scope of spring term. We will see how it goes!

The World Peace Game by John Hunter

This TED talk shows a form of interactive, stimulating education that I hope to achieve in my own classrooms somehow.

John Hunter developed a game called the World Peace Game, and he and his fourth grade class are featured in a movie about how they develop an understanding of the world and practice their communication and critical thinking skills through the game board.

I would like to see more games like this come out, and possible use them as projects or tasks for students to practice their English communication and thinking skills.

TED Talk: Open-Sourced Blueprint for Civilization by Marcin Jakubowski

The ideas that come out through TED continue to amaze me. And this is just a 4 minute video!

Marcin Jakubowski has a project called the Global Village Construction Set, which aims to provide all know-how necessary for constructing basic tools needed to sustain a small farming community. I can imagine that the potential for helping less developed countries through information like this is immense.

Building a tractor or bulldozer for yourself in a workshop sounds less cost-efficient than buying one created in a factory, but the project claims their products are 8 times less expensive. This seems due to keeping the design simple and matching small scale farming needs. Keeping parts modular and building everything locally will allow for lower long term maintenance as well.

I would hope a project like this will be backed by international development assistance organizations like UNDP.

To me, this project shows the power of what highly skilled, intelligent, and socially responsible persons can begin to achieve. It is the antithesis of highly skilled and intelligent persons who cannot see beyond personal interest or corporate profit. I don't have a project like this that I am directly involved in yet, but I hope to do more; and I definitely want my students to see how important this is.

TED Talks - Antidote to Apathy by Dave Meslin

I strongly recommend everyone, but especially Japanese young people, to watch this to raise awareness of obstacles to being involved in political activism. Many of the 7 mentioned by Meslin apply to Japan, perhaps even more strongly than in Canada.

Meslin raises awareness of several key points such as how governments fail to effectively invite citizens to become involved in local politics, and how the media sends the message, through the emphasis on commercial content, that materialism is important but activism or advocacy, which does not make money for anybody, is not.

It would be nice if an interactive transcript could be added like other TED videos.
And Japanese subtitles. I just signed up as a TED translator and hope I can work on this one if I get the chance.

Big History by David Christian

A fascinating presentation on the mind-boggling scale of time and space that led to our current complex human civilization, and of the fragility of this complexity.



The Big History Project that Dr. Christian refers to seems very interesting to take a look at. Perhaps we should integrate this into the "Visions of the Future" unit we do in winter term?

TED Talk by Deb Roy on The Birth of a Word + Patricia Kuhl on Linguistic Genius of Babies

This is an amazing introduction to how researchers are gaining insights into how language is used in human interaction and how children acquire the language word by word.

Roy video and audio recorded every word of language interaction in his house over several years and created computer programs to transcribe, trace and analyze the data. Wow.

He shows an example of how his son gradually learned the word WATER, starting from Ga-ga. The child experiments with various versions of the sound until arriving at a very close approximation in his second year.

I followed my son's English speech development for three years also, but not like this. The potential for understanding first and second language acquisition is immense once tools like this become more available.

Also, below is another very cool TED talk by Patricia Kuhl of my alma mater UW showing that small children (up to 8 months?) can learn (=distinguish) between all types of foreign sounds by being exposed to them in person (not recording). A clear indication of the critical period for sound recognition such as the difference between the American /r/ /l/ and the Japanese /r/

Amazingly, they have a magnetoencephalography machine that can put babies in to see what is happening in their brain. Cool.

TED about Global Future

TED: W. Ury on Changing No to Yes

I remember reading William Ury's bestseller "Getting to Yes" several years ago when I was preparing to teach a business English communication class which included a unit on negotiation skills.

This TED talk focuses on how conflicts such as those in the Middle East can be solved and is highly relevant to the discussions we will have in Visions of the Future in the Winter ARW course at ICU.

Very impressive speaking skills, too. Nice anecdotes such as the story of the man who left 17 camels to his three sons, half for the first son, one third for the second son, and one-ninth for the third son. They couldn't figure out how to divide them until they asked a wise woman who lent them her camel. Suddenly, it was easy. 9, 6, 2, and one camel to give back to the woman. Interesting Pygmie? example of conflict resolution, too. Conflict resolutions studies in anthropology and cross-cultural communication must be fascinating to research.

Some key points are:

1) The third side is the key. The two conflicting parties need a mediator to help them go to the balcony and see the whole picture, to not lose sight of the mutual benefits of solving the conflict.

2) The Abraham Walk concept. To solve the ME conflict, the key is to focus on the common identity of Abraham. Hospitality toward strangers is a fundamental concept that children of Abraham, Jewish, Muslim or Christian, all share. Tourism that walks the international route of Abraham can help promote exchanges and economic development and lessen hostility.

Design for Change: Kiran Bir Sethi teaches students to take charge

A blog post by Michael Stout led me to the movement started by Kiran Bir Sethi, who was at the JALT conference I just attended in Nagoya.

I think my college students should be doing what her primary school kids are doing: Moving their communities to change as part of their process of education. Get outside of the classroom and actually do things. Learning the attitude of "I can" and "being the change" (Ghandi) are both activities that I want to incorporate in my classroom.

The first step will be to show this TED video in my classes and also the Design for Change website.

Then...start brainstorming what change needs to come about and what we can do? Will this work with Japanese college students in an English class? Making a video and posting on the Design for Change website seems to be a very meaningful project.

Powerfully told tragedy of our rape of the Lakota Indians

http://www.ted.com/talks/aaron_huey.html

Assuming it is true, and it seems credible enough, this is a story that every American should not only know, but be moved to action by.

As unpatriotic it may be to give away USA land to another nation, it seems the just thing to to do to respect the original treaty and allow an autonomous Lakota/Sioux tribe to own the Black Hills once more.

Obviously, the difficulty would be what to do with the individual ownership of the land plots in that area. But responsibility for injustices of the past should not be glossed over by excuses of difficulty and inconvenience.

Fighting sexual slavery and trafficking - A passionate plea to raise awareness of the tragedy

I subscribe to TED.com as an RSS feedback, and although I have many things I need to get done today, the importance of the issues that are being presented, and the power and passion with which the speakers convey their ideas makes it difficult to stop watching and learning from the TED site.

I hope all of my students will become regular viewers. Try subscribing to TED.com with your Google Reader or other RSS tools.

The following video needs to be watched by all.

An inspiring report on brain research unlocking causes of learning disorders

This TED presentation by Aditi Shankardass: A second opinion on learning disorders shows the importance of using direct, reliable evidence to draw conclusions. As she explains, many children continue to be diagnosed with autism or ADD without ever receiving a brain scan, just on the basis of their observable behavior. However, when she started analyzing their brain activity, it became clear that many children with problems simply needed brain related medication. Amazing, and powerful, and a lesson to all of us to not jump to conclusions about the essential nature of something just based on limited observations.