Additional Assignment #3

Sir Ken Robinson



The most important point of this video to me was the reality of the longitudal study and the over medicated children. Sir Ken Robinson tested 1500 kindergarten's divergent thinking and 98% scored at genius level. They tested them 5 years later and the level dropped and five years after that it dropped again. He believes that this happened because the children were educated. I agree with him.
I agree with him also on the point that children are being over medicated. I know of several children that are medicated and the one that most outraged me so far is one that I know of in kindergarten. His mother's excuse for medicating him was because he was not sitting still and focusing in preschool. The preschool teacher did not even complain about it. The mother took it upon herself to get the medication for her child because she was scared the child would fail kindergarten due to lack of focusing in preschool. Now I will admit the child did seem like he was in his own world most of the time, but really does he need to be medicated at such an early age!!!!
What can we do to address the issues he is raising in this video? Not sure really. We could stand up to the education system and say no more boring material! Give the students laptops, so we can use our smartboards effectively (since the money has already been spent on the boards). Let me teach the material in a creative way, instead of having to read verbatim what is written in the teacher's manual. Ask to use computers and technology to enhance the learning experience. I have heard that there are some schools here in our county that do not allow art in the classrooms. Plenty of them are telling teachers no phone usage. I know there are some teacher's who abuse phone usage, but if it was being used to benefit the learning experience then why not allow it. There is so much that needs to change with our education system, but where do we go to address this situation and get the changes made?
I loved this video. If I worked on a project like this I would want to be the artist.