TEDtalk Video

I agree with a majority of the TEDtalk video. Schools suppress a student’s ability to be creative. The video states that there isn’t a school that teaches dance the way in which they teach mathematics. This holds true for a majority of the world. Granted, there are select performing arts schools but they are few and far between. Schools attempt to pummel reading, writing, and arithmetic into the minds of the students; regardless of if that is what they are interested in. The video makes a very good statement which provoked my thought process. It stated that, “the body Is a way to transport the head”. It is saying that schools don’t focus on the physical side of learning. A school attempts to strengthen the mind as much as it can in the time they students are there, leaving the body inept to proper education. The reason schools today focus on the teaching the subjects they do, or so I believe, is because the original public schools came into being because of industrialism. They were designed to teach the subjects that would help the most in the workforce, not the things that intrigued the students and provoked intellectual thoughts. In the early days of college all the way up until the mid-to-late 1990’s, having a college degree would guarantee you a job upon graduation.  In today’s society, degrees aren’t worth anything. Just because you received a BA degree doesn’t guarantee you a job in the workforce. Now, because of academic inflation, you need MA or Ph.D.

Overall, the video was very parallel to my thoughts of education and how it hinders creative ability. School’s need to be changed to allow those that aren’t the smartest in math but are Picasso's in training, to be able to nurture that ability in order to allow that student a chance to succeed. If a student is more artistic then they usually had the ability to take one or two classes a year that were designed to cultivate their gift, on top the five classes required in order to fulfill their “basic” education.