A Creative Revolution in Education

Sir Ken Robinson

Recently, during the many hours of reflecting on where the world is at, Sir Ken Robinson kept creeping into my thoughts. He was/is a hero of mine. When I first began following him in the early 2000s, he resonated so deeply with me that I became a fan-girl! Having been a pariah in the system ever since entering it, his message of emancipating education and approaching it from a completely different paradigm, was music to my ears.

Nikki and I watched one of hundreds of YouTube videos of Sir Ken recently. I felt so sad that we’ve lost this incredible man so soon (August 2020) but was reminded and inspired by his fundamental message: Every human being has the capacity to live an extraordinary life through recognising their true nature and potential, and by nurturing this. We both wholeheartedly align with this. Essentially, what this means is that everyone has the capacity to reconnect with their inner lifeforce, if you will, and express this in a positive way, thus contributing to our human community and connecting with others, the Earth and Source/God/Higher-self (whatever you want to call it). 

I deliberately use the word “reconnect” because we enter this world fully connected. A baby does not have anything getting in the way of the full expression of themselves in the moment: if they’re hungry they cry, if they’re tired they sleep, if they’re happy they gurgle and smile. They are only aware of the moment. Endless hours of peek-a-boo illustrates how pure their innocence is: “If I’m not aware of it, it’s not there.” How much more present can one be? Every moment is new. Every moment brings an experience that is fully focused on. Babies create their reality in real time.

As a child grows and is better able to express themselves, we are able to see that they are confident creators of their reality: “imaginary” friends, lack of inhibitions, absolute resolve in the existence of fairies, goblins, witches and Santaclaus. They place no judgment on their creativity. Nikki relates a heartwarming experience with her very young granddaughter the other day; she insisted on painting Nikki’s nails with the green glitter paint she was using. Needless to say, she painted considerably more than the nails, however, she spent a long time, fully focused and engrossed. At the end she sat back and declared “Grandma pretty”. She had absolute confidence and satisfaction in the job she had done, and indeed, it was perfect! 

Nikki’s granddaughter’s spectacular job!

As we get older, however, this absolute confidence in our ability to create our reality is eroded. It would seem that this world has no room for the powerful innocence and creative force that would be our human birthright. As soon as we enter the “education system”, this natural and spontaneous tendency to be creative is all but knocked out of us. The major culprit is school. Sir Ken quotes a longitudinal study of the creative potential of a group of children from preschool to  adulthood; it showed that we lose our creative potential the older we get.

The current education system is based on an obsolete industrial model and values conformity and compliance. It categorizes and isolates, and actively discourages the very things that make us human beings: connection, communication and creativity. It is little wonder that the global youth offending statistics rise annually and we are experiencing ever-growing problems with behaviour and mental health issues in our schools.

Sir Ken defines creativity as “the process of having original ideas that have value.” Everyone is innately creative. Everyone. Creativity is not something confined to The Arts. Creativity is in fact pivotal to learning. If you look at Bloom’s Taxonomy, the highest form of learning/thinking is creating. If you think of how we/our children are assessed in the education system, it is mostly cut short of creativity. Why? Well, I have my thoughts on this. The creative process is not one that thrives on conformity and compliance. In fact, it is the total antipathy of these values. It is not something easily controlled and it requires an “aesthetic experience”.  An aesthetic experience is when we are “fully alert and living in the moment, and resonating with the present.” To do this we have to be connected: connected to our innate creative nature, connected to our intuition, connected to all that is in every given moment. Hmmm…this sounds all too “touchy-feely” and perhaps occultish! Right? That’s because we have been moulded into this paradigm, where anything other than what our five senses perceive is not to be discussed, and religious beliefs have become enmeshed with the concepts of creative potential and its expression. 

Bloom’s Taxonomy

I cannot help but think that should we shift our paradigm from the materialistic, industrial values that our current system inculcates, to the more esoteric, intuitive values of self-discovery, connection to all, curiosity and exploration, would we have such a hard time convincing our young people to move out of the techno-world they have become so engrossed in? Those who have a strong sense of who they are and confidence in their ability to create their reality, are independent, resourceful and content. However, they are not easily manipulated or controlled. 

Sir Ken said of the need to shift paradigms:

“...it’s the one thing that will take us safely into this future that we can’t predict. And cultivating it systematically in schools, in our businesses and in our communities and understanding that we are no longer dealing with business as usual, is absolutely a fundamental challenge.It’s the challenge of our generations that we should do this. Understanding the processes and what will make creativity flourish and what will diminish it is now…a matter of high strategic priority. ...It’s about changing our institutions, it’s about changing our social systems and organization from the old model of industrialisation to a “new” model - actually it’s an ancient model of agriculture. Human organisations are NOT like machines…they are more like organisms. They thrive on feelings, and sentience, and aspirations, and motivation. And like all organisms they flourish under certain conditions and they wilt under other ones.

… Great leaders are not like industrialists, they are like farmers. Farmers know that you cannot make a plant grow. The plant grows itself. What you do is create the conditions under which it will do that. And it’s the same way in every human system as it is in Nature.”

We are at a time in the history of Humankind where we stand at an ominous crossroads. It is time to choose the direction we will go. It isn’t enough for us to simply reform our systems, not the least of all being Education, but it’s time for a revolution, a complete paradigm shift and a rebuilding of a system that nurtures and grows the innate abilities and birthrights of every human being. There is no longer room for the redundant industrial model of education. What would this revolution look like? Well, just imagine it!