Ken+Robinson+Lecture

I thought it was very interesting how Ken Robinson drew the parallel between the school system and industrial factories. Many of the norms of this system are outdated and inefficient but I think it would be extremely challenging if not impractical to try and reform the system in one fouls swoop. I think people, however, use our faulty education system as too much of an excuse. I've heard it said that the school system has failed (not in the sense that they literally got F's) people but even if the person lives in a cruddy district, he or she could still take charge of their learning.In a perfect world the education system would be just right for everyone, automatically, but right now, I think our school system is like a sort of tool. If you try hard and your teachers try hard, you can make it work for you but it doesn't work that well by itself.
 * Billig, Marielle**

Sir Ken Robinson discussed several fascinating points about typical, modern education systems in countries like the United States that are unfortunately understated in circles that affect public policy. I agree with his diagnosis of several rather archaic points in the system that could use reform. One point in his lecture that I found particularly compelling was the segment on divergent thinking, and I would agree that different types of thought should be addressed. His comparison of public education to an industrial factory is sadly fitting. The visual nature of the accompaniment to the lecture was no doubt on purpose, and it was effectively engaging.
 * Blank, Andrew**

I tended to agree with what Robinson said. There were a couple of things that particularly stood out to me. First, the chaos of the “academic” and “non-academic” system is, I believe, even more flawed than what Robinson claims. What’s not respectable about knowing exactly what you want to do in life, and pursuing that, rather than trying to be some sort of Renaissance man? You don’t have to be a genius to get what you need out of the educational system. And second, the divergent thinking section reminded me in some ways of what Mark Twain wrote—and I’m paraphrasing here, “Don’t let your schooling interfere with your education.” If school actually tarnishes creativity, then we need to seriously rethink the whole system. The one place where I tended to be less enthusiastic about what Robinson was saying was the ADHD section--I'd have to hear more about this, but from what I understand it is more about the environment that babies are raised in than about an "invented" disease.
 * Bondy, Matthew**

**Center, Shoshi** I highly agree with what Ken Robinson was talking about, how the schooling system is not functioning to the best of its ability, due to economic and social systems. I completely agree with the fact that school nowadays are being run like a factory, simply putting children in categories based on age and sending them through a series of tests that don't really prove to show their knowledge, but simply just put certain facts into their head and send them off to contribute to society. Age is definitely not the best way to classify students; a more effective way would be to classify them based off of learning ability and interests. This will provide a better learning opportunity for all because they will be learning at a pace comfortable for them, and covering subjects in a manner that they find helpful. I also believe that the ADHD "epidemic" is just something that was created to help move the children smoothly along the factory's conveyer belt, because of course it is hard to focus on boring facts and math equations when there is media with way more interesting things all around you! The thing is, people know what should be done to make schools and education more efficient, but because these methods end up interfering with the economic and social systems, they are set aside, which I think is the wrong attitude since neither our society nor our economy is doing too well lately. In my opinion, changing the way schools are run can highly benefit all of society, even if it means making a lot of adjustments; in the end people will be retaining more knowledge, and will be able to open their eyes instead of being "put to sleep".


 * Chin, Jeremy**

I __agree__ with Robinson on most of the issues addressed in this video. I do think that the education system has become very rigid an impractical. Most of the work done in schools and in what are considered "high-level classes" are not practical the bigger picture of our futures. Yes, I still think it is helpful to get good grades in those classes to go onto further, more enhanced learning in a university, and to do that, unfortunately, it does require focusing mainly on grades and standardized tests, but if schools like GBN could reform slowly but constantly, there would be a better exercising of the senses, as Robinson said in the video. This idea of the senses being important along with purely "academic" learning is what really stood out to me as the biggest and possibly most important reform we need to make. It is not efficient or fully educational to sit in a classroom all day and take notes. Some classes do try to make the learning more in tune with other senses, but not enough of them do, and this needs to change. After all, what significance is there in information that is only sedentarily retained in our minds?

I agreed with Robinson in regards to most of the points he covered in his video. I do agree with and recognise the presence of many flaws in our education systems today. Education has become all about grades, percentages, and GPA's and students have lost sight of the big picture. There is much more to life than just having the highest GPA and getting into the best college. Education should have less focus on being a competition and more emphasis on children expanding upon their own knowledge and reaching their full potential. It's ridiculous how far we have strayed from the way things should be. However, there is hope that people may see the reasoning in proposals like Robinson's and may perhaps make an effort to reform our corrupted systems. We must stop catagorising people as "smart" or "stupid." Because these catagories are based off of the only representation there is of students today, their grades. This is sad because grades are just a number, and in my opinion can poorly represent a person's intelligence. Yes, turning in your homework and assignments on time is good, and shows motivation and discipline, but it should not lead to student A receiving the same final grades as student B who is much more intelligent but fails to turn in assignments punctually. The problems like this can lead to even bigger problems down the line and the sooner we can recognize our problems and tackle them, the easier it will be.
 * Chron, Courtney**


 * Coleman, Matt**

Robinson brought up many fascinating points over the course of his lecture. I had never asked myself why students are divided up according to age, but since it has been the system of education for such a long time, I never felt the need to question it. Dividing by age is the simplest way to handle it, but it doesn’t maximize the students’ capacities to learn. Since everybody learns at a different pace and in different ways, integrating students according to age harms the learning environment because all kids aren’t offered equal opportunities to help improve academically. I feel that when Robinson mentioned the ADHD “epidemic”, he was completely correct. Many people struggling to live up to the high standards set by society (or the students’ parents) need an excuse to dismiss a lack of focus or cooperation in a school environment, which is why so many have turned to ADHD as being the underlying issue for these academic struggles. I firmly believe that there are many people in this world that do suffer from ADHD-like symptoms, but not all people need the heavy dosage of medication. In reality, the most likely causes of ADHD symptoms are the distractions within someone’s personal life. This can be because of the advancements in technology, family issues, or even social problems. Lastly, our civilization today is so critical on getting the highest grades possible because, as Robinson stated, it can help get to college and then become employed in order to achieve some sort of salary. This means that students shouldn’t even have time to enjoy life and their childhoods because it is too important to achieve the ultimate goal of making money, which is absolutely ridiculous. Society puts little value on spending time with family or making friends, or even just appreciating the little things in life.\

I generally agree with Sir Ken Robinson’s view of education. It’s pretty obvious to anyone who has been through the modern education that the system is largely flawed. I thought that the current education system is still deeply rooted in the system developed based on the ideas of the Enlightenment and organized like industrialization. I really enjoy the idea of basing education off divergent thinking and stimulating minds to be creative, but I wonder about the practicality of it all. In a perfect world, people would learn because they have the drive to learn; if we could figure a way to create that drive in everyone, then most of our problems would be solved. This drive resonates with Robinson’s mention of aesthetic experience. Unfortunately, the current education system doesn’t regularly create such an experience. This then can become very unfair with the concerns of grades, a largely flawed system on its own. How can we expect students to do well in school if they aren’t learning at their fullest? With the fight for the best grade possible in a class that students don’t even enjoy, it’s not hard to understand why people groan at the word “school”. The real world doesn’t work that way at all. There are complex problems and people need to be able to think divergently to solve them. In eighth grade, my Language Arts teacher Mrs. Corral showed my class a video sponsored by TED depicting a lecture by Daniel Pink. He in his book //Drive//, analyzes the way people operate based on motivation; however his focus is on business. The video can be found here: [] I was completely astonished by the candle problem and the statistics he found about Google. In Google, about one fifth of the time, employees are given free reign to work on whatever products they want for the company; this "free time" creates about fiftey percent of Google's products. Hopefully the ideas of Pink and Robinson will be successfully integrated or rooted in a new educational system organized for our age.
 * Crowe, Sam**

Watching this video made me sad and helped my realize the major faults in our education system. This makes me see the huge faults and I feel like it can never be solved. I agree with him on how people need more creative thinking and alternate testing ideas. For example, I am a very bad tester because I find it hard to focus when taking a test. I feel like there should be alternate testing ideas that teacher actually will try and do. When I went to some of my teachers saying I would like an alternate test and gave them my ideas, they basically ignored me and continued to test my the "Traditional" ways. This always make me mad thinking about the major faults in our education system and I think he is right on the things that need to change.
 * Dylan Ekenberg**

I could rant about this for quite some time. This video resonated with me for a couple reasons. The first is that I have the mental ability to be the type of learner in which a teacher feeds me information, I process it the way he or she would like me to, and I spit it back out on a test or assignment. The second is that I hate to do that. While I do excel at memorizing pieces of information, the structure of the educational system has killed my capacity for divergent thinking. If you give me a problem, I will identify the way in which you would like me to solve it and I will do it that way. That is just a wrong way to expand people’s knowledge and a bad formula for considering “educated”. I think this also creates a precedent for students that if they do not get straight A’s in school, then they are not intelligent, therefore they stop trying. This kills the potential for a prospering “economy” or society in the future because no one has the belief that he or she can be successful or “smart”. While Sir Ken suggested going in the complete opposite direction of the educational system, I certainly think there are ways to work around it before we turn away from it. In eighth grade my English teacher had us participate in activities called Socratic Seminars, in which there was a small group of around 5 kids sitting in a circle. Those five kids were given a topic, and they were to generate meaningful questions, ideas, and quotes about said topic. A similar-sized group would sit around them in a circle and listen and take notes on the discussion. After about a half an hour or until the discussion came to a natural conclusion, the outer group would become the inner group and vice versa. I think this type of freedom of knowledge allowed me and my classmates to learn and engage other students without the structure of the educational system badgering us. Our teacher still evaluated our discussions, but more loosely and more based on how we decided to engage rather than if we did. I think ideas like these should be more prominent in almost all classrooms at Glenbrook North and around the country. The third thing I want to bring up is the ADHD “epidemic”. I find this really interesting actually because I have a mild form of ADD and I am not medicated for it. I manage to do fine in school because I have physically trained my mind to pay attention. However for people that cannot do that because they have a more severe form, the medication is necessary and quite helpful. While yes, we should not drug our students to pay attention and get good grades (as tempting as that sounds to me and always has), medicines like Ritalin and Adderall come in handy. That’s like saying kids with depression should not be medicated because we should allow them to experience their feelings regardless of whether or not their condition is allowing them to prosper in school. Imagine how much more difficult it is for a child to pay attention in school in 2012 rather than in 1912. A student in 2012 is exposed to the computer, video games, and television, all constant forms of communication and entertainment that stimulate the mind and brain in every which way and are always improving and out doing each other. Consequently children find it difficult to pay attention to a math teacher droning about how the arcsine of negative two is god knows because they are unfamiliar with an environment in which there is not constant mental stimulation. A student in 1912 who’s idea of fun is sitting at home knitting or reading a book or going for a walk is going to be much more used to and familiar with a teacher lecturing about a subject because their minds are not used to the constant stimulation. Also I highly doubt the graphic Robinson showed of the United States is accurate because I am almost 100 percent positive that there are people on the West Coast that have ADHD and ADD. I think while Robinson may have the correct initial idea he is suggesting the polar opposite of our current educational system and to be successful and reach a profitable point under the production possibilities curve, our government needs to realize that we need to be somewhere in between. I apologize for my wordy rant; I warned you.
 * Hill, Kim**


 * Homedi, Nadia**

Over all, I agree with Robinson. I believe that our education system has many flaws and these flaws have become evident due to our changing economic and societal systems. I strongly believe that the current standardized testing fails to measure an individuals intelligence and abilities. Also, children should not be grouped by their ages since kids have different strengths and weaknesses. They respond differently to methods of teaching, such as in groups or individually. I found it interesting that as a kindergartener progresses in our educational system their divergent thinking declines. This is ironic since as they get older and learn more in school they should become more educated. However, is the ADHD epidemic a reality, or is it that we lack knowledge to understand our kids? This is reinforced by watching this video that seems to be run at a very high speed to match our ability to grasp information. In the classroom we don't have such a way of learning.


 * Jancaus, Kathryn**

I think Sir Ken Robinson shares some groundbreaking ideas about education in this talk. One was that our society has changed so much in the past couple hundred years, but our school system hasn’t. The changes that come to my mind deal with methods of education, not its goals or structure. One such change is increasing use of interactive technology (computer labs, SMART boards, graphing calculators, etc.). When we have access to them, these things are engaging and they come closer to other technology that competes for our attention. As stated in the video, though, the system is still organized so that students mostly sit, read, and memorize so they can do well on tests. In class we discussed the difference between memorization and true learning; does our education system prioritize understanding that leads to divergent thinking? Should it? An industrial education system produces people who have specialized in one field, because that’s how our society is organized. Each person devotes their time and energy to mastering a specific job and then we collaborate to get all of the jobs done in what seems the most productive and efficient way possible. In school, this system allows us to know things for the duration of a class and afterwards forget much of what we learned because it doesn’t apply to our chosen area of study. I don’t want to argue that we should all be masters of every subject and not be specialized, because that just isn’t practical. The industrial system of becoming an expert in one field has allowed us as people to learn, create, and accomplish more. But in education it doesn’t call for divergent thinking. Divergent thinking opens outwards, and it’s based on knowledge and connections that have already been made. What we’d call true learning is when people understand something enough to connect it into the bigger picture. That kind of learning stays in your memory; it’s not the short-term memorization that we can get away with in school. I think that the changes Sir Ken Robinson is talking about would educate students to focus on one career they’re interested in as is our society’s way and also to think divergently and understand a bigger picture.


 * Kang, Edward**

I really think it is interesting that ADHD increases as we move east. I believe the most important part of that video is that a college degree does NOT guarantee a future, unlike before. It seems ironic that for all that hard work, it could all end up failing. That is why I agree with his explanation of different kinds of intelligence that schools cannot measure with testing. I liked the example of school being like a factory line, and how kids are put it to gain an end result, essentially a result. I agree that sometimes kids should not be categorized according to age, and by doing that we seem to put people into batches. I myself can see how dull school can be, and I think we all understand that better than anyone else. I used to like school, honestly, but nowadays I don't hate it, but I feel kind of bored by the process. Go to school, listen, come home, and do homework and study. I can understand some people having attention problems. Finally, I believe the most important point the video made is that we should be learning and measured as a group, not separated and measured one on one. I really agree with a lot of what he says, and I wish somebody could change things.


 * Kaplan, Alex**

I completely agree with Ken Robinson in terms of how schools are organized. We have been taught in a factory mentality, in which we are separated and drilled with random bits of information, and no progress is really achieved. I can think of numerous examples of this in my high school career. As early as sixth grade, I would memorize useless pieces of information in order to get good grades on tests; however, I hardly ever understood the material to an extent where I could analyze, apply, and create with the knowledge I was given. This is the very nature of our education system. We are raised in schools where, often times, true learning is second to arbitrary grades in terms of "importance." While Robinson did not touch on the grading system in his lecture, the problems that he raised about our factory-esque education system alude to it. According to Robinson, we really need to focus on not organizing by labels, as the industrial revolution has taught us. Just as our society, technology, and economy have developed and evolved, so should our education system! How can we create a generation of innovators and divergent thinkers if they are being taught with centuries old methods? It's a very difficult and loaded question to raise, but it is one that Robinson and I want answers to. I personally do not know how we can change our learning styles, but putting less emphasis on grades and labels is definitely a small step in the right direction.

I sincerely agree with everything that Robinson said in his lecture. I think that his remark about sorting students into grades by age was extremely interesting, mainly because I haven't given much thought to this fact at all before. Although Glenbrook North does a pretty good job handling sorting kids based on level, there are still a very wide range of abilities and behaviors in my classes. I think that part of the problem of solving this issue is that most high schools (and middle/elementary schools) are just too small to sort kids into classes that truly accommodate their behaviors and match their abilities. This is because there would not be enough kids to form enough of the same classes to be acceptable in the current student-teacher ratio at most schools. More teachers would be necessary to teach smaller classes. Although it would be difficult to reach because we simply cannot afford to pay such a high quantity of teachers, if this smaller class system was attainable, I think it would help solve other aspects of the education problems as well. With a smaller student-teacher ratio, the teacher would be able to pay much closer attention to the learning of each student and see where problems exist in order to help the student improve. The teacher would also be able to get to know the students on a more personal level which would allow the teacher to develop teaching techniques that cater more towards the specific learning styles of the student. This closer teacher-student relationship would also allow teachers to connect more closely to their students which would help the teachers teach students using examples and discussions based on student-interesting to engage and motivate the students to want to actually learn.
 * Kerstein, Arin**


 * Kriska, Jeremy**

I fully agree with what Robinson is saying, but the problem is that it isn't simply changed. While it may be extremely important that the system is changed it will have to be a slow change. It may take awhile for administrations and teachers all over the country to see why this is necessary, and even after that happens it will still take even more time to just change our school systems. One of Robinson's points that really got me thinking was the point about schools being in a production line mentality. Glenbrook North, just like most other highschools, is subject to that mentality. It may be true that there are classes with kids from different grades, but they are infrequent and out of the core academic classes, math is the only class to have kids from different grade levels. He also mentions that kids work better in different situations, such as time of day, smaller groups, larger groups, or individually...I think it is evident that very few classes incorporate this, a lot of classes I have had, had only one of those, where we work completely by ourselves, with a partner, or where the majority of the class is a group discussion. I personally don't feel comfortable talking in large groups so with classes where 75% of the class is a class discussion, I may be graded or looked at by the teacher as not having ideas or contributions to what is being discussed. I think the part about divergent thinking was also very interesting. I am curious if he thinks that if the system was changed, we would be able to keep the level of divergent thinking that we had as kindergarteners. I agree with his point that it may be due to there only being "one right answer" and that working together would be called "cheating" by a teacher but I disagree that simply letting us "collaborate" would inspire great ideas and improve our work. The reasons teacher say it is cheating is because that is simply what it would be. In our current state, if a large group was assigned to do a project, only a very small percentage of people in the group would have actual collaboration.


 * Matlin, Ethan**

I agree with Robinson that our education system is flawed. While I think that at Glenbrook North and in the classes that we generally take, the system is better and not so "shuttle-through-the-factory-line-ish", there are still problems. When Robinson was using the analogy about Ritalin and ADHD, I was reminded of our discussion about grades. The reason that parents push so hard for ADHD treatment is because they want their __children__ to do well in school and get good grades. Robinson thought that this desensitized kids so that they no longer cared about the enjoyment and process of learning, they just shuttled themselves blindly through the program. While I agree that this is a terrible way for education to work, I disagree with him that it is entirely flawed. A education system in which everyone enjoyed learning and studied what they wanted to would not result in an effective society. While the idea of "follow your dreams" has some merit, if everyone did that we would end up with a too many people in fields where they were not needed. While the "desensitize yourself and just learn it" approach clearly doesn't work, there has to be some degree of it in order to get through difficult subjects which one would ordinarily not take, but are necessary for the future.


 * Muldoon, Tommy**

I think Ken Robinson's lecture described exactly how education should be reformed. The most important section, I think, was on the medication of children. Robinson sated that we live in one of the most stimulating time period in history. While we sit through school, there are revolutions in the middle east, a rise of unfriendly nuclear power, a new movement for equality in our own nation and even the speed of light being broken. It's easy to see how all this information could distract someone from the classroom. The fact that medication is used to distract us from these things is the opposite of education. We are shutting out what is going on in the world instead of opening ourselves up to all forms of knowledge. This feeds into Robinson's section on divergent thinking. Instead, we convince ourselves there is one way of thinking and only one answer. I also agree with the idea that strictly academic education for the purpose of a degree is not only not a guarantee of a job, but that it also takes away from your self image/importance. As he said, the students should be waking themselves up to what they have inside of them.


 * Niemann, Josef**

What I think is very important about Robinson's lecture is the fact that our education system must be changed in the fact that we should move away from a system structured like it was in the 1800's towards a system that can handle the individual’s ability to learn. I believe she is right when she said divergent thinking disappears after years of education, in my opinion this is because in our years at school we are trained in a system of memorization of facts and applying them later instead of divergent thinking in problem solving. Because of this we are unable to be creative in the rest of our lives.


 * Newman, Daniel **

I think Robinson discussed some very important flaws in our education system. One point i thought was very interesting, was concept of divergent thinking. This focus on the breadth of learning, rather than sheer depth, allows us to question the very bases of knowledge itself. This skill is important in becoming an independent thinker, and challenging ideas, which in turn leads to things like technological advances and new inventions. This very limited view of education constrains students, which discourages their motivation to learn, and puts us at an economic and hegemonic disadvantage compared to other countries' education systems. Divergent thinking not only catalyzes further learning, but it allows for a greater number of possibilities for the children who have trouble finding the "one correct answer".

I thought that Mr. Robinson brought up a variety of very interesting and debatable topics. One topic that interested me was about the test kids received when they were in kindergarten. They almost all scored very high at the time, and then tended to decrease as they got older. I believe this is caused by people losing interest in school, which Mr. Robinson does bring up. It seems that the older kids get, the less they tend to want to go to school. It is no longer fun anymore, but a hassle to kids. Another point I found very interesting was about ADD. This is one of the most debated diseases currently and I have to agree with him that just putting kids on medication is not always the answer. Kids need to be doing something they enjoy instead of constantly taking pills to stay focused on a subject that will not benefit them.
 * Simone, Josh**

This is the second time I have watched this video, and I must say I still agree with what Mr. Robinson says. Our school system is run entirely wrong with the wrong priorities being focused on. I am however, a believer in gradualism, and so think that Mr. Robinson would have been more effective if instead of listing long term goals he listed attainable short term goals that could ease into the transition to the long term ones. This idea of creating a new dynamic in our school systems where divergent thinking is rewarded is an especially salient issue nw that many labor and manufacturing jobs are going over seas, and America’s greatest hope lies in innovation and new ideas. This video also reminded me of something I read in this Sunday’s New York Times Review section: ADHD treatments like Ritalin may not be efficacious in the long-term. So as food for thought, not only are we anesthetizing children, we may be doing so for absolutely no-good reason.
 * Steinberg, Ross **

After viewing Mr. Robinson's video, I agree with his beliefs on some of the flaws in our education system. What interested me most in his arguments was the idea of the ADHD epidemic and why kids seemed to be disinterested due to distractions in society. In a world that children or anyone in fact can be easilly stimulated it can be hard to adjust to school days that don't interest many people because of the limitations that are present. I can say for myself that I can be bored and sometimes tend to not listen because I am not interested enough, even though I wouldn't call this attention deficit disorder. Although a big change can't be made to help incorporate more stimulating learning environments, think that slowly there can be changes made to help improve the amount kids are interested. I know that most students prefer not to be writing notes every day and would rather use ways of learning like academic games, or stimulating powerpoints which involves class participation. These ideas though still have flaws just like the more conventional ways of learning, I feel they could improve the attention of all of the students in a class. By trying to improve the system we are attempting to help those who cannot pay attention rather than giving them drugs that don't always work. I agree with Robinson's views on the problems of our current system and I hope that changes can be made to improve it.
 * Wagner, Jonny**