With school back in full swing, I can’t help but look forward to see what this year brings me.

However, due to recent experiences, my perspective on education has forever changed. 

Last week in school, I had the opportunity to watch a TED Talk educational video during my band class. The seminar was titled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” spoken by Sir Ken Robinson. The seminar was created nearly 11 years ago. 

I find TED Talks to be particularly intriguing because they not only challenge the audience to think outside of the box, but more often or not, the speakers present their views or factual information to be truthful. It allows the audience to picture a world involving what the speaker is expressing their ideas upon.

The reasoning as to why I enjoyed this particular conference is because Sir Ken Robinson made many valuable attributes as to why art is good for education, and he builds a wonderful case that schools  should be encouraging creativity rather than diminishing it. 

For instance, during one part of the conference, Sir Robinson spoke about the similar hierarchy of subjects of every educational system throughout the planet and how that is a way that we in fact grow out of our creativity. 

Sir Robinson simply states this: 

“Everywhere on Earth. And in pretty much every system too, there’s a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn’t an education system on the planet that teaches dance everyday to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance. Children dance all the time if they’re allowed to, we all do. We all have bodies, don’t we? Did I miss a meeting?”

Though, Sir Robinson has stated many reasons to back up his claim on education systems throughout the seminar, I find that this statement is interesting in the sense of truthfulness and the fact that it has allowed me to question my own education.

As a student, I believe that it is very important we question our education because our opinions value how we will take care of this world in the future. 

After watching this speech, I have come to the conclusion that many people are unaware that art is a large part of our daily lives in some form. Having the ability to create not only increases students attention span, but makes them want to participate more. 

Creativity is key for success in this world. 

For instance, look at competition between companies. Most of the time, companies strive for their product or service to be better than the rest. They advertise and try to approve upon their product in order to make better profit than their competition. This is innovation and it requires our ability to think from our imagination.

With that in mind, why are education systems focusing on subjects like math and language more often than an art or music class? 

Math and language are indeed very important for future accomplishments in life, but the arts also allow our minds to be challenged in the sense of creativity for innovation, which also plays a large role in the world.

To my readers, take the time to watch this TED Talk spoken by Sir Ken Robinson. 

Put yourself in the shoes of the children who are going to take over the world someday and allow yourself to think about the impact of creativity in our lives. 

Finally, ask yourself, should the arts in fact play a bigger role in education?